Janelle Denison: Christmas Fantasy

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 papers resting on the edge. Bracing his left forearm on his thigh, he leaned toward her, though his gaze was busy taking in the project laid out in front of her. “How is the preliminary sketch coming on the World Wide Travel logo?”

“Just fine.” Louden liked to feel superior, and she had no doubt that his position on her desk had been chosen for such a purpose. She forced herself to look up at him, determined to meet his gaze. “It’ll be on your desk first thing in the morning, two days before deadline.”

“My, aren’t you efficient.” Using a slim finger, he turned the sketch she was working on toward him, taking in the rough draft of a globe with connecting W’s, the initials the travel agency had requested. “And so talented, too. It would be a shame to see all this creativity go to waste.”

His mocking tone chafed her nerves, but she didn’t let it show. “Since you weren’t expecting the project on your desk until Friday, is there some other reason you stopped by?”

He stared at her for a long moment, obviously not caring for the way she was trying to dismiss him. “According to my secretary, you haven’t RSVP’d for the Christmas party, which is this Saturday. Certainly you weren’t going to miss the biggest bash of the year?”

She resented the sanctimonious way he chastised her. She hadn’t planned on attending the party, mainly because she didn’t relish the thought of having any outside-of-the-office contact with Louden, but he was making it difficult to refuse.

“I’ve been so busy, I forgot to respond.” The excuse was handy, and served its purpose. “Consider this my confirmation.”

“For one or two?”

Uncomfortable with the direction of their conversation, her mind grappled for another convenient excuse…and came up blank.

His pale gaze slid pointedly to the ring on her finger. “Two,” she said quickly. “There’ll be two of us attending the Christmas party.”

Surprise registered in his eyes, and was quickly replaced by skepticism. “Ah, we finally get to meet the elusive boyfriend.”

What had been an innocent white lie to keep Louden at bay was now becoming a tangled mess. He hadn’t pressed her, accepting the fact that she had a boyfriend in the beginning, but as the months wore on, she suspected he had his doubts. This was the first time he’d made any direct reference to his suspicions.

“What’s his name?” he asked casually.

She stared at Louden, her mind freezing. “Uh, excuse me?” The phrase bought her some time, but not much, she knew. She hadn’t thought to create a name for her fictitious boyfriend.

“Your boyfriend,” he repeated slowly. “He does have a name, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yes, of course he does.” A name, Teddy. Pick a name! At the moment she couldn’t even think of one of her three older brother’s names!

“Then what is it?” he persisted. “My secretary needs it for the place settings. We can’t have just anybody finagling their way into the party.”

Teddy’s chest hurt and her head swam. When she finally realized that she was holding her breath, she let it out in a rush. “Well, maybe I should check with…him. We’d talked about the Christmas party, but quite honestly, he didn’t actually say yes, so we probably should discuss it further.” She offered Louden a placating smile.

Louden’s eyes narrowed slightly, and a smile curled the corner of his mouth.

Very casually, he picked up her hand, the one with the diamond and ruby band, and ran his finger over the embedded jewels. She tried not to visibly shudder at his touch.

“You know, Theodora,” he said, deliberately using her full name as a way of maintaining his superiority. “For a woman who claims she’s committed, you sure do have a hard time remembering the simplest things about your beau. Maybe he’s not as important as you’d like everyone to believe.”

She yanked her hand from his grasp. “That’s ridiculous.”

A pale eyebrow lifted, expressing those doubts.

Desperation coiled within her, and she seized the only name in her mind. “Austin,” she blurted.

He looked taken aback by her outburst, and somewhat confused. “Pardon?”

She summoned as much confidence as she could and injected it into her voice. “My boyfriend, his name is Austin.” The threads of her white lie were taking on a decidedly black cast. Hell, since she’d incriminated Austin this much, she decided to go all the way and worry about the consequences later. “Austin McBride.”