The Millionaire Bachelor

Chapter One

C athy Eldridge glanced impatiently at her inexpensive watch.

She anticipated the hour of midnight as much as Cinderella had dreaded it.

While the fairy-tale princess had reason to worry that her dreams would be destroyed by the tolling of the clock, for Cathy, the witching hour marked the beginning of her fantasy.

Because on the stroke of twelve, Stone Ward called.

It was a slow night at the answering service.

She fielded a call from a worried mother whose toddler had spiked a high fever.

After consulting her computer, she contacted the pediatrician on duty, then connected the two.

There were two calls from men who had been arrested and wanted to discuss bail.

She paged the owner of the bail-bond business and gave him both messages.

The answering service she worked for had an eclectic group of clients.

Everything from doctors to a private detective, the bail bondsman, a couple of law offices, even a sizable literary agency that handled screenplays for Hollywood.

The service catered to any company that preferred that after-hours callers be answered by a real person rather than voice mail.

There were also a few odd clients, like the charming, wealthy but forgetful widow who had the service call her six times a day to remind her to take her medicine, and a traveling salesman who insisted regular messages be left on his answering machine at home so his cat wouldn’t feel so alone.

Cathy had been on the job for more years than she wanted to remember and she handled each call quickly and efficiently. She was a favorite with many of the clients. If nothing else, they enjoyed her stories about her exciting life outside of work. Which reminded her…

She opened her large, black nylon carrying case and pulled out her laptop computer.

The machine had been expensive and her only indulgence in the past three years, but it had been worth every penny.

With a phone line and her laptop, she could go anywhere in the world.

No one had to know that she was trapped in a grubby little office, performing a mindless job from which she couldn’t seem to escape.

She slipped the plug into a wall socket, then started the computer.

When it was ready, she moved the arrow to the correct program and hit the button to connect with her local computer service.

From there, she could make her way out into the Internet—a place she didn’t understand, but had the power to transform her.

She was constantly amazed by the information available.

Everything from the latest treatments for a host of diseases to airline schedules to restaurant menus. Tonight, she needed the latter.

She’d spent the weekend researching hotels and clubs in the vacation resort of Cancún, Mexico. All that was left was to find the right kind of restaurant with the right kind of menu.

It took her about ten minutes of searching to locate what she needed. She scribbled a few notes on a pad of paper, took three calls for various clients, relayed messages to an attorney working late, all the while glancing at the clock. Five minutes left, then three, then one, then—

Ring .

Her heart had picked up its pace fifteen minutes before, but now her palms got sweaty and her stomach lurched.

The symptoms were familiar—they occurred every time he called.

He always made her feel so very alive. She adjusted the mouthpiece on her headset, then pushed the blinking light on the phone console.

“A to Z Answering Service,” she said, working hard to keep her tone light and friendly, so he wouldn’t guess she was shaking with anticipation. It didn’t matter that they’d been talking for months. He still made her nervous.

“Hi, Cathy, how was your weekend?”

She wanted to melt. His voice was low and seductive. It wrapped around her and drifted through her, making it nearly impossible to think or breathe or do anything but sigh out his name.

“Hi, Stone, my weekend was great. What about yours?”

“Nothing very exciting. I worked.” She heard faint sounds over the phone lines, as if he was shifting into a more comfortable position on a sofa or in a chair.

She pictured him in a book-lined study somewhere.

The room would be large, paneled in wood with high ceilings and rich leather furniture.

She always imagined a fireplace and the scent of burning logs.

Which was crazy. This was Los Angeles, and it didn’t get very cold, even in the dead of winter.

But Stone was her fantasy, and she figured she had the right to conjure up a romantic fire if she wanted one.

“You work too hard,” she said. “You need to take some time off. Get away.”

“You travel enough for both of us,” he told her. “Where was it this weekend? The Bahamas?”

“Mexico. The weather was fabulous.” Cathy leaned forward and gathered her notes. According to the Weather Channel, it had been in the eighties all weekend, with clear skies and pleasantly cool nights. She quietly sorted through the information she’d printed out on the various hotels and the sites.

He chuckled. “Not like that week in Paris? No typhoon?”

She joined in his laughter. “It wasn’t a typhoon. It was a fall rainstorm.”

“If I remember correctly it was more rain than the city had seen in years. You were practically flooded out of your hotel. You lost power for a day.”

Cathy’s smile faded as she was again reminded that Stone paid attention.

He listened and remembered, as if her life was of interest to him.

As if she was interesting. She hated that the truth was something different.

If only she could be what he wanted her to be—but she wasn’t.

Not that it mattered. Theirs was a relationship built on fantasy.

At least on her side. She wasn’t sure what he thought of her.

“This was definitely not Paris,” she said.

“So who did you go with?”

“Angie and Brad, Mark, Martin and Melissa.”

“Ah, the three M s. Was Raoul there?”

Raoul. Her mysterious man of the moment. “He couldn’t make it.”

“You must have missed him.”

“Not as much as you might think,” she said wryly, wishing she heard the tiniest hint of jealousy in Stone’s voice, but knowing that wasn’t going to happen.

She had created Raoul—tall, dark, handsome, silent.

The perfect man. Actually he was a lot like her image of Stone.

Another man she’d never met, but at least Stone existed outside of her imagination.

Raoul, Angie, Brad and the three M s did not.

“Tell me everything,” he said. “Did you wear a bikini?”

“You have to ask?” She’d been playing the game so long, it was easy.

The words weren’t really lies; they were stories, told to entertain.

No one got hurt. She was someone pleasant in Stone’s life.

A diversion. If he knew the truth about her and her world, he would think her boring.

Thin, beautiful Cathy who had fabulous friends and an exciting life was more his style.

“The room was great,” she said.

“A suite?”

“Not this time.” She consulted one of the sheets she’d printed out about the hotel.

“I had a corner room, and it was pretty big. I didn’t have anyone staying with me, so that was fine.

I could see the pool and beyond it, the ocean.

We had a great time. There was a water slide.

I practically ripped out the bottoms of my suit on that. ”

He chuckled. “Wish I’d been there to see that.”

“Mr. Ward, I’m quite shocked!”

“Liar.” His voice caressed her like a silk glove. “What color is your bikini?”

“Red.”

“Low cut?”

The question made her smile. Even though it wasn’t real, she enjoyed their flirting. “Are you asking about the top or the bottom?”

He groaned. “You’re killing me, Cathy. I can picture it. Never mind, what I’m thinking about is plenty vivid without you providing more of a description. Did you go snorkeling?”

“Yes.” She scanned another sheet. “There’s a boat at the hotel and it took us out to a wreck. It was great. The wreck is only a few feet below the surface. The water is so warm there, it’s easy to swim for hours. There are fish and interesting plants. I could have stayed a lot longer.”

“Sounds nice.”

It did, she thought. Someday she would actually try to get there. And to Paris and all the other places she’d told Stone she’d visited. In truth, she didn’t even have a passport.

“The hotel has a restaurant right on the water,” she continued. “Saturday we all went there. It’s very formal.”

“I’ll bet you wore something short and sexy.”

“Were you spying me?” she teased.

“I wish. Go on.”

“Well, dinner was fabulous. Fresh fish, great wine.” She turned to her laptop and double-checked the menu.

“They’re known for a flaming dessert, and we all decided to try it.

Our waiter was obviously new. He wheeled up a cart and began fixing the dessert right there at the table.

But there were six of us, and the pan he was using was too small.

I guess he didn’t want to do it in two batches or ask for help. ”

“I sense a disaster.”

“So did we, but we had no idea what was going to happen. So there he is, spooning the brandy over everything so he can light it. But he keeps putting on more and more. Then he lit the match.”

Stone groaned. “How much of the building went up in smoke?”

She laughed. “Not as much as you might think, but there was definitely a loud whoosh and a fireball. The entire room took a leap away from the flames. The waiter nearly burst into tears. And the dessert tasted a little burned around the edges.”

“I’ll hand it to you, Cathy—your life is very exciting.”

“That’s my goal,” she said lightly, determined he wouldn’t ever learn the truth. “Did you really stay in all weekend?”

“Sure.”

“Stone, there’s a whole world waiting for you out there. You should go explore it. You never go out.”

“I like my privacy.”