Anne Winston – Billionaire Bachelors: Ryan (страница 2)

The young woman drifted away, leaving dead silence in her wake.

“Don’t say a word.” Ryan looked across the table at Jessie. She was looking down at her linked hands again, but he knew it was only because she was trying not to burst into laughter. “Not…a…word,” he repeated through his teeth.

The server appeared with their meals then, saving him for the moment.

When the man departed, Jessie said, “Well, gee, considering you used me as an excuse to brush off that poor little thing…”

“You were convenient,” he said. “On the way here I got stopped by a woman with a similar proposition. I could have used you then, too.”

Jessie grinned. “Such a cross to bear.”

He ignored her needling as he applied himself to his meal. Lobster sandwiches were a house specialty, and they dug in.

Well, he dug in. Jess was a nibbler. She could make a meal last longer than it took a Southerner to recite the Declaration of Independence. When his sandwich was gone, he looked hopefully across at hers. She was still nibbling one section, but when she caught him eyeing the other half, she put a protective hand over it and said, “No way, José.”

She knew him too well. “Never hurts to try.”

When he looked back at Jessie, she was chewing her lower lip and her face looked troubled. Something was bugging her. Or she was thinking about something important. But given the way she was scrunching up her brow, he suspected a problem.

He and Jessie had grown up next door to each other in Charlestown, north of Boston across the Inner Harbor, squarely in the center of the blue-collar Irish district. That had been two decades before the first waves of young urban professionals had discovered the pretty, bow-fronted houses. His father had been a stonemason. She’d lived with her grandparents and her mother, who’d worked two jobs most of her life.

Jessie was two years younger than he. She’d been his first love. No, it had been infatuation, even if it had lasted an inordinately long time, he assured himself. And it hadn’t been returned. As far as he knew, she’d never known how he felt about her when they’d been teenagers. It was probably a good thing. He treasured the friendship they still shared.

“You’ve got something on your mind,” he said, resisting the urge to reach over and smooth the furrows from her forehead with his thumb.

It was an educated guess, but her eyes widened, and an odd look—consternation mixed with something that looked almost defiant—crossed her face. She nodded. “I do. I wanted to talk with you about a decision I’m considering.”

“Why me?”

She eyed him cautiously. “Because you’re my oldest friend and you probably know me better than anybody in the world and I need an honest opinion.” She didn’t pause for a single breath throughout the recitation.

He picked up his wine and took a sip, savoring the light, crisp taste of the vintage. “All right. What’s up?”

“I’m thinking about having a baby.”

He heard the words, but it was as if they hit an invisible wall and bounced off. He shook his head slowly, trying to wrap his brain around the syllables and turn them into something sensible. I’m thinking about having a baby. Nope. They still didn’t want to compute. Hell, he’d expected her to bring up something to do with her business. Something for which she needed his financial wisdom.

Carefully, not meeting her eyes, he said, “I wasn’t aware you were…with anyone.”

“I’m not.”

Thank God. The reaction was immediate and instinctive, relief rushing through him so heavily he felt as if he might sag beneath its weight.

It was only that he felt protective toward her, he assured himself. Nothing more. Well, at least, nothing more than serious fondness. He’d loved her wildly, futilely, through his high school years, had pined for her during college when she’d been with someone else, had finally recognized his obsession, conquered it and married a wonderful woman. Jessie and Wendy had been friends from the day they’d met, as well. Wendy had joined them at these lunches often in what he thought of now as “the old days.” It was only natural that he would still feel some attachment to Jessie. She was a large part of his past.

“Ryan?” Her voice called him back to the present. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to give you such a shock.”

Slowly he shook his head to clear it. “If you’re not in a relationship, then how do you propose to, ah, get started on a baby?”

“That’s what a cryobank is for.”

“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.”