Read Online Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly - Free Book Online Page A

hadn’t yet acclimated himself to the Eastern time zone and kept getting ravenous around ten o’clock, which was dinnertime in his part of the world. Tonight was no different, and, finding nothing to eat in his rented house—mostly because he hadn’t bothered to stock it with anything other than essentials like brandy and Scotch—he’d called a cab and asked the driver to take him someplace where he could get a decent meal, a decent drink, and some decent music.
    Of course, he’d done that his other nights here, as well, only to have the driver drop him a few blocks from the house and charge him outrageously for the trip. So tonight, Cole had specifically said he wanted to go somewhere besides Bardstown Road, and the driver had dropped him here, in a monstrous entertainment complex filled with nightspots, only one of which—the Hard Rock Café—he recognized. He’d chosen the nearest door and walked through it, barely noticing the name of the establishment. The place was nice—if a little more into Bourbon than he was himself—but it wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind.
    In spite of being three hours ahead of everyone here, he was sure he felt three times as exhausted, and he just hadn’t had it in him to look around for something else. Besides, the music playing was decent, and, even more important, there had been plenty of seats at the bar when he entered. So he’d loosened his necktie spattered like a Jackson Pollock painting and unbuttoned both the amber suit jacket and top two buttons of the plum-colored dress shirt he’d had on since before dawn, and he’d claimed one of the empty seats for his own.
    They hadn’t stayed empty for long, however, because within minutes of sitting down, the seats on each side of Cole had been occupied, by women whose names, like the nightclub/restaurant/bar’s, he could also no longer remember. Nor could he recall the name of the woman standing behind him who had crossed the room immediately behind the other two to press her spectacular breasts into his back— those Cole did remember. And probably would for some time. They’d chatted him up while he ate his dinner—making the enjoyment of it pretty much impossible—and consumed three drinks for his every one. Although he’d made numerous—polite—attempts to make clear his desire to be left alone, they were either too inebriated or clueless to take the hints. The same way the women just like them at a restaurant the night before had been. And the same way the women just like them at yet another bar the night before that had been.
    What a jerk he’d become, he thought. He was a disgrace to his gender. Whining about an overabundance of beautiful women who wouldn’t leave him alone. At this rate, he was going to have to trade in his membership card to Studs Unlimited for one from Sissies Anonymous instead.
    Within hours of his arrival in Louisville, though, the vultures had begun circling. And not just the fans, like the trio of beauties smothering him now, but the press, too. Not a single night had passed since he’d come to town that he hadn’t been spotted by someone from the local news and pressed for an interview—TV, newspapers, periodicals, websites, it didn’t matter. All of them wanted to talk to Cole. And Cole, mindful that publicity was always— always —a good thing, had happily talked to all of them. Or, at least, he had pretended it was happily. He just hoped he could keep it up. If the next two weeks were like the last three or four days had been, however, he was going to be stretched too thin to be good to anyone. Including Susannah and Silk Purse.
    Not that he wasn’t used to being recognized and courted by the press. No matter where he found himself, Cole was always surrounded by admirers. But he’d hoped his reputation hadn’t preceded him to Louisville yet. He had wanted his time here to be fairly anonymous for a while, so that he might enjoy a gradual immersion into the adventure