Billionaire Bachelors: Ryan. Anne Marie Winston

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “A cryobank?” He knew what she meant but he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

      Color rose in her cheeks and she didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s a sperm freezing and storage facility.” She reached into her satchel again as she spoke. “I’ve already been through a battery of tests at a fertility center. I’ve had some preliminary testing and a physical. They started me on some special vitamins and things. I’m considered an excellent candidate for pregnancy. All I have to do is select a donor and have the procedure done.”

      “The procedure?”

      “Artificial insemination.” She came up for air with a folder clutched in her hand. “I’ve already selected some possibilities but I wanted your opinion.” She extended the folder across the table.

      Ryan stared at it, making no move to take it. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

      Jessie’s gaze was level. She didn’t speak.

      “Oh, hell.” He rested his elbows on the table and speared the fingers of both hands through his hair. “You are serious. Jess…why? Why this way? Why right now?”

      “I’m going to be thirty in November, Ryan.” Her voice was quiet. All traces of the earlier humor had fled. “I want a family. Children,” she amended. “I want to be a parent while I’m still young and energetic enough to keep up with my kids and enjoy them.” Unspoken between them was the memory of her own childhood, one that he knew had been lonely and joyless. He remembered her grandparents as stuffy, disapproving old prunes who had never forgiven their only daughter for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And Jessie’s mother…well, the best thing his own mother, who rarely had a harsh word to say about anyone, had said was, “It wouldn’t kill her to cuddle that little girl once in a while.”

      “Thirty is young,” he said desperately. “Women are having children well into their forties these days. Why don’t you wait just a few more years? You might feel totally differently—”

      “I didn’t ask you to criticize me,” she said sharply, and he could see the rising Irish temper that went with the red glints in her hair. “I’ve already decided to have a baby. I merely wanted your opinion on which donor I should choose. But just forget it.” She started to withdraw the folder, but he grabbed it from her.

      “Wait.” He was stalling, trying to think of some way to talk her out of this insane idea. The thought of Jessie, his Jessie, going to a sperm bank, caused his chest to grow tight with repugnance. “I’ll look at them.”

      He placed the folder in front of him, looking down over the list of information contained on the first set of stapled sheets, then scanning the second and the third. There were at least three more. “These don’t provide a lot of information.”

      “Oh, these are just the preliminary profiles,” she said. “If I like some of these, I’ll request medical and personal profiles that are much more detailed. Family background, academic records, that sort of thing.”

      “Who fills these out?”

      “There are medical evaluations and personality test, things like that,” she said, “but most of the personal information comes from the…the donors.” She looked past him rather than at him.

      “And does anyone check to see if they’re telling the truth?”

      “I…well…I don’t know.” Her eyebrows rose. “Why would they lie?”

      “Beats me. But to assume that the information these anonymous men volunteer is accurate…isn’t that a pretty big risk? I read a case about a guy who knew he carried a rare genetic heart defect that often resulted in death during the young adult years—and he lied on his application. Later, he had an attack of guilt and told his genetics counselor, but when they contacted the sperm bank, his sperm already had produced successful pregnancies for several women. It was a big bioethical mess.”

      Jessie rubbed her temples with her hands. “That has to be a pretty isolated incident, though, don’t you think?”

      “You’ll be living with the results for the rest of your life,” he said impatiently. “What if the guy just neglected to mention that diabetes runs rampant in his family? Or schizophrenia? Or that he’s got other hereditary diseases or conditions in his genetic makeup that could affect your child?”

      “They screen the donations for genetic problems and diseases,” she said. “All the donors have complete physicals and genetic work-ups. I have some literature on it.”

      “But they couldn’t possibly check for everything,” he pointed out. “And are there background checks to see if these men are telling the truth about themselves?”

      “I…I don’t know. I doubt it.” Jessie looked shell-shocked. “But they’re supposed to fill in everything they know.”

      “And maybe they do.” He made a deliberate effort to soften his censorious tone. “Probably 99 percent of these men are honest and trustworthy. Hell, maybe they all are. But you have to assume that there could be some falsehoods, for your own protection.”

      Jessie sighed deeply. “Darn it, Ryan. I should have known I’d be more confused than I already am after I’d talked with you.”

      “Thank you,” he said.

      “It wasn’t a compliment.” But she smiled. Reaching across the table, she took the folder from him and replaced it in her satchel, then shook her head. Her eyes were troubled. “I was planning to do this the next time I ovulate, but I can see this is going to require a lot more thought than I’d anticipated.”

      He couldn’t dredge up an appropriate response to that, so he merely murmured, “Good.”

      The rest of the meal went quickly. She declined coffee, telling him she had to get back to relieve one of her sales staff, and they parted outside the Ritz. As he bent to kiss her cheek and she tilted her face up to his, the sweet scent of her filled him with an unexpectedly sharp longing, and he nearly closed his arms about her before he could catch himself. Unaware of his mental turmoil, Jessie backed away a step and waggled her fingers at him with an impish grin. “Same time, same place next month, big boy.”

      He managed a wave and stood for a long moment as she turned and walked down Arlington Street. Finally he turned and moved off in the other direction, taking a right on Beacon Street past the Public Garden and the Commons, heading back to his office on State Street in the financial district.

      As he paced off the steps, his mind churned. What had happened back there? It was just that he missed having a woman in his life, he assured himself. Since his wife’s death in a traffic accident, he’d led a lonely life. Being half of a couple had suited him. It had felt comfortable. He hated going home to the costly mansion in Brookline now, hated the silence after the day staff had left in the evening. He hated attending cocktail parties and charity events and having eager mothers thrusting their oh-so-eligible daughters in his path. The bottom line was that he simply hated being single.

      And then there was the thought of children, which he’d put out of his mind years ago. Until Jessie’s bright idea had dredged it up again.

      Children. A stab of longing pierced him. He’d wanted kids with Wendy, always assumed they’d start a family someday…but it hadn’t been quite that simple. And now she was gone.

СКАЧАТЬ