THE BACHELOR'S BED Read online

  He was beginning to realize that. "I know."

  "Loyal, dedicated. Sweet, too, and very kind."

  "But?" Colin pushed away his work. It held little appeal at the moment. "I'm sure I heard one at the end of that sentence."

  "Well…" Claudia sent him an apologetic look to soften her words. "Truth is, I think she's too wonderful for you. She'll want more than you'll give her, Colin."

  "And what would that be?" he said, amused now. "I have more money than I know what to do with, a huge house with every amenity she could ever want. There's nothing missing. I can give her whatever she needs."

  Claudia's look turned pitying. "See? That's exactly what I mean. You don't have a clue as to how to keep a woman like that." She gave him a long look that made him squirm. "Or maybe you do, and you just don't want to see it."

  "I have a call," he said, conveniently remembering. He picked up the phone, almost forgetting that this whole thing was just a sham. That he didn't have to justify anything to his secretary. That it didn't really matter what anyone thought because what he had with Lani was just temporary.

  Temporary.

  But before he pressed in the phone line, he watched Claudia shake her head in disgust, watched her leave … and knew she spoke the truth.

  He didn't have a clue as to how to keep a woman like Lani. Any woman.

  And he had an ex-wife to prove it.

  * * *

  Colin glared at his office phone. He hadn't been able to reach Lani all day, either at the house or at her office.

  Had she bolted, tired of the charade?

  He couldn't blame her, but hoped not, and not because he'd have nothing to tell his interfering mother and aunts. He just couldn't leave things between them as they were now.

  It was only three in the afternoon, an hour of the day he rarely saw because he usually had his head buried in work, but he actually got up and left his office. At the moment, he couldn't have buried himself in his work to save his sorry life, and he had Lani's huge, expressive eyes to thank.

  He couldn't get them out of his mind. How was she feeling about last night?

  All he'd ever wanted was peace and quiet. He'd never wanted to hurt anyone; not his family and certainly not Lani.

  How he had managed to get himself in such trouble was beyond him.

  He drove up to her apartment, once again struck by the differences in their life-styles. He walked up the cracked, crumbling driveway, wishing he could get Lani a better place to live. But he knew she'd never accept such help from him.

  She worked so hard. It didn't seem fair that this was all she had to show for it.

  "She's not here."

  He turned and was surprised to see an old woman speaking to him. She was tiny, at least eighty years old, and dressed in hot-pink-and-red spandex. "Excuse me?" he said politely.

  "Lani. She's who you're looking for, isn't she? Your … fiancée?"

  "You know Lani?"

  That made her laugh until her rust-colored curls bounced. Well, actually cackle would be a better word for what she did. She bent at the waist, slapped her knees and let loose. Finally, sniffing, she straightened. Still grinning, she nodded. "Yep, I know her." Grabbing a rake, she leaned against the fence of the small garden.

  For the first time, Colin realized that while the apartment building itself looked as though it had seen better days, the garden was full and lush and well tended.

  "The question is," the woman asked. "Do you know Lani?"

  She was missing some marbles, Colin decided. "I'm sorry. You're…?"

  "Ah, no doubt you're right. Where are my manners? We've not been introduced. Strange, wouldn't you say, since I'm Lani's great-aunt Jennie?" She eyed him shrewdly, acknowledging his surprise with a lift of a gray eyebrow.

  Lani had a crazy woman for an aunt?

  "I raised your soon-to-be-wife," she told him. "But, of course, you knew that, since you're engaged to her. You know everything about her. Right?"

  Somehow he'd managed to step into an episode of the "X-Files."

  Great-Aunt Jennie winked, then leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, "Nice to meet you, Mr. Pretend Fiancé."

  She knew.

  Unperturbed by his silence, Great-Aunt Jennie made herself comfortable on a wooden bench and tapped the spot next to her.

  Colin sat.

  The old woman smiled, her pink-and-red workout suit glittering in the relentless sun. "Next to you, I'm all Lani has," she confided. "But you knew that already, too, right?"

  He should have. That message came loud and clear.

  "She loves flowers, did you know that?" Jennie asked. "She also loves loud music, kids and has a serious weak spot for kittens. And Lord, does that girl have a sweet tooth. It's amazing how good a figure she has, given what she eats. Did you know she has a particular thing for white chocolate?"

  A real fiancé would know these things, and more, about the woman he loved.

  He would also know where to find her on any given day.

  "And I don't have to tell you her dislikes, namely vegetables and exercise," Jennie said easily. "Or that she fears violent thunderstorms because her parents died in one."

  Colin remembered Lani's fear well. Terrified, she'd clutched at him every time thunder had hit. "I didn't know that," he admitted.

  "You should have."

  "Yes." He most definitely should have.

  Sadness was etched in Jennie's every movement as she stood and dragged the rake across a few fallen leaves. "I'm sorry. I love her and I'm upset. I'm taking it out on you, and that's very unkind of me. Inexcusable actually. Please forgive me. It's not you I'm mad at, but my darling, huge-hearted, idiot niece."

  "Lani's parents—"

  "Died when she was six." She lifted her head and met his gaze with her own steady one. "I'm her mother and her father now and her best friend. I'm certain you're not good for her, but one of these days, I'll learn to let her make her own mistakes."

  Colin could not dispel the image of Lani as a child, frightened and alone, facing her parents' death at such a young age.

  "And don't bother to ask me anything else. I won't tell you." She lifted a stubborn chin, sharing a strong resemblance to Colin's equally stubborn fiancée. "Whatever you want to know, you'll have to ask her yourself."

  "I will." Soon as he could find her. He stood, intending to do just that.

  "Lani told me about you." When he pivoted back around, startled, Jennie set the rake aside and pierced him with sharp blue eyes. "She told me you were smart and compassionate and wonderful."

  Colin blinked in surprise, but Jennie only nodded. "She's a very generous soul, my Lani."

  Pride tasted like hell, but Colin swallowed it anyway. "Do you know where I could find her?"

  "Depends why you want her."

  Because I miss her. But because that was a ridiculous thought, he shook his head to clear it. "I'd like to talk to her."

  Jennie just looked at him, smiling. Silent. Smug.

  Dammit. "Okay, I hurt her feelings. I have to see her, try to talk to her about it."

  She was silent for so long, Colin thought she'd fallen asleep leaning on her rake.

  "She's working," she said at last. "Too hard, if you ask me."

  Again, another message. But Jennie didn't understand how complicated this was. Under their present terms, Lani would never allow him to help her financially, no matter how much he'd like to. "I called her office already," he said. "She wasn't there."

  "Of course not." Jennie's expression made it clear that she thought he was the crazy one. "She doesn't spend all day sitting behind a desk, Mr. Pretend Fiancé. Not like other people. No, she's out there working her fingers to the raw bone, cleaning rich people's places because they don't want to do it themselves."

  Well he had to hand it to the woman. In the space of the few minutes that he'd been there, she'd made him feel ridiculous, selfish, greedy and now guilty.

  But Lani liked her work, didn't she? God, he