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  When I was ready, the nurse - a different one from before - showed me into the office where the actual consulting happened and we would talk about my options. I looked around as the door closed behind me, surprised at the furnishings. They were tasteful, but also had pops of color that were a departure from every leather-and-dark-wood furnished doctor’s office I’d ever been to. Funny little ‘inspirational quotes’ were on the shelves and there was a photo of a kitten hanging on the wall.

  “I’ve found that Muffins helps patients to feel at ease,” Ted told me with a sly grin.

  I laughed. “Muffins?”

  “See, he’s put you at ease already.” Ted winked and my stomach flipped, the same way it always had whenever he’d wink at me during bio class.

  The Ted that I’d known would never have been so playful. I liked it.

  I sat down in the chair across from this desk, and Ted tapped my file. “So, you’re in the prime of your health, and you seem to be all good to go, so nothing’s wrong on your end as far as I can tell. That’s a good thing - but I have to admit, it makes me wonder why you’re here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well… most women who come to me have a problem, either with their own bodies or with their partners, and they’ve been trying for a while to get pregnant without success. A lot of the time I try to encourage people to adopt, since there are a lot of kids out there who already exist that need love, but people really want a child of their own, and I understand that. But they’re here because they need help getting pregnant. But you…” Ted gestured at my file again. “You check out. I don’t really see why you’re here with me when you could just as easily get pregnant the old-fashioned way.”

  I could feel my face heating up and I tried not to let my embarrassment show too much. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

  “Ah.” Ted didn’t ask any further questions, but I could see curiosity sparking in his eyes.

  I didn’t want to go into all the messy details. It was just… too much for me. Even after it was all said and done, talking about that hurt - poking at it - it was still too raw.

  Instead I just said, “I’m no longer in a relationship and I don’t want to get involved in another one any time soon. But I don’t want to wait for a child, so I’m going to have this baby on my own.”

  Ted nodded. “I’ve had women come in who feel the same way. I think it’s admirable. You shouldn’t have to wait on someone else to achieve a dream of yours. If that’s what you’ve determined, then we have a few options.”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out some papers. “This is some literature to help you get started and a list of websites and books with more information if you want it, including some online forums where you can talk to other women about their experiences.” He handed all the papers to me.

  “There’s intrauterine insemination with a sperm donor,” he went on, “and that’s usually the safest and easiest option, since you’re still young and you don’t seem to have any health issues. We have in vitro fertilization, which is the one you’ll most commonly have heard of, and that would also be with donor sperm - all of this would be with donor sperm, of course, and we have a database for that unless there’s someone you know personally who would be willing to donate.”

  “No, there isn’t anyone.” I had assumed I would choose from a bank. I didn’t care if the donor was a rocket scientist or if he was handsome, I just wanted to find someone who had qualities that made them seem like a kind and thoughtful person. I had been surrounded all of my life with selfish and thoughtless, controlling, manipulative people. I just wanted my child to have the best chance to be someone kind.

  “Okay.” Ted nodded. “So there’s two options. I would also recommend freezing your eggs and embryos for later use to preserve your fertility. Another option you have, if you don’t want to carry the pregnancy yourself, is to do IVF surrogacy.”

  I shook my head. “I’d like to go through this myself, if I’m able to.”

  “Read up on it anyway, just in case the other treatments don’t work out for some reason and we have to get you a surrogate.”

  That made sense. Best to be prepared and all that. I didn’t want to choose a surrogate because how could I possibly raise a child if I wasn’t willing to carry them for nine months? If I didn’t want to be pregnant than I should adopt a child who already existed and already needed love.

  But if I wanted a child of my own, I felt that I should be able to go through the pregnancy for them, if at all possible.

  I nodded at Ted. “Thank you, I’ll read up on all of it.”

  “No problem.” He smiled at me. “We’re going to get you the child you want, Veronica, no worries.”

  I found myself disappointed that he wasn’t calling me Roni.

  Ted sat back in his chair. “If you schedule your next appointment on your way out with my receptionist, we can get this ball rolling.”

  …wait, the appointment was over already?

  I found myself oddly disappointed. It felt like it had only just started. I forced a smile onto my face. “Right, of course, yes.”

  I got up and nodded at Ted, who to my surprise got up as well and got the door for me, kindly ushering me out without making me feel like he was rushing me. I knew he must have a lot of appointments that day and he couldn’t be too happy about seeing me again for the first time since I’d dumped him but… he was never anything less than a gentleman.

  That was something that we cared about a lot in the south: being a proper gentleman - or lady, as the case might be. I had found, to my frustration, that for a lot of people that meant just keeping up the ‘right’ appearances without actually having any consideration for anyone. It was all about how you looked to the world, for so many people, including Chad and my parents.

  But Ted was a real southern gentleman. He spoke to me as an equal, but made little things convenient for me like opening doors, and he never made me feel like my time was anything less than valuable to him.

  He had always been a thoughtful person, but now he was even more so, and I felt my cheeks heating up again as I said goodbye and walked down the hall.

  I stopped by the receptionist’s desk to make my appointment, and found as I glanced around the room that I wasn’t the only one who was affected by Ted’s good looks and charm.

  Before when I’d been in the waiting room, I had rolled my eyes at all the women gossiping about the ‘handsome Dr. Winters’. How handsome could he possibly be? And weren’t many of the women here married or at least in a relationship?

  But now, as the receptionist helped me pick out my next appointment, I found myself struck with an emotion I’d never had before: envy and jealousy, mingled.

  I had never been envious of someone else’s partner or romantic prospect. I had been envious at times in that, as my marriage had fallen apart, I had wished for a good marriage like what others had. But I never looked at another woman’s man and went, oh I wish I had him instead.

  Now, though, I found myself envious of all these women. They could lust after Ted all that they wanted - because they actually had a chance with him. The single ones did, anyway.

  I had broken his heart, and done it in possibly the worst way I could have, and he would never want me, not again, not after that.

  I had also never really been jealous before. Envy was wanting what someone else had, and jealousy was fearing that someone would take what you had from you. When I had been with Ted in high school, nobody else had wanted to date him. I had been the only one who’d seen past the clothes and the hairstyle to the good person underneath.

  And then with Chad—well, if another woman wanted him, they were welcome to him. I had hated his cheating. It had been humiliating. But I had hated it because it was another way that he had made me feel useless and small and pathetic. Not because I actually was in love with him and wanted him for myself.

  Now, though - I found an odd surge of jealousy and envy
in me with these women. It was disconcerting. I hadn’t been with Ted in years, I had no right to feel this way.

  And yet…

  I headed out into the parking lot, feeling sad that I hadn’t gotten more time with Ted to chat and catch up. I enjoyed our time more than I’d thought I would when I first laid eyes on him and realized who my doctor was. Especially given that we hadn’t talked since I’d dumped him.

  Was it just because I was feeling lonely and wanted a familiar, comforting face?

  Or was it that I had really missed him, all this time.

  3

  Ted

  I was swamped with appointments the rest of the day, as usual, but I was distracted the whole time and had to work hard to focus. All that I wanted to do was think about what had happened with Veronica, but I couldn’t even get five minutes to relax until the clinic closed for the day.

  At last I was able to close things down, say goodbye to my staff, and head home, where I immediately poured myself a damn good glass of scotch.

  My house was something I’d been waiting for, scrimping and saving for, for years. My first order of business when I got out of med school and into my residency was, of course, paying off my student loans. Those had been insane.

  Once I’d dealt with my loans, I had started working on my clinic, and opening that up, and making it a success.

  It was only in the last year that I’d been able to buy this house and build it up into what I wanted, but the wait had been worth it.

  I was living in one of Charleston’s best neighborhoods, South of Broad. I’d picked an older home to fix up and had installed a lot of modern amenities that still preserved the historic nature of the home, including heated floors in the bathrooms and kitchen.

  Every single detail of the house had been something I had thought about, and something I’d specifically picked. It was personal to me. It was a true home. Someday, I hoped to have a wife and children here. A dog or two as well, to take advantage of the big backyard and have a companion on my morning runs. I was too busy for that right now, but… a man could dream, right?

  I nursed my scotch as I settled into my favorite leather armchair in the living area. The house was a little big for just one person, and nights like tonight reminded me of that.

  Veronica.

  She was back in my life.

  I would be lying if I said that I had never entertained a little revenge fantasy about meeting her. We’d be at some swanky party, or perhaps at an upscale, exclusive restaurant, and we’d bump into each other. Or, even better, it would be at a high school reunion. In front of all of our classmates, Veronica would get to see that I was rich and successful, and far more than she or anyone else had thought I could be. She would be stuck in a sad sham of a marriage, and I would have the world at my feet, and she’d basically beg me to forgive her.

  But for all the little fantasies I’d indulged in as I’d done my undergrad… well, I’d never really expected to ever see her again. I had long given up those fantasies, anyway. And when I had wondered about running into her, it had never been like this. Never as my patient.

  And I hadn’t expected to fall so easily back into our old dynamic. I’d chatted with her as I’d done the examination, telling stories, and Veronica had laughed and listened to me with bright eyes, just like she’d always used to. I felt comfortable with her immediately, which was saying a lot, seeing how she broke my heart the first time around and I had been giving her a rather intimate examination.

  But then, I had always been comfortable around Veronica. Even from the beginning. Right up until the day she broke up with me.

  I still couldn’t quite believe that she had done that, and in a way, I was grateful to her for it. It didn’t excuse the way that she’d behaved, but, well, without her dumping me I never would’ve gotten the push that I needed to prove myself.

  Now I had a life that I enjoyed, a career that made me happy - a very lucrative career, thanks - and a whole world open to me that I never would’ve expected when I was eighteen.

  Not to mention… I couldn’t be mad at her when she seemed to have grown so much. The Veronica that I knew would’ve been dressed to the nines, and she would’ve run out the door the second she saw who I was, even if I was the best person around for her needs. She would never have opened herself up to even the possibility of a whiff of gossip about her and her former flame, no matter what.

  But instead she was calm about the whole thing. She had her hair down, and had been wearing a simple skirt and blouse, none of the tight, pastel, elaborately done-up outfits that she’d done in high school or that her ‘set’ in society usually wore. She had chatted with me easily and seemed perfectly fine with my being her doctor, not at all worried about whatever sordid details it might stir up.

  Maybe it was a sign that Veronica had finally become the person that I had known she could be. Her whole demeanor had seemed different. Part of it might just be age - after all, she was no longer just a teenager but a grown woman and a beautiful one at that. But it wasn’t just her looks.

  No, it was more than that.

  I had always known that she could be more than she let herself be. That Veronica could march to the beat of her own drum if she chose. She was a vibrant and intelligent person, determined, educated, and yet she’d always stuffed all of that down to be the plastic doll debutante that everyone - especially her parents - had expected her to be.

  My whole time with her had been a back and forth between the person that I saw when she let her hair down, the person she was with me, and the person that she was making herself be around everyone else.

  But the person she’d been when it was just the two of us had been so addicting, so wonderful, I had been willing to put up with the rest.

  Like the night we met…the very first time I saw her. I was hooked.

  Of course, we’d both been wild that night. It was the night of a crazy house party that one of our classmates, John Waxman, had put on because his parents were out of town. I don’t know if it was John or someone else who’d scored the booze but soon everyone was buzzing and the party was in full swing. Poor guy was getting his whole house trashed, and he was acting surprised about it, like this didn’t happen every single time that someone had a house party when their parents were gone.

  We had all been drunk and stupid, and I could remember it as if it was yesterday - walking into the kitchen and seen Veronica there, eating chips. I’d been surprised to see her at a house party like this. Miss Veronica DeMarcus wouldn’t just go to a regular old crazy house party, would she?

  I’d thought she was so stuck up at the time, even though I’d also been wildly attracted to her. I had a thing for brunettes, sue me. We’d never even exchanged a word until that night, but when I walked in, our eyes met and I somehow found the courage to walk over to her. I’d expected her to just ignore me or to tell me to get lost, but instead she’d flirted with me.

  More than that, actually - she’d been funny and self-deprecating. She’d cracked a joke about her being here right from the start. I’d laughed and told her that at least she was self-aware. She’d told me that she was here for a damn good time, and because she wanted to piss off her parents, and I’d told her I had a bunch of ways to help her with both of those things. Veronica had laughed and pressed herself up against me and asked me in the sexiest voice ever to show her.

  Jesus Christ.

  I’d never in my life been more attracted to someone.

  If we’d been older and I’d actually known what the hell I was doing, I would’ve fucked her right there and then, dragged her into the nearest closet or bathroom and damn anyone who overheard us.

  I could still remember exactly what she’d been wearing, this short flouncy pale blue skirt that had barely covered her thighs, and this tight blue blouse in a slightly paler shade than the skirt, with a pair of heels and her hair all done up high on her head, baring her neck.

  By the time the night was over, I’d left at least
two hickeys on that gorgeous neck of hers.

  We had chatted for a while in the kitchen, our hands roaming all over each other. I distinctly remembered squeezing and slapping her ass a couple of times. The little aroused squeak she’d given each time had turned me on like nothing else. We’d basically been slowly rubbing off on each other, right there at the counter in front of everybody.

  Eventually I’d had the brilliant idea to sneak off somewhere quiet, and we’d ended up tiptoeing into the master bedroom. The idea of making out on the bed had amused us to no end. Poor John was going to have to do the sheets tomorrow and everything to try and clean up from this disaster. Yeah, we were teens, we hadn’t exactly been the most thoughtful of people.

  We’d made out for at least two hours on that bed, with Veronica underneath me, my hips rocking subtly into hers. I’d wished even then that I had the courage to ask for more, to at least let us grind against each other until we came, but I’d been terrified of crossing a line and going too far. Instead I’d just gotten myself off later in the shower, and I had never come so hard or so fast before.

  That night had been all I’d needed to fall in love with her. We’d talked and kissed and talked and kissed for hours. I’d been hooked and I’d had to see her again, and to my surprise, Veronica had responded. Welcomed it.

  I’d thought that she would want to brush it off as just a drunken mistake, or even try to claim that I was making the whole thing up and it had been another girl, not her, that I’d made out with. Plenty of people did things while drunk at those parties that they wished they could forget the next day.

  But instead she’d been glad, and she’d said yes when I’d asked her out, and she’d been the sweetest and best thing that had ever happened to me. When my home life was shit - which was a lot - I had gone to spend time with her. I’d thrown rocks at her window like those ‘80s romance film clichés.