two part-time employees to nearly a dozen young men who were willing to fulfill a woman’s twenty-minute fantasy for ample compensation.
Austin had been amazed by the popularity of his business. Fulfilling fantasies, it seemed, was a very profitable commodity. Fantasy for Hire was so inundated with requests that he was turning away more customers than he had fantasies available.
Despite the fact that the business cut into too much of his personal life of late, it was hard to complain about Fantasy’s success. The company had served its purpose in supplementing his income to help pay for the school loans and bills he’d accumulated while embarking on another venture in commercial landscaping nearly four years ago.
His second business and ultimate career choice, McBride Commercial Landscaping, was finally lucrative and self-sufficient. Now, Austin wanted a life. One that didn’t include costumes and games, or bringing fantasies to life for hundreds of faceless women who clung to the illusions he displayed. He’d discovered the hard way that women found it difficult to separate him from the part he played. Once he performed for a customer, he couldn’t be sure if she wanted him for himself, or the private fantasy he’d created for her.
That’s why he’d established his own personal rule a few years ago, after being used for one woman’s particular fantasy. The customers he performed for were off limits, no matter how intriguing the woman. And he found Teddy Spencer plenty fascinating, from the sleek cut of her silky blond hair that brushed her shoulders with a slight under- curl, to her big brown eyes that combined wholesomeness with a heady dose of sensuality, to those shapely killer legs extending from the hem of her short, teal-colored business suit. Her cream-hued blouse was pure silk, and although it was buttoned primly enough, he could see the faintest outline of lace shaping her full breasts. She was a dynamite package of sophistication and casual elegance, a distinct kind of demeanor shaped by old money and ingrained from birth. Those obvious signs should have warned him off, but the awareness that had leaped to life between them while they’d danced was still too fresh in his mind.
Once the noise in the bar lessened, she lifted his shirt toward him with a wavering smile on her lips and the color of roses staining her smooth cheeks. “I, um, guess you’d like your clothes back?”
Her tentative question made him smile. The way she so easily blushed was refreshing-an endearing, old- fashioned quality he didn’t see very often these days. “It is getting a little drafty in here.” He took his shirt from her, and slipped into it. He didn’t bother to snap the front closed-it was a little late to worry about a “no shirt, no service” policy.
Grasping her hand, he helped her to her feet. The touch was simple, an everyday, gentlemanly gesture, but when his fingers slid against her soft palm he heard her breath catch and saw something in her eyes flare. Incredibly, his body flashed a reciprocating heat that spiraled low in his belly.
For the first time in years, Austin thought about mixing business with pleasure, until he saw the ruby and diamond ring staking a claim on her left hand. A woman didn’t wear a sparkly ring on that finger unless she was taken.
It was too bad, but just as well-considering the only thing he had in common with her fantasy cowboy was his love of outdoors. Take off all the western trappings, and he was just a simple, hardworking, blue-collar city man. Hardly a match for her.
“You were a great sport,” he said, distracting himself from the attraction racing between them.
She groaned, the sound rife with chagrin. “As if I had a choice.” She shot her two friends an I’m-going-to-get- you-for-this kind of look.
He grinned. “Happy birthday, Teddy.” Lifting her hand to his mouth, he brushed his lips over the back of her knuckles. A fleeting touch as soft as a butterfly’s wing. The gallant kiss wasn’t a service he normally provided for his customers, but he couldn’t stop the urge to give her one last thing to remember this evening by. “It really was my pleasure.”
He let her go, leaving her speechless, and gathered up the rest of his things. He’d taken two steps off the dance floor when she exclaimed, “Oh, your hat!”
He turned back around, and because she’d closed the distance between them, he tipped back the Stetson on her head with a flick of his finger. “I meant it when I said it was yours to keep. Compliments of Fantasy for Hire, and your girlfriends.” He gave her one last wink. “It’s up to you to explain to your boyfriend where you got it.”
She appeared startled by his last comment, but he didn’t give her time to respond. The gig was up. No more pretenses. Back to real life.
He headed toward the entrance of the Frisco Bay, and he didn’t look back.
He never did.
2
SHE COULDN’T STOPthinking about him.
Teddy leaned back in her office chair and flicked her finger along the corner of the white business card that stated simply, Compliments Of Fantasy for Hire. With a soft sigh, she stroked her thumb over the bold, black raised letters of Austin McBride’s name embossed on the left-hand corner. Beneath that was the business phone number, which was permanently etched in her mind.
She’d found the rectangular card as she’d set the Stetson on her bedroom dresser when she’d gotten home last night after her impromptu birthday bash. It had been tucked into the thin leather band around the crown, and since Laura and Brenda had insisted she wear the hat the entire evening, she hadn’t discovered it until later.
The card certainly wasn’t an invitation to call, not unless she wanted a repeat performance from Austin, which she didn’t. She recognized the business card for the piece of advertisement it was-referrals and word of mouth went a long way in making a business successful-so why had she slipped the card into her purse this morning instead of leaving it at home with her birthday Stetson?
She couldn’t stop thinking about him.
It was a pitiful excuse, but there it was. She reminded herself that she couldn’t afford a distraction like Austin McBride, fantasy extraordinaire, not when she was so close to achieving the goals she’d set for herself. Goals that included a solid, steady career and complete independence from the overbearing family that still hadn’t recovered from the shock that she’d broken off her engagement to the affluent Bartholomew Winston two years ago. Her plans didn’t include a man, especially one who fulfilled women’s fantasies on a regular basis.
She had to stop thinking about him. That’s all there was to it, she decided. Opening the middle drawer of her oak desk, she set the card on top of the other business cards stacked neatly in a small partition in the left-hand corner.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” she muttered, doubting those six words would be able to make her forget her gorgeous, green-eyed cowboy.
“Is that problem with your sight and mind going to affect your performance on the World Wide Travel account?”
Startled by the intrusion, Teddy pinched the tip of her index finger in her desk drawer just as it closed. Wincing, she glanced up and gave the man approaching her desk a barely tolerable look. Louden Avery, her boss and creative director at Sharper Image, considered himself above the courtesy of knocking or announcing his presence.
He strolled into her office as if he owned it, his pale blue eyes missing nothing, not the remnants of a half-eaten lunch that attested to the extra hour she’d worked without compensation, or the files and sketches on her desk that she was currently devoting time to, or even what she wore. The latter was the worst, because he took his time about it. By the time he finished his deliberate perusal, her jaw ached from gritting her teeth.
Keeping in mind that he was her boss, she summoned a pleasant smile she was certain didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Contrary to what you might have heard, my sight and mind are sound.”
“That’s good to know,” he replied with calculated mildness. “I wouldn’t want anything to impair your chances of getting that promotion.”
“The only thing that could hurt my chances is if someone more qualified than myself come along.” After all, they both knew she had the experience, along with a degree that gave her a distinct advantage over Fred Williams, the colleague she was up against.
Louden merely smiled. Rounding her desk, he propped his hip on the corner nearest her, unmindful of the
