LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      So marry Jessie. She wants a baby…you want a family.

      The idea was so shocking that he stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk on Tremont Street, causing a woman walking past to glance at him oddly.

      Marry Jessie. The thought made his heart race alarmingly. Wryly, he acknowledged that some things never changed. Part of him was still that adolescent boy with the crush on his lissome young neighbor.

      Marry Jessie. She was as different from his deceased wife as two women could be. Wendy had been blond and blue-eyed, petite and yet buxom. She’d been quietly charming, almost passive, rarely arguing with him. She’d been content to make a home for them; she’d felt no need to prove herself in a career. She’d been musical and elegant. Each night when he’d come home there’d been drinks in the drawing room.

      Jessie…Jessie wasn’t any of those things. Except elegant. With those long legs and the graceful way she carried herself, she was most definitely that. His mouth curved at the mere notion of Jess sitting home waiting for any man. She was volatile, determined to succeed at her business. If she disagreed with him, she said so in no uncertain terms. She had a tin ear, although she got offended if anyone suggested that perhaps she shouldn’t sing.

      For the first time, the striking differences made him pause. Could he have chosen Wendy, in part, because she was so completely unlike Jess?

      It was an unnerving thought. He’d told himself he was over Jessie, that she’d been an adolescent fantasy. He’d married another woman and forgotten her. But in the back of his mind, he had to admit that it was possible he’d been comparing other women to her for the past ten years or more. And he was over her, he assured himself. Just because he couldn’t stop thinking about her now didn’t mean anything except that he was still as physically attracted to her as he’d always been.

      So where did that leave him? Was it ridiculous to think that he could make a life with her now, a life that included the children he’d always wanted?

      He’d reached his building, walking most of the way on automatic pilot while he’d thought of her, and as he stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hall to his office, a new determination hardened within him. The moment he’d hung up his coat and taken his messages

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