Chapter 1
In no time during the twenty years she had been alive, did Sharon Seeley humble herself to anyone. Rich, because her parents had been exceptionally well-to-do, Sharon had displayed an amazing aptitude for learning, and as a result breezed through school so quickly, she was a full eight years ahead of herself, and was starting her internship at the local hospital. Wealth was something to which she was accustomed, and so continued living in a luxury apartment paid for by her parents.
It therefore came as a shock to her when her father asked her to meet him one day outside the hospital to discuss her financial future. Necessity, she soon learned, had to take the place of accustomed luxury.
Zest was the one thing with which she had been filled all during high school, college, and medical school. At no time did it occur to her that her parents might run out of money, and she had spent rampantly, making fun of the other students who had to work in order to pay their way through school.
Color drained from her face when her father told her the bad news.
"How did it happen?" she wanted to know.
"A series of bad investments," he replied. "Really, I have just enough money left to take your mother to Florida and buy a small condominium so we can live out the rest of our lives in peace. I hope you can find some way to support yourself, because at this point there's nothing I can do."
"All right, father," she nodded. "I understand."
But she didn't understand. Suddenly, out of the clear blue sky, she was poverty-stricken. She, who had spent her life alternating between studying and looking down at everyone else because they were incapable of earning money like her father, was now one of them.
As an intern, she would earn some small sum of money, but it would hardly be enough to keep her in the luxury apartment near the hospital. By the same token, she was unable to move back into her parents' home because that house was being sold and her parents would be down in Florida in less than a week.
The rent on her apartment had been paid for the rest of the month, but unless she found some alternate means of finance, she would have to move out. Doing so, would let the other interns know she was as poor as they, and they would probably take sweet revenge by laughing at her and making her feel as small as she had made them feel.
Alone in her large apartment, the air-conditioning going on this balmy June Sunday, Sharon stared at her naked body in the full-length bedroom mirror. It had never occurred to her to take advantage of her body, to use it to gain what she wanted, though she had to admit she was the kind of woman any man would give his soul to possess, outwardly, anyway. She had long, blonde hair that trailed halfway to her waist. It was a dark, honey-blonde. When she had been younger she had been pudgy, and as a result, her breasts had developed when she was eleven, going on twelve. At the age of thirteen she had lost most of her baby-fat, but her breasts hadn't shrunk one iota, revealing they were still growing, and therefore still as solid as ever. They stood up delightfully even when she didn't wear a brassiere, but because of their size, they did wobble, so she was forced to wear what she called a harness. Later, she learned that the wearing of the brassiere had prevented excess strain on her pectoral muscles, and as a result, her breasts would remain hard and firm for many years to come. They had a natural tan to them, as did the rest of her body. One would think that with skin naturally dark, she would have had tan nipples and areolae, but in Sharon's case that wasn't true. Her nipples were a rich pink, as were the surrounding haloes.
Her large amber eyes created a look of innocence on her face. That look was further enhanced by her short, straight nose, but instantly dispelled by the arrogant pout of her full lips. It was all set in a perfect oval of a face that, like the rest of her body, was totally blemish-free. She had a very narrow waist, so narrow that it made her wide hips look broader than they were. Having been fat when she was young, Sharon exercised daily to prevent it from happening again, and she knew no matter how old she got, she would never become too broad in the beam.
She had a wide pelvis, one that was sprinkled with such a light quantity of fine golden hair, it almost looked hairless. Her thighs, because of her exercises, were like Grecian pillars, tapering to calves that were neither too heavy nor too slender.
All in all, Sharon, in her own opinion, was as physically perfect as it was possible for a female to be.
As far as she was concerned, the solution to her problem lay in only one direction: marriage. Unfortunately, she didn't know any wealthy men. She knew loads of poor men, mostly interns. And the doctors she knew who had money were married. So that let them out. In all her life, only one man had had the courage to propose to her, and he hadn't even so much as tried touching her the wrong way. Lamont Dennison had been a dreamer rather than a doer. He had been handsome enough, in his own way, but the man had never set out to earn himself any money. Too bad! He was the one man who would have married her without question, knowing full well she didn't love him. He would have been grateful simply to use her body.
The mere thought of a sexual encounter made Sharon shudder. Not merely thinking of it with Lamont Dennison, but imagining herself under any man caused her naked body to shiver. Still, marriage was the only way for her to become wealthy in a hurry again, provided she found the right man.
It was Sunday, but that meant nothing to Sharon. Like all the other interns, she had to work at the hospital on days when regular doctors were out with their families, when surgery didn't take place, and where, aside from emergency cases or unexpected things taking place in Intensive Care, nothing ever really happened.
Sharon dressed with meticulous care, wearing the most provocative underwear though she knew no one would see it. Then she slipped a green summer dress over her head, pulled on nylon foot-coverings, and slipped her feet into sensible white hospital shoes. Nurses were obliged to wear stockings, but she was an intern, soon to be a doctor, and as a result didn't have to worry about the head nurse coming down on her. As a lowly intern, she still ranked above the highest nurse.
The hospital was only two blocks away from the high-rise where her luxury apartment was located. The area had originally been a slum, but some clever people had bought it, had torn down the abandoned buildings, and had provided other, older buildings they owned to those people who still occupied some of the other buildings, thus collecting rents from them, while destroying what had previously been their homes. After every building for ten square blocks had been leveled, they built a huge project, a project for upper-middle-class to wealthy people. Sharon lived in one of the finer apartments. It wasn't a penthouse or a duplex, but it was spacious, with two bedrooms, a huge living room, a large dining room, an immense kitchen with a dining area, and a small room where Sharon kept all her medical books. The apartment rented for a mere seventeen-hundred a month.
Slipping on her green shoulder bag, Sharon left the building and walked to the hospital. The heady atmosphere of antiseptic and humanity infused her with an even stronger sense of superiority. Here, even though she was an intern, she behaved as if she were a fully qualified physician. In her own mind she was certain she was already far superior to most practicing physicians. In reality, she was quite good, able to diagnose quickly and correctly, and also able to administer the proper dosage of the proper medicine.
After checking in, she slipped a green gown over her dress, thereby enabling anyone seeing her to know she was a doctor. The little badge over her left side confirmed it. DR. SHARON SEELEY!
She then proceeded to make her rounds, looking in on the various patients to whom she had been assigned. She worked in conjunction with three of the better doctors at the hospital. Each had specifically requested her when she had finished medical school, after having seen her record. Though she was supposedly responsible for all the patients in a given area, barring some kind of emergency, she had to give priority to the patients of these doctors. Their reason for selecting her was purely medical. She was more than good at her job, she was exceptional. What this meant was, their patients would be in good hands when they weren't around.
She had just about completed her rounds with all the known patients when she realized there was a new patient in one of the private rooms. The patient's name hadn't been posted in the plastic slot outside the door, but the doctor's name was there. Dr. F. Barnes. Doctor Barnes was one of the three doctors to whom she had been assigned. She therefore assumed it was her duty to check this patient, as well.
When she walked into the room, she was unable to see the patient at first, because his bed was surrounded by four different women. They were all young, curvaceous, and facially lovely.
"Okay," she said to the women. "Everyone out for a few minutes."
The females all turned and looked at her, saw the no-nonsense look in her eyes, and decided it might be wise to obey. They sullenly trudged out, Sharon smug in her observation that when she gave an order, she was obeyed.
With the women gone, Sharon turned to look at the patient. For a moment she was stunned. It was Lamont Dennison, but he looked different. He looked younger in spite of the fact that he had to be three years older than when she saw him last. As it was, he was fifteen years older, than she, which made him thirty five. But the last time, he had been a haggard-looking man with a dream of someday writing the great American novel. Now, in spite of the fact that he was a patient in the hospital, there was no haggard look about him.
"Lamont?" she said, approaching him as he lay in the bed, noting his black hair was not merely cut now, but carefully styled. He had deep olive skin, more tanned than her own, and his brown eyes were a rich chocolate color. His nose was short with a slight outward curve to it that might have detracted from his good looks, but added to his masculine aura, something of which she had never been aware, before. He was thinner than when she had last seen him, even though the bedcovers hid most of him.
"Sharon," he smiled. "Well, who'd ever think I'd be seeing you here, of all places."
"I work here," she told him. "My internship will be up shortly, and I'll be a full-fledged doctor."
"I'll bet you'll be a damned good one, too," he nodded. "I remember how determined you were, the last time I spoke to you."
The last time he spoke to her. That seemed like a million years ago, though it was only three years.
Memory came vividly flooding back to her.
They had both lived in the same neighborhood, a wealthy neighborhood on the other side of the parkway from the hospital. The parkway separated the so-called well-to-do section of town from the poor section, though the company that had built Sharon's apartment house was already changing that, expanding the well-to-do section while moving the poor people to an entirely different area in another, nearby town some ten miles away. The neighborhood from which Sharon had come had been one made up of private homes and not apartment houses.
Lamont Dennison had lived across the street from her, with his own family. Everyone in the area referred to him as the lazy dreamer, the ne'er-do-well who would never amount to anything on his own. Though he seemed serious enough about his writing, he was also serious when it came to dating women. He went out with lots of them, and it was rumored that he'd "had his way" with quite a few.
Why Sharon had consented to go out with him the first time, she never did know. But she did understand that he showed her a good time, and more important, he had made no demands of her when he had taken her home. She had been seventeen at the time, in med school, with a heavy schedule, and in dire need of something to take her mind off her studies some small part of the time. Lamont had provided that diversion. He had taken her to the finest nightclubs, cabarets, shows, movies, and local festivals. Once in a while, especially when she reached eighteen, he had kissed her. In the beginning they had been brotherly pecks, but as time progressed, she sensed the passion in his kisses, and then one night, after a really enjoyable date, he had surprised her by saying, "Sharon, I've never felt about any woman the way I feel about you. I'd like to marry you and take care of you."
She had laughed in his face, taunting him about his not being able to take care of himself, much less her. Besides, being married would hamper her medical studies. The last thing she needed was a husband incapable of earning a living. It would weigh on her mind. So she had refused him, but had done so with something akin to viciousness.
Seeing him, here, now, in spite of the fact that he looked better than ever, made her control an inner impulse to make fun of him again.
"I see Doctor Barnes is your attending physician," she smiled. "As I recall, he wasn't your family physician."
"No," he replied. "My parents still have faith in the old family retainer. As for me, I find I like Doctor Barnes."
"But he's expensive," Sharon insisted, irritated that he was probably still sponging on his parents and making them pay for everything.
"I can afford it," Lamont replied.
"You mean your parents can afford it," she nastily snapped.
"My parents moved to California," he told her. "The big house across the street from where your folks live now belongs exclusively to me. I bought the house from my folks. I paid a hundred-and-twenty thousand for it."
"I assume you must have gotten a thirty year mortgage for a hefty amount," she insisted. "Still, even the down payment must have cost a pretty penny."
"I bought it outright," he told her. "I don't like mortgages."
"Oh, come on, now," Sharon snapped. "Where did you get that kind of money? You always had to depend on your parents for everything."
"I discovered something interesting," he told her. "There are six non-fiction books published to every novel. So instead of continuing to try and write the great American novel, I devoted myself to studying history, and as a result, after having delved into multitudes of different data, I've been writing long, but comprehensible histories of various nations, histories with accurate portrayals no one else has been able to do. As a result, my works have become bestsellers. Every book of mine has sold close to a million copies in hardcover, and three times as many in paperback."
"Well then," Sharon gasped. "You must have amassed quite a fortune."
"The book-writing alone has brought in more than seven million dollars, after taxes. But I've been a bit more fortunate with my investments than your father was with his."
"Well, just how much are you worth?" Sharon wondered, suddenly seeing a light at the end of her own dark tunnel. Here was an opportunity for the marriage she had been seeking, assuming this man was still in love with her. Having studied psychology while in medical school, Sharon understood that a person truly in love usually continued feeling love for another person, even if the object of this love initially rejected him.
"Now you're asking personal questions," he insisted. "However, let me assure you, I have enough money banked so that if all my investments were to suddenly go down the toilet, I'd still be extremely wealthy for the rest of my life.
"Well just what are you in the hospital for?" Sharon asked.
"Minor surgery," he replied. "I'm about to have three painful boils removed from my backside. The doctor said he would be able to do it in his office, if I wished, but he preferred my coming into the hospital. This way, I'll also get a complete checkup."
"According to your chart," Sharon said picking up the chart at the end of the bed, "you're scheduled for early tomorrow morning."
"Right," he nodded. "And if all goes well, by Tuesday morning I'll be going home."
"Would it bother you to have me look in on you from time to time?" she asked.
"Whenever visiting hours are over," he told her, reminding her of the ladies waiting for him in the hallway.