Sinful Chocolate. Adrianne Byrd

rather go through life with a limp than to sit another minute in the E.R.’s hard plastic chairs.

      “Charles Masters?”

      “Over here,” he called, struggling to his feet.

      A shapely Latina nurse smiled when her eyes landed on him. “The doctor can see you now. Would you like for me to get you a wheelchair?”

      That was like asking a starving man if he wanted a cracker.

      A few minutes later, Consuela, according to her name tag, wheeled him through the crowded hallway behind the reception desk. Getting a room was too much to hope for apparently. Instead, the nurse rolled him behind a makeshift divider and told him that the doctor would see him in a few minutes.

      It was another hour.

      “Well, well. Sorry to keep you waiting,” a voice boomed as the divider was pulled back, which jarred Charlie awake.

      “Dr. Weiner?” Charlie asked, startled.

      “Ah, Charlie!” A stunned smile spread across his personal physician’s face. “What a surprise.” He looked down at the paperwork Charlie had filled out at check-in. “I must be tired. I didn’t really make a connection when I read your name on the folder.”

      Charlie squared his shoulders and felt a little better about being in the care of his primary doctor. “I didn’t know you worked here at the hospital.”

      “Well, I fill in from time to time.” Dr. Weiner closed the folder and leveled a serious look at Charlie. “You know my office has been trying to reach you.”

      Charlie instantly recalled the number of messages left on his home answering machine. But with all the trouble going on at the office, he kept putting off returning the doctor’s calls. Besides, they probably just wanted to give him the results of his lab work for his upcoming trip.

      “Tell you what,” Dr. Weiner said after an awkward beat. “Let me take a look at your foot, and let’s just have you come into my office in the morning.”

      “Tomorrow?” Charlie frowned. “Is there something wrong?”

      Weiner hesitated again. “I don’t have your chart from my office with me, so let’s just go over everything then?”

      Charlie’s gaze lingered on the smiling doctor. He didn’t like the sound of that at all.

      Chapter 5

      Charlie hated doctors. No doubt. His resentment went back to the day he was born, when some heartless doctor smacked him on the butt. Since then, he despised anyone wearing a white coat. Since that first day, medical professionals had put him through an endless ordeal of sharp needles, horrible-tasting prescription medicines, and as he got older, even subjected him to invasive finger-probing in unmentionable areas.

      Now with an important business trip to South Africa coming up, Charlie had to deal with a lot of blood work, updating vaccinations and loading up on antibiotics. But it all needed to be done if he was going to save his company.

      “Ah, Mr. Masters. You kept your appointment.”

      Charlie gave an odd-angled smile as he strolled into Dr. Weiner’s office leaning on a cane to protect his sprained ankle. His brain quickly scrolled through his mental Rolodex for the name of the cinnamon-brown beauty at the check-in desk, but luckily he was rescued by her name tag. “Tammy, how are you?”

      The roll of her eyes told him she knew he didn’t remember her. “So what’s the excuse this time? You lost my number? You had another death in the family—the dog, perhaps?”

      “I don’t own a dog,” he said, unruffled by her irritation. He leaned over the counter and smiled into her eyes. “Besides I’ve been under the weather and have been laid up for a little while.”

      A spark returned to her disbelieving gaze. “Then maybe I could come over to your place and play nurse?”

      “Now that sounds like a plan.”

      “Humph!”

      Charlie glanced over his shoulder and then smiled at the nurse glaring at him. “Ah, Lexi.” Embarrassment heated his face. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

      Lexi shook her head. “You’ll never change, will you, Charlie?”

      He gave her his best puppy dog expression while his smile turned sly. “Can I help flirting when this office is filled with such beautiful women?”

      “Sign in right here,” Tammy instructed, her lyrical voice now flat.

      Determined not to let the women see him sweat, Charlie scribbled his name and handed over his insurance card before Lexi led him to a room to wait for Dr. Weiner. A playboy at heart, Charlie couldn’t stop thinking about Tammy’s idea of playing nurse—especially if she wore a tight white dress, white fishnet thigh-highs and high-heeled shoes.

      Thinking about the fantasy nurse uniform gave Charlie an instant hard-on just as he was sitting down on the doctor’s table, giving Lexi a good eyeful.

      “Um.” She cleared her throat. “The doctor will be with you in a minute.”

      Charlie nodded and pretended not to notice her distraction as she walked backward. When she bumped into the wall, he gave her a smile.

      “Oops,” he said.

      Lexi jumped and glared at him again before racing out of the room.

      He chuckled. Women never failed to amuse him.

      Twenty minutes later, when Charlie had just decided to take a quick nap, Dr. Weiner ambled into the room with his thick, black-rimmed glasses sitting on the edge of his nose.

      “Ah, Dr. Weiner. Good to see you again,” Charlie greeted.

      The hunch-shouldered doctor came in with a thin smile and lifted his rheumy eyes toward him. “Afternoon, Charlie.”

      It was the tone that knotted Charlie’s stomach muscles or maybe it was the fact that the chilly room had suddenly grown stuffy. “What is it, Doc?”

      Weiner drew in a deep breath and closed the chart in his hand as he pulled up a stool and sat down.

      Charlie could literally hear the blood rushing through his veins. He didn’t like the look of this. He tried to brace himself the best he could, but he couldn’t stop being impatient for the news. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I can handle it,” he lied.

      The doctor nodded gravely. “Your lab results came in…”

      “And…?”

      “And…It doesn’t look too good.” He leveled his serious gaze on Charlie. “You’re dying.”

      Charlie stiffened. “Come again?”

      “I know this is coming as a surprise, but the lab results—”

      “B-but I feel fine.” The doctor’s words hit him like an iron fist. It simply wasn’t true. It wasn’t possible.

      Dr. Weiner frowned. “Didn’t you tell me two weeks ago that you’ve been exhausted lately?”

      “B-but that’s because of work. I’ve been putting in a lot of hours. I—” Charlie swallowed. “What’s wrong with me?”

      “It looks like you have aplastic anemia.”

      “A plastic what?”

      “Aplastic anemia. It means you have a low count of all three blood cells. I still need to confirm with a bone marrow test—but with these numbers, I’m pretty sure.”

      The room roared with silence before the doctor at long last said, “I’m sorry.”

      Finally finding his courage, Charlie asked, “Okay, how do we treat it?”

      The doctor hesitated. “Well, there’re