Bachelor Auction by Darah Lace

Don’t take things at face value and other people’s opinion not as important as your own. Yes, Bachelor Auction has life lessons nicely hidden within its story.

Marcus Preston wants a relationship built on love and trust, but the woman he wants made it clear long ago she's only interested in fun and games. Yet, moving on proves difficult when no one else can erase the memory of the night they shared last summer.
Charlotte Reese doesn't believe in love, marriage, or happily ever afters. An occasional one-night stand is all she needs to take the edge off her loneliness and enhance the bad-girl image she uses to discourage commitment-seeking men—especially Marcus, the only man to melt both her body and her heart melt.
When Charlotte wins Marcus hot off the block of Houston’s Most Eligible Bachelor Auction and they’re forced to spend the weekend together, she seizes the opportunity to seduce him and extinguish the attraction sizzling between them once and for all. But for Marcus, it’s all or nothing. He won’t be seduced. Instead, he’ll show Charlotte she has more to offer a man than sex.

Charlotte Reese has grown up watching her father use people. He schemed and swindled anyone he could to gain money and power. He used her mother in his schemes and then cheated on her without hiding it or feeling any remorse. Charlotte’s mother never stood up to her father and became an alcoholic to hide from these problems. While Charlotte has grown up in high society, she has a very jaded view of men. Even as she is working on her PHD in psychology, she maintains a party girl image to keep men away, not believing or trusting in “love.” Her view of men is re-enforced by her father recently being convicted and jailed for corporate espionage and embezzlement against Preston Enterprises and Marcus having accused her of helping him.

Marcus Preston is one of four brothers who run Preston Enterprises. He has known Charlotte since she started college with his youngest brother more than five years ago. And last year at the Mayor’s garden party, they had a ‘tryst’ out in the garden (never fully explained) that ended with him pushing her away. He has fought his attraction to her all this time believing she is a party girl and would hurt his reputation. When the problems started with her father’s company, both Charlotte and her best friend Molly were suspected of spying for her father. Now he feels guilty over both the “garden party incident” and thinking she was stealing for her father. But he wants a serious relationship, with marriage and children in the future, not a fling with the party girl…

Molly, engaged to his older brother, and his brothers have noticed something between them and set them up. At the Bachelor Auction that is part of the annual fundraiser for the local Children’s Hospital, the brothers make sure Marcus is up on auction and Molly ups Charlotte’s bid to an outrageous amount so she wins Marcus. The brothers and Molly have put together a weekend package to Aspen with lots of publicity for both Preston Enterprises and the Children’s Hospital. Marcus is pressured into going since the company needs the good PR after the recent scandal. Charlotte goes for the benefit of the Children’s Hospital where she has volunteered for years. Yet both have their own goals for the weekend: Charlotte of a fling to get Marcus out of her system, Marcus of convincing her not all men are only after sex, that they have a chance.

After many ups and downs, false starts, and some steamy scenes that lead to emotional confrontations, Bachelor Auction is a good romance too. I loved that Marcus was all for a real relationship; but he took long enough to see the real Charlotte even with all the hints he keep finding. Charlotte’s refusal to trust love or even men really is a little stereotyped but is how many girls often react. The one thing I found annoying in Bachelor Auction was how the “garden incident” kept being referred to but was never fully explained, never really found out what happened. This got on my nerves after a while, and I just wanted the story told already. But overall Bachelor Auction was a pleasure.