The Bachelor's Bed

Now Colin wanted her.

No, she corrected, he needed, not wanted. There was a difference and she would do well to remember it. His proposed arrangement was too easy to romanticize. Colin needed time for his laser project, which would save countless thousands. She could be a part of that altruistic cause by helping him out.

And be married to him at the same time.

Carmen pressed her face against the window in the door, ruining the moment, glaring over Lani’s shoulder as she tried to see. When she caught sight of Colin wrapped around Lani, her eyes widened comically.

Lani turned her head and concentrated on the warm male pressed against her.

“I just need your agreement,” Colin urged in that rough yet silky voice.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t paying attention, she was. Yet she couldn’t help but wonder—how did an inventor get such a great body? She’d seen plenty of great bodies before, but she so rarely had one held against her this way. It made thinking curiously difficult.

“I know this is really sudden, and a big decision, but I can’t work like this.” Colin dropped his forehead to hers. “I have to have more peace and quiet. It’s crucial.”

“I understand.” His mouth was close enough to kiss if she just leaned forward a fraction of an inch. Her heart raced.

“It’s urgent we resolve this before—” The phone rang, echoing strangely in his large house. “Damn.”

It rang and rang, in tune now to Carmen’s persistent and annoying knocking.

Colin’s eyes seemed even more wild, more desperate, and because she’d never seen him anything less than completely put together, it startled her.

“Will you help me?” he asked.

“Well…”

“We’re not strangers.”

“Uh…no. But…”

“And you know I’m not a mass murderer,” he urged. “Or a criminal of any kind.”

“Yes. But…”

“Lani.” He stepped close again, but didn’t touch her. “I’ll give you anything in my power, just name it. Money?”

“No!”

“A trip somewhere?”

Lani knew her eyes had lit up; she’d never had the chance to go anywhere. “I would never accept such a thing.”

“Hawaii,” he said rashly.

Hawaii. A personal fantasy of hers. “No. No, thank you,” she added gruffly, knowing she was going to regret this in the deep dark of the night.

“I’ll do anything for you in return,” he assured her. “Your business…could you use another client?”

Only desperately. “Sure.”

“Then please, add my downtown building to your client list. Daily.”

Just like that, he’d upped her income. Not only upped it, probably tripled it. He could have no idea what that meant to her, and though she knew it was a pity that he felt he had to offer a bribe, she shamelessly took it, thinking of the extra hours she’d be able to offer her employees. “That’s…very generous. Thank you.”

“Will you do it?”

Despite her little fantasies, Lani was commitment shy, always had been. She was intelligent enough to realize that most of what made her life so good was the fact that she concentrated on others rather than on herself. The town of Sierra Summit was fairly small, only about seven thousand people in all, and she mothered, sistered and babied a good many of them. Her business was struggling constantly to break even, but only because she didn’t charge enough and hired people who needed her more than she needed them. Her business handled mostly industrial work because there weren’t too many residents who needed or could afford a housecleaner—Colin being the exception, of course. It wasn’t much of an effort to keep everyone happy and satisfied, and Lani genuinely cared about them all, but even so, she still managed to hold everyone at a distance.

This came from a deeply ingrained fear of getting involved, of getting hurt. Whether it went back to losing her family so young or to something much more simple—her own basic shyness, for example—she didn’t know and didn’t often try to analyze. Colin had said this would be just for show, but she didn’t fool herself, it would be complicated, and as a rule she didn’t do complicated well.

Stalling, she offered a crooked smile as he once again pulled his wet shirt away from his body. “I don’t really know you,” she said finally.

The phone rang again and Colin cursed under his breath. His shoulders sagged and his eyes went even more wild.

Carmen knocked.

Colin growled and yanked the door open. In contrast to the tension pouring from him, he spoke slowly, distinctly, and appeared surprisingly calm, considering how white his knuckles were on the knob. “I need another moment with your boss,” he said through his teeth, which were bared in a mockery of a smile. He waited until Carmen read his lips and nodded reluctantly. “Alone,” he added firmly when Carmen would have entered.

The older woman’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline, but she backed off the threshold. As she turned away, she stuck her tongue out at him.

Lani held her breath, but he didn’t seem to notice.

Colin shut the door. His gaze whipped back to Lani, and there was no mistaking his recklessness now. “It’s not all that difficult an issue,” he assured her. “I’m an open book. Truly.”

Lani let out a little laugh, for he was the most closed-mouthed person she’d ever known. And also, something else bothered her—why her? Surely he could have asked anyone and got a resounding oh boy, pretty please, yes!

Her silence must have scared him. “All right.” He plowed his fingers through his hair as he turned in a slow circle. “You want to know me.” He faced her and shrugged. “It’s simple, really. I’m…technically inclined. I don’t drink or do drugs…I like fast, sleek, sexy cars…and I’m fairly certain I don’t snore.”

When the phone rang yet again, his words came faster. “I like classical music, smart dogs and spicy Mexican food. And I always put the seat down. Now,” he added tightly over the annoying phone, “will you agree?”

Lani would never know what came over her, whether it was the unexpected flash of loneliness she’d experienced that morning, or just the deep, inexplicable yearning she felt for this man.

Risk, she reminded herself.

Help him with his great project. Help him help you out of the rut your life has become. “Okay,” she whispered. Because that sounded weak, she licked her lips and simply, confidently said, “Yes.”

Surprise flitted across his features and he held himself very still, clearly unsure if he’d heard correctly. “Did you just say yes?”

“Yes.” Oh, God, she couldn’t believe she was going to do this. “I mean, what the heck. I love spicy Mexican food, too. Let’s do it.”

2

THE TENSION DRAINED from Colin’s shoulders and while he didn’t quite smile, some of the strain left the lines around his mouth. “Well,” he said, obviously relieved.

“Yes. Well.” Lani grabbed her broom and laughed again, a little giddily. “I feel swept off my feet.”

“For pretend,” he clarified, eyes sharp on hers. “You feel swept off your feet for pretend.”

Darn, she had a pesky habit of forgetting that. “Right.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but Carmen stuck her face against the glass again, looking like a troll doll as she scrunched up her features to see better. Colin held up his finger for another minute.

Carmen rolled her eyes and disappeared.

“Um…Mr. West?”

He smiled at Lani for the first time, and wow, it was a stunner. “I think under the circumstances,” he said, “you can call me Colin.”

“Okay.” Lani smiled back, feeling a little dazed. What had she done? Had she really agreed to marry this wild, untamed creature just because her life needed a boost? “I should clean now.”

“Okay.” He frowned, plucking again at his wet shirt. “Ouch.”

“Yeah, the cleaner is starting to burn a bit,” Lani admitted regretfully, shifting uncomfortably herself. “I’m sorry.”

Without another word, Colin pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it aside.

Oh, man. Oh, man. He was perfect. Wide sinewy shoulders, hard chest, flat belly, lean hips, and the most amazing eyes that drew her right in… She was getting light-headed, and it most definitely wasn’t from the cleaner fumes.

Colin ran a hand over his bare chest with obvious relief. “Better.”

Better, Lani agreed silently. There was a solid thunk behind her. Carmen had banged her forehead on the glass attempting to get a better look.

The phone rang again and Colin sighed resolutely. “I have to get that.” He looked as though he’d rather face a firing squad. “But I’ll be back. We have to go over some things.”

Lani nodded, wondering if some of those things involved her wifely duties.

Now why did just the thought of that give her a heady rush of anticipation? She wasn’t promiscuous, not by a long shot, but somehow, with a man like Colin, she thought she might learn something about being a woman.

Yep, the chemicals in the cleaning stuff she used were most definitely going to her head—and really starting to burn her skin. Too bad she couldn’t rip her shirt off, too. At the thought, she let out another laugh.

“Lani?” Colin dipped his head down a little so he could see into her eyes. “Don’t leave yet.”

Did he honestly think she’d disappear now? He didn’t know much about her if—

What was she thinking?

He knew nothing about her. Still speechless, a truly unusual state for her, she shook her head.

She wouldn’t leave.

He looked at her for a long moment, and she wondered what was going through his mind, what he saw in her.

Again, the enormity of what she’d agreed to do staggered her. What was she going to tell Great-Aunt Jennie, who was likely to be so excited to have wed off her old-maid niece, finally? She’d have a heart attack!

It was just pretend, she reminded herself. No real heart involved. Walk away when the project’s done.

Lani watched her half-naked boss—and, good Lord, her future husband—as he walked out of the room.

Another unstoppable giggle escaped and she slapped her hand over her mouth. Giggling wouldn’t do, it didn’t become the future Mrs. West. “Oh, my God.”

Quietly, and since her knees were very weak, quickly, with a wide, silly grin on her face, she sank to the nearest seat, which happened to be the floor.

THE PHONE had stopped ringing by the time Colin got to his home office, which suited him.

Everything was good, he thought with relief. He had his fictional fiancée, and now, finally, he could concentrate on his work.

All other troubles faded away as he did just that, with a hyper-focus born of necessity. Nothing intruded, not the Institute’s hurry for his completed laser, not the fact he still had to talk to his well-meaning if meddling mother, nor that he had conned his cleaning lady into a pretense she clearly wasn’t prepared for.

His fingers raced over the keyboard of his computer, his mind locked deep in the complicated equations he was formulating. He was so close to perfecting his compact mini-laser, all he needed was time, uninterrupted time.

Turning to the console behind his desk, he lifted part of the scale model of his invention. He worked on many projects at a time for various conglomerates and institutions all over the world, but he had also incorporated himself. Generally he worked out of a large converted warehouse downtown, but this home office allowed him the privacy he sometimes craved.

The laser component hummed when he activated it. A miracle, and the miracle lay in the palm of his hand. Finally, after months and months of work, everything had begun to gel. Just as he let out a rare smile in response to the thrill of that, the phone rang, startling him from his intense concentration.

Blowing out a breath of frustration, he grabbed the phone.

“Darling, you haven’t returned a single one of my calls,” said his mother before he had a chance to open his mouth.

Thirty-two years old and that tone could still plant a headache between his eyes as fast as lightning. “I know. I—”

“How are you? I hope you’re good, you work too hard. Listen darling, I’m in town for the night only. I’m at the Towers with Aunt Bessie and Aunt Lola.”

Oh, God, all three of them at once. They were just women; petite, innocuous, elderly. But together, this team of New York, Italian, Catholic-raised siblings had guilt-laying and conformity-forcing down to a science. Colin was convinced that together they could have conquered Rome in a day.

And now they were in town. He rubbed his temples, knowing they cared about him beyond reason, which made it all the more difficult to hurt them in any way. “I thought you were going to be traveling all summer.”

“We are, we’re just back to check on things.”

Namely, him.

Since his mother had been the only sister to have a child, the three of them felt they co-owned him. Growing up, Colin had been raised by committee. His father had bowed out under pressure; after all, he was only one man. As a result, Colin had been fiercely watched over, fiercely disciplined and fiercely loved.

He was still fiercely loved, he had no doubt.

He just wished they would do it from a greater distance. Jupiter, maybe.

“I wanted to remind you,” his mother said. “Muffy is expecting you tonight.” She paused, then delivered the coup de grâce. “I’ve confirmed that you will attend.”

“Now wait a minute….”

“We want to see you, darling. How long has it been?”

Only two months, he thought desperately. Had she and his aunts only been on their annual shopping trek in Europe for eight short weeks? He struggled for patience, in short supply on the best of days and this wasn’t one of them. “We’ve spoken every week,” he reminded her firmly but gently, not pointing out that even from a distance of thousands and thousands of miles, she still tried to run his life. “And I’m not going to the auction.”

“Charity auction,” she corrected him. “It’s expected, Colin. It’s why we came back into town. Everyone will be there.”

Gritting his teeth to bite back his comment, he opened the delicate machinery in front of him and adjusted the micro-module with one of his tiny precision tools. “I can’t. I have a—”

“Oh, Colin, I do so love you.”

His heart softened. “I’m still not going.”

“Please? Do this for me. Honey, I don’t want to be a hundred years old before you make me a grandmother. I—”

“Stop!” He managed to interrupt and let out a short laugh. “Stop with the old. You and your sisters are the youngest old biddies I know.”

“Oh, you.” But his mother laughed, too. “This is the second time you’ve disappointed Muffy. Take a break from building those robot thingies and come out with us tonight.” Her voice gentled. “Have a social life, darling. You need to get married again and do it right this time. Please? For me.”

He might have laughed, if she were kidding. But she never kidded when it came to this—seeing her only child taken care of in what she saw as matters of the heart.

“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 together.”

“Before the wedding?”

“It won’t get that far,” he said fervently.

“No…wedding?”

Uh-oh. She sounded shocked…disappointed. “This is just for pretend,” he said slowly. “Remember?”

She laughed and quickly turned away, hiding her face. “Of course. It’s just that I thought…never mind. Excuse me…I’ve got…something to do.”

“Lani?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” She ran out of the office.

3

COLIN STARED at the empty doorway of his office. What had just happened? No way had Lani misunderstood. He’d made it clear that this engagement wasn’t real.

Hadn’t he?

Running back through the conversations in his mind, he went still. Yes, he’d made it clear it was all for show, but had he let her think there would really be a wedding?

Swearing, Colin went after her, grabbing a shirt on his way, but he was a split second too late. Both Lani and Carmen were gone, speeding down the driveway in her noisy car. Colin grabbed his keys and raced out into the searing heat after them.