“You’re welcome to wait in the waiting room, Mrs. Landseer,” the doctor said with a smile.
“I’ll pass.” Beatrice put her nose up at the very thought. “I would rather not wait with the huddled masses.”
Huddled masses? I thought maybe she was being a bit over the top with that one, or maybe it was a joke? But, no, Beatrice looked completely serious. In fact, after she said it, I could’ve sworn she peered at me out of the corner of her eye. Then she looked away—if she’d even looked at me in the first place—and settled into one of the chairs in the room.
“I think Jessika and I went over most concerns we might have with the procedure and the consent papers,” Asher said. “Is there another room where Beatrice and I can talk while you do the examination, or…?”
The doctor put on a saccharine sweet smile and shook her head. Clearly she didn’t want to put up with this. “Oh, no, you two stay here. I can take Ms. Fevrier to another room. I’ll have someone clear out the huddled masses beforehand, so don’t you worry.”
With that, the doctor stepped into the hallway and beckoned for me to follow. Asher refrained from laughing, but Beatrice looked completely astounded.
“Did she really just say that?” Beatrice asked Asher as I walked out of the room and followed the doctor. “What kind of place is this, Asher? I don’t think we should be consorting with these types of people. They seem unsafe.”
I stifled a laugh. “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “I think she’s always like that. It’s probably nothing personal.”
“Oh, I’m sure she is,” the doctor said. “I don’t really care. I don’t have to deal with her.”
…
Asher was, perhaps, the luckiest man in the world. Or the unluckiest, depending on how someone saw it.
Why had he done what he did with Jessika? And, especially, why had he done it in the patient room at the in vitro center? Impulse, probably, pure and animalistic. My God, those panties! He didn’t want to come across as crude, but a woman like Jessika in panties like that could make even a steadfast priest rescind his vows. The lace and frills, a cute and tantalizing facade for the sexiness beneath. He was, perhaps, a complete sucker for the illusion of innocence. Jessika was anything but that, though.
Or, more precisely, she was innocent, but not in a usual way. She was curious and insightful and interesting. He loved that about her. She didn’t just want to know, she needed to know. And he was fairly certain that she’d done all of that on purpose. That didn’t forgive him for what he did, but he accepted it for what it was. She wanted to know what happened if she tempted him? Well, for any other person he could resist temptation, but there was something about Jessika that ruined his resolve.
It hurt, though. Afterwards, talking with Beatrice in the patient room, he felt a distinct pang of regret. And arousal. Just a few minutes earlier he’d taken Jessika upon the very table on which he now sat. His imagination created evidence out of nothing, concocting an obvious wet spot on the table and convincing him that Beatrice was spending far too much time staring at the trash can. He didn’t actually think she looked at the trash can more than once, and only with vague disinterest, but…
“Asher,” Beatrice said. “I really think we should find another doctor. I don’t think this place has the right amount of prestige for our liking.”
He sighed. “There’s no place better. Doctor Fairheart is one of the best, too. She has a very high success rate with this and she knows what she’s doing. I did my research and she answered my questions satisfactorily when I spoke with her on the phone the other day. It was just a fluke with the lock. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“But her tone,” Beatrice said. “She’s so… so… uncouth!”
Asher laughed. “I’m sure you’d like her if you got to know her. Shall I invite her to dinner? That might be nice, don’t you think? Jeremy can join us, and Jessika, of course.”
“Ugh. Please don’t even joke about that. The next thing you’re going to suggest is we all gather in the living room and watch a movie together while eating pizza.”
“That would be nice,” Asher said, thinking back to when he’d done that exact thing with Jessika just a few nights past.
“Why can’t you be serious?” Beatrice asked. She furrowed her brow and glared at him. “Maybe I’m overexaggerating a tiny bit, but I still don’t know if we can trust her. I just wish you’d be more serious, though. This is a very serious procedure and a life-changing event. Do you want to have some child with severe deformities? I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t handle it. I just couldn’t.”