Playboy Bachelors: Remodelling the Bachelor

She took hold of his hands as if that was all she needed to discern whether or not he was telling her the truth. Fingers wound tightly around his palms.

“No, really, you’ll be there?” She nodded absently toward the screen. “You know how you get when you get involved in your work.”

“I’ll be there,” he promised, wiping any trace of a smile from either his voice or his face.

Lily sighed, as if getting him to agree had been an ordeal. “Good. I want you to meet him.”

“Him?” Philippe eyed his mother warily. “There’s another him?” He should have known there would be. It had been, what, five months since the last one had been sent packing? That was a long dry spell for his mother.

“Yes,” Lily replied joyously. She’d moved on to the rear of the room to gaze out at the backyard it faced. All three houses shared it as if it was one large yard instead of the culmination of three. “You need a gazebo, Philippe,” she decided and then, glancing back at him, she waved her hand. “Get that look off your face, I know what you’re thinking.”

He made it a point to be as laid-back as she was dramatic. “I sincerely doubt that.”

She was not his mother for nothing. “You’re thinking, here we go again.”

He laughed, impressed. “Very good. I guess I’m getting too predictable.”

She didn’t waste words on defending her past choices. She was a woman who had always believed in moving forward. “This time, it’s different.”

And where had he heard that before? Philippe mused. He went back to focusing on his work, uttering a tolerant, “Of course it is.”

“It is,” she insisted, crossing to his desk and presenting herself behind his monitor so that he was forced to look at her. She clasped her hands together and resembled a schoolgirl in the throes of her first major crush. “Kyle is everything I’ve been looking for in a man. Funny, smart, youthful and vigorous—”

Philippe shot his hand up in the air to halt the flow of words. “If that word doesn’t apply to the way he polishes your silverware, Mother, I really don’t want to hear about it.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh Philippe, you know what your trouble is?”

Yes, he had a mother who had never grown up. “I’m sure you’ll tell me,” he replied patiently.

She took his chin in her hand, lowering her face to his. “You’re not at all like your father.”

Moving his chair back, he eyed his mother. “I thought that was a good thing. You left my father because he gambled away the floor from under your feet,” he reminded her.

She refused to dwell on the bad. It was one of her attributes. “But first he swept me off those feet, Philippe. He had this zest for life—”

“Otherwise known as Texas hold ’em.”

“Oh Philippe,” she sighed mightily, “you were born old.”

He didn’t see it as a failing. If anything, it kept him from making his mother’s mistakes and leading with his heart instead of his head. “One of us had to be and someone had to be there for the boys.”

The hurricane stopped moving. Lily’s expression turned serious. “Was having me as a mother so terrible?”

He wouldn’t allow his mind to stray to the hundred and one shortcomings his mother possessed. The bottom line was that she meant well in her own way and she did love them. Of that he was certain. So he smiled at her and said, “You had your moments.”

“I had my hours, Philippe, my days,” she corrected majestically. “And I always loved all you boys to distraction.” Long, slender fingers touched his cheek the way she did when he was small and needed her comforting. “I still do.”

“I know that.”

She dropped her hand to her side. The movement was accompanied by the sound of gold bracelets greeting one another. “I’m a passionate woman, Philippe. I need passion for my art. I use passion,” she insisted.

This was a conversation they’d had before. Several times. “I know that, too, Mother.”

She kissed his cheek, then rubbed away the streak of vivid red from his skin. Any minor disagreement that might have arisen was terminated before it had a chance to form. “Is there a reason for this handiwork you’re having done?”

“Yes,” he replied simply, “the bathroom sink is cracked.”

“Oh.” She looked exceptionally disappointed. “I was hoping that it was being done because you were finally settling down.”

Philippe addressed the phrase in its strictest sense. “I’m the most settled out of the three of us,” he reminded her.

The drama returned as Lily sighed and resumed her restless patrol of the small converted bedroom. “With a woman, Philippe, settling down with a woman.” She retraced her steps and presented herself before him again. “Have you been seeing anyone?”

“Only you when I’m lucky.”

Lily closed her eyes and sighed. “Use that charm on someone else, Philippe. Someone who matters.”

Momentarily surrendering, he rose to his feet. He just wasn’t going to get any work done with his mother here, bombarding him with questions. He might as well enjoy this visit.

“You always matter, Mother. Want some coffee?” he suggested.

She looked as if she was going to say yes, then surprised him by shaking her head.

“I don’t want to take you away from what you’re doing.” She took exactly one step toward the threshold before she continued talking. “Just wanted to invite you to the show and to see if you had any women stashed here.” The expression on her face told him that she hoped he’d do better on her next unexpected visit. “Your father always had women stashed here and there.”

There wasn’t very much he remembered about his parents’ union when it had been official, although his mother had taken his father back for a short time between her second and third husbands. But they hadn’t been married then. “Before you got engaged?”

Lily moved a stray hair from her cheek. “No, after we were married. After gambling and family, women were your father’s primary addiction.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if it had no impact on her whatsoever. Lily might have been a cauldron of emotion, but she was never judgmental.

Philippe blew out a breath. “Not much of a prize,” he commented.

But his mother’s eyes were shining like two bright jewels. “Vigorous, Philippe. He, too, was very vigorous.”

It was going to take him days to get the image she’d planted out of his head, Philippe thought. If he were still at a young and impressionable age, that just might have scarred him for life.

But then, if his mother’s actual lifestyle hadn’t done it while he was growing up, he sincerely doubted that anything at this stage possibly could. Flamboyant, eccentric and completely unorthodox were all terms that were synonymous with the name Lily Moreau and he’d survived his childhood to become a relatively well-adjusted, successful man. If his house was a little empty at times, well, everyone paid some kind of price in life. Being alone was his.

Besides, it was a great deal more preferable than constantly making the wrong choices.

His mother still hovered over him. “I worry about you most of all, Philippe.”

That was the last thing he wanted. For her to worry or, worse, to do something about that worry.

He had only one response for that. “Don’t.”

She sniffed, taking offense. “I may not be Norman Rockwell’s idea of the perfect mother, but I’m still a mother.”

He knew she meant well. Philippe softened. “Norman Rockwell’s been gone for a long time, I don’t think you need to worry about him. And I appreciate the concern, Mother, but I am a grown man. We march to different drummers. You taught me that, remember?”