THE BACHELOR'S BED Read online

  "Let me get this straight." Aunt Jennie took another swig and gasped, pounding her chest. Her curls, the silver burnished ones she'd been paying Verna at the Body Wave Salon weekly for for the past forty years, bounced as she set down her drink. "You're finally engaged."

  "Yes," Lani said. "But—"

  "Engaged to the most eligible bachelor in town." Great-Aunt Jennie grinned and slapped her knee. "Imagine that!"

  "But—"

  "Hold it right there." Jennie, who was eighty-two but didn't look a day older than sixty-five, held up a hand. She knew her niece well. "Honey, why is it with you there's always a but?"

  Lani let out a reluctant grin. "And this but is a biggy."

  Jennie sighed. "You're going to ruin this for me, aren't you?"

  "It's likely," Lani admitted. Her great-aunt had not been the most conventional of guardians. She'd held séances, had traveled extensively, whipping Lani out of school on a whim, and had never followed any of the rules. She hadn't joined the PTA, had never made easy friends with the other parents or driven in the carpool.

  But she'd been there for Lani when she'd had no one else, and for that she was grateful. Lani might have grown up differently than most, but Jennie had done the best she could and Lani would never forget it.

  But she was well aware that her aunt's greatest wish was to see Lani taken care of. Jennie took it personally that Lani had a deep-rooted fear of emotional attachments. She wanted Lani to go the route of the very normal and expected marriage, no matter how abnormal Lani's upbringing had been. She wanted Lani's future secure, and she wanted that because she loved Lani with all her slightly off-kilter, wacky heart.

  Realizing that brought both a lump to Lani's throat and a shoulder-load of shame about the façade. She had to tell Jennie the truth about the engagement, had to make her understand that marriage, a true marriage, was just not in the cards.

  At that thought, Lani's heart sent up a little protest, but now was not the time for self-reflection. "The truth is, it's just pretend, Aunt Jennie. Colin needs me to pretend to marry him, that's all."

  "Pretend."

  "That's right."

  They were in Jennie's house, just a few blocks from Lani's apartment. It was run down on the outside, but the inside was a treasure trove, decorated with things from all over the world that Jennie had collected on her various travels.

  There was not a speckle of dust, Jennie wouldn't allow it. Not on her things. She was Lani's toughest, hardest-to-please client, and also her favorite.

  To get her thoughts together, Lani moved around the room, touching those things now, unable to sit still.

  Jennie had gone quiet, but now she had a question. "What exactly do you mean, pretend?"

  "Colin needs to finish a very important project he's working on, but he's being hounded. He thought a fiancée would help."

  "What's the matter with him that he can't get a real fiancée? Is he ugly?"

  Lani thought of Colin's piercing eyes, of the lean rugged body that had left her breathless. "No," she managed to say. "Definitely not ugly."

  "Is he mean?"

  No one could hold her the way Colin had last night and be mean. "No."

  "Uh-huh." Jenny's brilliant green eyes sparkled. "I get it. You just want to live in sin without people bothering you. That's okay, honey, I understand a healthy sexual drive. I lived through the sixties, remember?"

  "It's not like that—"

  "Hormones aren't easy to deny," Jennie went on blissfully. "Why in my day, we didn't even try. We just married young so it was all legal."

  "It has nothing to do with hormones," Lani said weakly, grabbing for the jug of cider when the older woman reached for it. "You've been reading too many of those romances, Aunt Jennie."

  "They give a woman a better sex life." At Lani's startled laugh, Jennie smiled and nodded. "I read that somewhere."

  "Can we get back to my engagement?"

  "Sure. What you're trying to tell me is that you're not really marrying him." Aunt Jennie studied a box of open cigars on the low table in front of her couch before choosing one. She didn't dare light it, not with Lani within reach, so she just clamped her teeth around it.

  "What do you think of the whole thing?" Lani asked.

  "Well, I think it's a damn shame, honey. Make him earn it. Don't give it to him for free."

  "He has nothing to earn," Lani insisted, blushing in spite of herself.

  "Of course he does. I hope he's going to at least cook, or do the grocery shopping."

  "No, you don't understand. It's for show. All of it."

  Jennie's jaw went slack and the cigar tumbled out into her lap, making Lani thankful Jennie's doctor had given her strict orders not to light up. She was a danger to society.

  "All for show?" she repeated in disbelief.

  "Well … yes." Mostly.

  "You mean you're not…?"

  "No."

  Her great-aunt sadly shook her head. "Oh, honey. I taught you better than that."

  * * *

  Lani didn't know what she expected that night. Certainly that she and Colin would spend a considerable amount of time talking, gathering facts and coming up with a common story.

  Colin was a planner, she knew that much. She knew how important it would be to him to have this all analyzed and prepared for his mother and aunts.

  But she was alone, pacing Colin's large, eerily empty house. The house itself was beautiful; old, airy and full of character. The inside should have been a delight. But though Colin had been there a number of years, he had hardly furnished it. Most of the glorious rooms remained practically empty.

  Lani wondered why. Her sneakers squeaked on the wood floor of the wide hallway as she paced.

  She knew so little about him.

  Why was he so private? What secrets did his dark, mysterious eyes hold? Did he ever share himself? What made him so leery of physical affection?

  He might like to think that his cool, aloof front would keep people at bay, but not Lani. Oh, no. It only made her all the more curious.

  Lani thought of last night and smiled. He certainly wasn't leery of passion, he'd been hot, earthy and completely uninhibited. That he'd made her feel those things, too, shouldn't have surprised her, but it did. She'd never felt so out of control in her life.

  She had liked it very much.

  So where was he?

  She glanced at the clock for the tenth time in as many minutes. It was nearly 9:00 p.m. and it was becoming more and more clear that her reluctant fiancé wasn't coming home.

  It wouldn't do to get annoyed. All she'd accomplish would be to raise her blood pressure because she did understand Colin. He didn't want to be tied to her, didn't want the commitment.

  Neither did she, Lani reminded herself.

  But Colin had been backed into a corner. He had no choice and, whether he realized it or not, he was rebelling. Pushing him now would be a big mistake.

  Besides, his nonappearance could be an innocent mistake. She couldn't imagine Colin would ever hurt her on purpose, but she could imagine him in his downtown office, working frantically, completely into what he was doing, oblivious of the passing time.

  Without stopping to consider the wisdom of interrupting the lion in his den, Lani grabbed her keys and was out the door. Typical of a Southern California summer, the night temperature hadn't dropped to a comfortable level, despite the recent storm. It was over eighty degrees and unbearably muggy.

  It didn't stop her. Truth was, nothing could. She was driven to help Colin, and she wouldn't give up.

  The building Colin owned and worked in was one she'd admired often. It had once been an old warehouse, but Colin had remodeled it to suit his own needs. It was made of an intriguing mix of brick and glass, and exuded character and charm, proof that Colin possessed both.

  The reception area was deliciously cool. So much so that Lani stood there a long moment, absorbing the breathable air. Then she followed a dim light that shone from down