Read Accounting for Cole (Natural Beauty) for Free Online Page A

air of finality. “Let me buy you dinner. The bar downstairs has a full menu.”
    “Didn’t know that, but I can buy my own dinner.”
    He nodded. “Yeah, you can , but why should you? Come on, either I spend my extra money on industrial-strength foundation garments, or I can buy a pretty lady a sandwich. I’d rather buy the sandwich.”
    Sandwich . I closed my eyes and emitted a little moan before I could help it. Something with bread and cheese and a heap of meat.
    He laughed that chesty, thunderous laugh and extended a hand to me. “I know that look. Miss Macy, I do believe you’re being starved. I’m buying you fries, too.”
    “No fries!” I said, perhaps too sharply.
    He raised a brow. “Got an aversion to fries? Didn’t mean to offend you. Whoa! Why are you going all pale?”
    “It’s just…” I closed my eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. I thought of safe things like lime sorbet and ginger ale. I imagined I was breathing in the crisp air of the mountains, and when Cole’s hand squeezed my knee, I added cold showers to the list, too.
    I opened my eyes to find him kneeling in front of me, concern written all over his face.
    I swallowed. “Sorry. Something that happened tonight at the club. Turned me off of them for a while. I might even go on a diet and give ’em up for good.” I made a blech face. “Lord knows I need to.” I took the hand he offered and stood.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Nothing. Just the typical blathering of a woman dissatisfied with the way she looks, but too lazy to actually do anything about it.”
    He gave me a slow, assessing look from the top of my Barbra Streisand pageboy, down my soda-splotched torso, past my hips, and down to my conservative flats. He nudged the trashcan out of the way of the door with his foot and pulled me out into the hall. “Miss Macy, you’re a little crazy.”
    “Now that’s a new one. Been called a lot of things, but never that. In fact, I’ve been told I’m the most staid, predictable person you’ll ever meet.”
    Oh, if they could have seen me then, following a female impersonator I hardly knew around a hotel and letting him buy me food.
    He chuckled and stabbed the elevator button. “I re-state my claim. You’re crazy. Maybe more than a little if you really think that’s true, but don’t worry.” He wrapped an arm around my sagging shoulders and gave me a platonic squeeze, chafing my right arm with his hand and narrowly missing my breast.
    I froze, and imagined my eyes must have been bulging. There was no way he could have known what he was doing to me. By the end of the night at the rate I was going, I figured I’d probably have to trash my panties.
    “I thrive on crazy, or else I wouldn’t lip-synch in a skirt every night or seriously be considering a reality television show offer.”
    As soon as we stepped into the elevator and he’d stabbed the lobby button, I turned my face up to his. “Really? Reality television? Like, major channel?”
    He shrugged and leaned his butt against the back railing. “I don’t know if it’s considered major, but it’s certainly a big national one.”
    “And you don’t want to do it?”
    “I like keeping my private life private, not that I have much of one. There’s my son to think about. He probably wouldn’t care, though. He might even think it was cool seeing his dad on television, but I’m trying to snatch some normalcy where I can get it. Can’t do that with cameras on my ass twenty hours per day.”
    “I imagine not.”
    “Still, it’s tempting. Think I should do it?”
    “You’re asking me?”
    He bobbed his shoulders. “I could use some advice from a self-described staid person. What say you?”
    “I think America would love you.”
    “But?”
    “But you’re right. Privacy is a concern. I value mine immensely.” And I didn’t particularly relish the idea of every woman in America ogling him. I knew I didn’t have a chance, but figured, hey—no