The Stud Read Online Free PDF Page B

inside her took on a special glow when she thought of her child being Spencer's.

Chapter 3
    At two in the morning, Jenna's phone rang. Though she hadn't been sleeping, the sound was jarring in the stillness of night. Her heart pounded as she reached across the magazines that lay beside her in bed and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
    "Did I wake you?"
    The low voice was male and distinctive, and did nothing to calm her pulse. She pressed a hand to her breast. "No. I was reading. " After the briefest of hesitations, she asked, "Where are you?"
    "In Newport. At the house. "
    Jenna was in her own house, across the Seekonk River from him in Little Compton. "We all assumed you'd flown back to Florida. " That would have been a typically Spencer thing to do. "I waited in Newport on the slim chance that you hadn't and would come back and talk with me. When everyone else went to bed, I ran out of an excuse to stay. " She hadn't wanted to give the elder Smiths the slightest cause for speculation about something going on between Spencer and her.
    "I was visiting a friend, " he said. "I hadn't seen him for years. Someone at the party told me he'd been sick. We've been talking all this time. "
    "You don't have to explain. "
    "No, but I want to. I'm not heartless. I could see that what you asked me this afternoon means a lot to you. I wouldn't have left without giving you some kind of answer. "
    Jenna held her breath.
    "The problem, " he went on, "is that I don't have enough information to give you any kind of answer. "
    Her hopes rose. "Then you're considering it?"
    "Not seriously. I still think the whole thing's absurd. "
    She thought back over the years to some of the stories that had filtered back to Rhode Island from wherever Spencer was. "You do absurd things all the time. "
    "I do daring things all the time, " he corrected, "and I only do them after I've researched them inside and out. "
    He hadn't said no. He hadn't said no. "I've researched this inside and out, " she told him. "Ask me anything. Go ahead. I'll tell you whatever you want to know. "
    "I want to know more about you and why you want to do this. "
    "I want a baby. It's as simple as that. "
    "But why do you want a baby?"
    Jenna didn't know what to say. She thought the answer was obvious.
    Spencer must have taken her silence as criticism of the question, because he said, "I have a right to know. After all, you're suggesting that you be the mother of my child, and you're saying you'd be its primary caretaker. So whereas donating my sperm would be the beginning and end of my role in this endeavor, yours would be more far-reaching. If being a mother has become an obsession with you, the child will suffer. I wouldn't want to be party to the creation of a child that would be raised by an obsessive woman. "
    "I'm not obsessive. I've never been obsessive. " Strong-willed, perhaps. Stubborn or determined or dedicated. But never obsessive.
    "Then tell me why you want this baby. "
    She pushed up against the headboard, shifting to get the pillows more comfortably arranged. She pulled the white comforter to her waist, grasped the white sheet a bit higher. She settled the phone more securely against her ear.
    "Well?" he prodded.
    "I'm organizing my thoughts. I've wanted a baby for so long, and there are so many reasons why. Are you comfortable? This could take a while. "
    "The organizing?"
    "The telling. "
    "I'm comfortable. "
    "Are you in the den?" She pictured the room. It was on the ground floor of the Smiths' house and was paneled in mahogany. Large, heavy-handed oils hung on the walls between books and electronic gadgets. It was a dark room, a man's room. She could see Spencer there.
    "I'm in my bedroom. "
    That was a different story. She had more trouble picturing him there. The room was exactly as it had been when he had graduated from college, with banners on the walls and trophies on the shelves. It was a boy's room, but Spencer had left boyhood far behind. He was forty-one,