The Three Rs by Ashe Barker Read Free Book Online Page A

store when Cain Parrish eventually rumbles me. I’m good at concealing my illiteracy, I’ve developed a raft of excellent coping and concealing mechanisms, but up until now, I’ve never been transplanted away from all that’s familiar and expected to take charge of a busy office. For Christ’s sake…
    The van pulls up in a parking bay at the foot of the steps leading from the front entrance. Cain drops down to the tarmac from the driver’s seat and stands for a moment looking up at the block. I watch him surreptitiously for a few moments, admiring his sexy black jeans and white T-shirt, perfectly filled out by a lean, chiseled torso and slim hips. He really is a very attractive man when he’s not being rude. Well, there’s rude and there’s rude, I suppose. I don’t like him to call me a liar or a gold-digger, but he can offer to spank me any time he likes.
    He knows I live on the seventh floor, and I see him counting the rows of windows. On impulse I open my living room window and wave to him. He waves back, and I think he may have smiled, though it’s impossible to be sure from this distance. He points to the door, so I nod and duck back inside to buzz him in.
    A couple of minutes later there’s a knock at the door of my flat, so I call out for him to come in.
    As soon as he enters, it’s as though the all the air has been sucked out of the room. My flat is small, but he totally fills it in a way I never have. He dominates the space merely by standing in it. He looks around him, evaluating and assessing. I stand in the entrance to my kitchenette, my kettle in my hand, trying to suck enough moisture into my mouth to be able to offer him a cup of tea.
    There’s a pile of boxes in the middle of my living room. One or two contain the few clothes, CDs and other bits and pieces I want to keep with me. Most of the boxes, though, contain my extensive collection of paints, brushes, spare canvases and several works in progress. I also have an impressive collection of completed canvases which I’m thinking might appeal to a new crop of car boot sale enthusiasts in Northumberland. Cain’s gaze falls on these, his brow creasing as he cranes his neck to see the contents. He crouches alongside one and starts to flick through the canvases.
    “These are nice.” He glances up at me, waiting for some sort of explanation, more information about the artwork I seem intent on carting off to Berwick with me.
    “Thank you. I like to paint. I’m not really very good, but…”
    “Oh, I don’t know. They look great to me. Are they all your work?”
    “Yes. I sell some, when I can. At car boot sales mostly.”
    “You might not have much time for painting, at least not for a while.”
    There he goes, not five minutes in my company and he’s telling me what I will and won’t do. I stiffen immediately, and set my shoulders stubbornly. “I’ll make time.”
    He grins at me, and I get the worrying sense he’s actually enjoying my defiance. Deliberately provoking it even. Still smiling at some private joke he seems disinclined to share, he stands up and hoists the biggest of my boxes into his arms.
    “Yes, I think you probably will. I’ll start loading your stuff while you do whatever you have in mind for that kettle. Black coffee for me, no sugar.”
    * * * *
    The journey to Berwick passes pleasantly enough, given the distance. It’s a shortish drive up the M62 to join the A1, then the route is all motorway until we get north of Newcastle. The A1 becomes a normal road beyond that, but still our progress is brisk. Our conversation is amiable, and I get the impression Mr Parrish has decided to play nicely today. I’m relieved. Having given up my job, I’m short on alternative options now, so I don’t want to argue with my new business partner if I can help it. And if he goads me, I know I won’t be able to stop myself reacting.
    Cain pulls into some services at Durham and we both need the loo. He’s waiting for me as I