Pursuing Mrs. Regrets - Ch. 3.2

“Delia Valentine is here to see you, Dr. Seeger,” said Charlize Newark, a friendly prematurely gray-haired RN. “She’s in exam room five.”

Royal looked up from the file on his desk. “Tell her I’ll be right there,” he replied with a dimpled smile.

“Yes, sir.” As Charlize turned to go back the way she came, she once again wished she was a little bit younger and a lot less married before her common sense kicked back in.

Charlize’s reaction was a common one when it came to the handsome young doctor. Most women, young and old, single or married, were attracted to Royal. They couldn’t seem to help themselves.

Even if Royal wasn’t so competent as a physician, his looks alone would keep his professional calendar full. Women all over would still flock to him just to be in his gorgeous presence for thirty minutes to an hour. As it stood now, some women actually faked illnesses just to see him, wasting their precious time and money since Royal would never date a patient.

I bet his personal calendar stays full, too, Charlize mused as she knocked on the door where Delia waited inside.

“Back already?” Delia said, giving her mother’s childhood friend a pleasant smile when she entered the exam room.

“Yes, but only to tell you that Dr. Seeger will be right with you,” Charlize replied. “Do you want anything else before I go?” She’d already given Delia the latest magazines and a glass of water.

“No, I’m fine,” Delia said, pasting another smile on her face. Like the first one, that smile never quite reached her eyes. In fact, that fake smile suggested that Delia was a long ways from fine. Probably wouldn’t be fine for a long time to come.

Suddenly too emotional to talk, Charlize nodded goodbye and kept her tears at bay as she quickly left the room. Her heart filled with even more compassion for her friend’s daughter and all the things Delia had gone through in her twenty-four years.

Charlize’s mind began to list some of the things the young woman had experienced so far.

The loss of her biological father at the age of six.

An abusive stepfather when her mother remarried.

A baby-daddy that rescued Delia and her mother from that abusive man, but who later made her life a different kind of living hell by cheating on her.

Betrayal by a blood relative.

Finally, an accidental murder.

Yet the most heartrending thing of all, at least in Charlize’s book, was the fact that Delia was now pregnant with a child that would never know his/her father. Delia had the added burden of one day telling all of her children who really killed their father.

Poor child. Lord, please bless her with true happiness one day, Charlize prayed, blinking her eyes free as she encountered Dr. Seeger in the hallway.

“Do you need me to assist you, doctor?” Charlize asked, admiring his promptness. She hadn’t been gone five minutes and already he was prepared to see his next patient.

“No, this will be a pretty routine case. Perhaps one of the other doctors may be in need of assistance,” Royal replied, displaying that easy confidence that he was so known for.

“Of course, sir,” Charlize replied, admiring him even more for his confident demeanor as she passed on by.

Though most women deemed Royal’s demeanor as confident, most men labeled him arrogant. Both were right. After all, how many people can go to medical school at seventeen and graduate at the top of their class a few short years later without gaining confidence, without being a little bit arrogant?

Royal thrived on what was said about him. Good or bad, he used it to fuel his success. Besides, it was his patients’ opinions that mattered the most anyway. They were the ones that he sought to impress. They were the ones that he usually did.

Delia Valentine will be no different, Royal mused confidently, before lightly knocking on the door of destiny.

© 2008 by Suprina Frazier