Fantasy for Hire

Dragging a hand through her disheveled hair, she inwardly winced as she remembered the fiasco that erupted in her father’s study after her very indelicate declaration. “My parents totally freaked out, but I’d never felt so liberated as I did in that moment. And from then on, I vowed that I’d depend on no one but myself. I moved out of the house, much to my parents’ dismay, and I’ve been supporting myself ever since. I’ve totally disgraced them, but the move bolstered my confidence.” She watched Austin slowly move closer, and her chin rose in a stubborn show of bravado. Unfortunately, her insecurities couldn’t be so easily masked. “I like my independence. I’ve struggled for it. I’ve earned it, and I don’t want to give it up.”

Very gently, he used his thumb and forefinger and lowered her chin back down, as if silently telling her she had no reason to be defensive with him. “Who said anything about giving it up?” Before she could issue a response, he continued. “What makes you think you can’t have a relationship and a career? What makes you think I’d ever try and stifle you like your parents and Bart have tried to do?”

His barrage of questions made her head spin. His nearness made her long to put her arms around his neck, cling to his strength, and forget about every one of her doubts, uncertainties, and fears. “Because that’s what ultimately happens. I’ve been through it personally, and I’ve seen my brothers do it to each of their wives—”

He scoffed, a harsh sound that cut through her protests. “Oh, you’d be surprised, Teddy. If I learned anything last night, it’s that your sisters-in-law are hardly the submissive types. They let your brothers think they have the upper hand and put on a good show for your mother and father, but every one of them is an independent, self-sufficient woman who seems to have found an equal balance with her husband.”

His insightful view astounded her, and left her speechless.

He took advantage of her wide-eyed stare. “You have nothing to prove to me, Teddy,” he said. “Nothing at all. I love you just the way you are, stubborn, independent and determined to grasp that promotion you want so badly. And I’d never do anything to change the person you are, or interfere with what’s important to you.”

She heard his words, and really wanted to believe them, but couldn’t stem the rise of panic that flooded her…a deep-rooted fear that his understanding would wane in time.

She thought into the future, to where a committed relationship with Austin would lead, and her doubts were confirmed. “But you want a wife, and babies.”

“Yeah, I do,” he admitted. “Eventually.”

“I don’t want that,” she said, issuing the denial out of self-preservation.

“Don’t you?” His deep voice was calm and soothing, but his eyes pierced her with a perception that shook her to the depths of her soul.

She paced away from him, the intensity of her feelings for Austin deluging her with more unsettling thoughts. Her deep longing for him seemed to eclipse her lifelong need for independence and made her wonder what her life would be like if she eventually married Austin and gave him the babies he wanted.

And that’s where everything became a jumbled, conflicting mess in her mind. She’d been taught that women were supposed to be complacent, dutiful wives, and when babies came along, women stayed at home, falling into a maternal role that didn’t include the career Teddy had spent years working toward.

Dread balled in her stomach, overriding sense or reason. “No, I don’t want that,” she forced herself to say, and tried her best to believe those words. Sinking into the cushions of the couch, she beseeched Austin with her gaze. “All this has taken me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting to fall for you. And I don’t think I can be what you ultimately need in your life.” The statement came out as a tight, aching whisper.

His mouth stretched into a grim line. “You’re not even willing to try.”

“I’m willing to give you what I can.” She hated the uncertain quiver in her voice. Hated even more the fear that ruled her emotions.

“A no-strings affair,” he said, his tone flat.

Right now, it was all she could offer him. “Yes.”

“No way. It’s not enough.” His expression turned angry. “I’ve been used like that before, and I won’t be anyone’s part-time plaything again.”

Hearing the heated condemnation in his voice, and suspecting he, too, had been played for a fool in the past, she regarded him cautiously. “What are you talking about?”

“The last relationship I was in, if you could even call it that, was with a woman who was out for a good time, and I was it. Her name was Diane, and she was a Fantasy for Hire customer. Just like you, she was looking for a personal fantasy.”

Teddy’s heart sank as she realized the correlation between her own behavior and this other woman’s. Beyond Austin’s anger, she also heard the hurt in his deep voice, and realized that this other woman had trampled on his emotions and had given him a few insecurities of his own.

“She used me, Teddy, and when the affair came down to something more serious for me, she blew me off.” Tension bunched the muscles across his chest and in his arms as he stood on the other side of the coffee table. “Bottom line, I wasn’t good enough for her, and the life she led. Not on a permanent basis anyway.”

She winced at the lash of his words, and the bitterness seeping into his tone. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice tight and aching.

“Yeah, me too.” His cold gaze held hers relentlessly. “So no, I don’t do convenient affairs, Teddy. I need some kind of commitment when I’m serious about a woman. No matter how old-fashioned it may seem, when I fall in love, I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy. And I expect the same from the woman I’m involved with.”

Her throat closed up, making speech impossible. His rare declaration of fidelity and devotion was what women dreamed of, and Teddy’s heart swelled with so many regrets, so many fears…and the overwhelming need to believe him, and accept his precious offering. The upheaval of emotions swamped her, pulling her in two different directions.

Letting out a low sigh of defeat, he headed for the hallway that led to her bedroom—to gather up his things, she suspected—then stopped before disappearing. “And just for the record, Teddy, I’ve never told another woman that I was in love with her. You’re the first, and I didn’t make the declaration lightly.”

She closed her eyes, listening to the rustling sounds drifting from down the hall, and tried to convince herself that it was best that things ended now, instead of when the relationship became more complicated. More demanding.

Her heart twisted unmercifully, rejecting the convenient excuse she desperately tried to cling to. Emotionally, she was already over her head—and the realization was alarming.

He returned to the living room minutes later, changed into his damp clothes, duffel bag in hand. “You’re still hanging on to the fantasy, Teddy,” he said, his gaze uncompromising as it held hers. “I’m offering you the real thing, and I won’t accept anything less from you, either.”