THE BACHELOR'S BED Read online

  "Please don't hurt my feelings on this," she said in that quietly devastated voice all mothers have perfected.

  Guilt. Dammit. "You made the plans without consulting me."

  "Because you won't make plans for yourself! Your divorce has been final for five years, Colin. Five years. Move on. Please, darling. For me. Move on."

  The pain that slashed through him had nothing to do with his ex-wife. Lord, he needed a major pain killer. A bottle of them. Instead, he lifted another part of his advanced scale and ran a knowing finger over the trouble spot—the laser shaft. Complex plans for repair tumbled in his head.

  "I'm simply trying to better your life."

  He could think of several ways to do that, starting with leaving him alone. Especially since with or without this project he was currently obsessing over, he would never again "better his life" with another female. "Save yourself the trouble, Mother."

  "But I want to die in peace."

  He rolled his eyes. Great. Now the death speech, when she was healthier than anyone he knew and likely to outlive him by thirty years.

  "Just one night," she urged. "That's all I'm asking. Maybe she's the one…"

  "No." He stretched his long, cramped legs over the top of his cluttered desk. No one was the one. No one ever would be again. "I've been trying to tell you, I have a good reason for not wanting to date."

  "Oh, no," she whispered, horrified. "I knew it! I knew it wasn't safe to let you play with dolls when you were younger!"

  "Mother…"

  She groaned theatrically. "Oh, no. Oh, no! How am I supposed to get grandkids now?"

  He wisely contained his laughter. "No, Mother, that's not it. I'm … engaged."

  The silence was deafening. "Mother?"

  "To whom?" she asked weakly.

  "Her name is Lani Mills."

  "What does she do?"

  "She runs her own cleaning business."

  "Oh." She thought this over. "Does she love you?"

  Colin wasn't sure he knew the meaning of the word. Still, he remembered how wide- and wild-eyed his little cleaning lady had got when he'd removed his shirt. He hadn't thought he could be sensual standing in his own kitchen doused in cleaning fluid, but the way she'd looked at him had certainly put a spin on things. "She's … crazy about me," he said.

  "Colin, are you sure? Really, really sure? I mean if she doesn't totally love you, then—"

  "I thought you wanted me married," he teased. "Well now I have a fiancée, so no more dates! In fact, no more calls about dates. No more making other people call me about dates. Okay? Tell everyone."

  "She's the one for you? You're sure? How do you know?"

  Lani was quirky. Sweet and kind and exceptionally patient. After knowing her for one year, Colin knew she was a positive ray of sunshine that he usually tried to avoid at all costs, because to see someone so happy … it hurt in a way he didn't quite understand.

  They were polar opposites and therefore, no, she was most definitely not the one for him. But he had to do this, had to be left alone to finish the project. His work was everything, it meant the difference between life and death to others.

  It also meant a lie to someone he cared about, his mother. "I'm sure," he said quietly.

  "But…"

  She wasn't going to let this go and he knew this was because she blamed herself for his own last failure. He couldn't let her do that again. "I'm sure because—" he glanced out his window and saw Lani's small car parked there "—we're staying together," he improvised.

  "You mean you're living together?"

  "Yes," he said, sealing the lie with yet another, hating how he felt about the deception. "I have to go."

  "Wait! I want to meet her. Your aunts will want to meet her, and, oh, damn, we've got a flight out in the morning. No problem," she said, quickly reversing herself. "We'll cancel. Your father can wait. We have to come stay with you, of course, for at least two weeks, that's how long we'll need to get to know Lani, and— Colin, don't you dare hang up on me."

  Two weeks, good Lord. "Gotta run, Mother. I'll let you know when Lani and I set a date."

  "Colin! You hang up on me and I'll come right now, I swear."

  The threat wasn't an idle one, he knew she'd do it. "Mother … Lani and I need time alone, to…" To what? How was this backfiring when he had it all planned out? "We need to get to know each other," he said quickly.

  "Fine. I'll give you two days, I really can't just stand your father up, he'll pout. But I'll be back after New York." Excitement made her voice shrill. "I'm so thrilled—we have a wedding to plan! Can you imagine the fun? See you in a few days!"

  Colin stared at the phone when it clicked in his ear.

  Irene West was coming here. In two days. For two lifelong weeks.

  Suddenly it hit him. His fictional fiancée had just become—he had to swallow hard to even complete the thought—a real fiancée.

  The implications were mind-boggling. Lani would have to stay here, pretend to love him.

  Sleep in his room.

  He couldn't imagine she'd be willing, which brought him to another thought. Why had she agreed to this in the first place?

  It wasn't as though they were friends, he hardly knew her.

  Oh, God, his mother was coming.

  This hadn't just backfired, it had blown up in his face.

  * * *

  Colin clicked away at his keyboard, pretending he didn't have time to face the mess he'd created.

  Which he didn't.

  "Sorry to interrupt." Lani poked her head in the door. She looked at him with those huge baby-blue eyes, framed by a golden halo of hair precariously perched on her head. "I'd like to get in here to vacuum and dust, if that's okay with you."

  Colin found himself staring rudely, but he couldn't seem to help it. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time, though it'd only been an hour since he'd asked for her help. She was lovely, startlingly so. How could he not have noticed before?

  She'd also saved his life.

  What kind of a person was so willing to help?

  He didn't know another soul who would have done so. Uneasy with that thought, and irritated that he'd needed her help in the first place, Colin stood and walked around his desk to meet her. "You're not interrupting. But there are some things we should go over, if you don't mind." Some things? It was laughable.

  How to ask her if she was willing to put the entire charade on yet another level and attempt to fool the nosiest, most meddling, well-meaning mother that had ever lived?

  Lani's eyes widened slightly as he moved toward her and Colin slowed, realizing she probably considered him a certifiable nutcase.

  He would just insist he pay her extra, over and above her cleaning fees, which had always been surprisingly low anyway. He'd yet to encounter a woman not susceptible to his money.

  "You … didn't put on another shirt," she announced breathlessly.

  He'd forgotten. He still smelled like pine, but then again, so did she. Her gaze was plastered to his chest. Her cheeks reddened, but she didn't stop in her curious perusal of his entire body.

  He felt curious, too, though it wasn't as easy for him since she was fully dressed. A strand of her long hair hung in her still-flushed face. The baggy, shapeless, drab-colored clothes she always wore completely hid her figure, but judging from the lack of meat on her arms, she was a bit scrawny.

  Definitely not his type, he thought wryly. Thank God. To have been attracted to her would have made this whole situation all the more impossible to deal with. "I have a bit of a problem," he said.

  She blinked, stopped staring at his chest, and went still. "You don't need me anymore?"

  "Ah … not exactly."

  She shot him a smile then, and it was a stunner. At the impact, he lost every thought in his head and then had to reassess the whole not-being-attracted-to-her thing.

  "We need to set a date?" she asked.

  "Worse." He braced himself. "We need to live to