The Bachelor's Bed. Jill Shalvis

      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.