Read Online Accounting for Cole (Natural Beauty) by Holley Trent - Free Book Online

so, but thank you.”
    His smile drooped at the corners, but he recovered and held out his hand to shake. “Thank you for keeping me company, Miss Macy.”
    I put my hand in his and let him give it a gentle caress. “Thank you for being a gentleman.”
    “I’m always a gentleman. Except when I’m a lady.” He pressed soft, warm lips to mine so briefly I hardly had time to respond. Then he closed the door.
     

CHAPTER SIX
    The drive home that morning was rather sobering for all three of us ladies, although for me in a different way than my still-inebriated companions. I couldn’t stop thinking about Cole’s wish for a real date, and the smell of him on his shirt was a constant reminder of what wasn’t going to happen. Further, what he’d said about me changing my style was haunting me. He’d meant my hair, but I couldn’t help but to feel like it was a metaphor for other things in my life, too. Hadn’t I asked him why he’d given up on pursuing an acting career as if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world for him? What was natural for me ? I wasn’t even sure anymore.
    Well, sometimes uncertainty is enough. It’s all you need to make a change, even if you don’t know where you’re going to end up. I knew I was unhappy with my day-to-day monotony, even if I couldn’t pinpoint why. I figured it was time for a shake-up.
    So, several weeks later, I stood in my office packing up files and shoving long stretches of computer cords into open cardboard boxes.
    Mercedes stood in the doorway scowling with her arms crossed over her chest, glowering at me. “You sure you won’t change your mind?”
    “Positive.” I shoved the old lady cardigan I usually kept on my chair back into one of the boxes. That cardigan had probably been acting as the strongest form of birth control available over the years. Nobody would touch me with a twenty-foot pole when I was wearing it.
    “I don’t like that Ryan guy,” she said, watching me toss my nameplate into the trashcan.
    “He’s annoying, I’ll give you that, but he’ll pay his rent on time. He’s the only drug-prescribing psychiatrist in the county. He’s probably rolling in the dough.”
    “I don’t like the way he looks at me.”
    “Yeah, he’s probably judging you.”
    We stood in silence staring at each other for a while. Mercedes broke first and flicked her hair towel at me. “You know, your forehead looks really big without the bang.”
    My hand automatically went to the headband I wore to keep my hair out of my eyes. No one warned me how much growing out bangs sucked.
    Mercedes reached across the desk and pushed my hand away. “No, it’s good. You should feel lucky. Some people think a high forehead is a sign of wisdom.”
    “Really? And what do you think?”
    “I think you get wise by falling on your ass and fucking up a lot, but the forehead can’t hurt.”
    She gave me one last wave and then left me alone to tend to whomever it was up front calling out her name.
    I sighed in relief that there wasn’t going to be a tearful goodbye and picked up one of the boxes to carry out to my car. Apparently I was staring down into the box instead of out to the parking lot, because immediately after I pushed the door out, I walked smack into a column of man whose frozen drink, which had been held at chest-height, smashed into the bit of my chest exposed above the box’s rim.
    “You’re a bit sticky, sweetheart,” Cole said, extricating the cup of remaining slushy drink from my box and flicking the bits of sugary slush off his hand.
    I put down my box, and shook out the front of my tee shirt. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said.
    “True enough. That was once my favorite shirt, by the way.”
    “Mine now. Not to sound rude,” I said, taking the cup from him and tossing it into the trash can inside my office, “but, what are you doing here?”
    He didn’t look offended. He just bent down to pick up my box and made a