Unbound by Kathryn Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

narrow shelves between the doors, giving it a very cozy feel. There’s an orange sheet fastened over one of the doorframes and the whole apartment smells good, like a combination of Asian spices, which immediately makes me realize I’m starving. No wonder. After all, I haven’t eaten anything substantial all day—only a few of the cookies that were on the table at the meeting.
    “It looks as if the men in London are being nice to you today,” Annie whispers in my ear, as we hang our jackets on the coat rack behind the door, which is so full that it looks like it’s going to collapse at any moment. She gives me a playful dig in the ribs and when I realize that she’s alluding to our conversation about Jonathan Huntington, and I go bright red again. But before I can answer, she’s already walking down the hallway to the door at the very end. “I’m going to see if Ian needs my help with the cooking. Show her to her room, would you, Marcus?”
    I stand there awkwardly in the corridor with Marcus the athlete. He must be about the same age as me, perhaps a little older, and he’s wearing a white t-shirt that shows the firmness of his impressive muscles, and tight jeans. He has a nice smile, and he’s attractive, I can’t deny it. But if I could choose which of the men in London I’d prefer to be particularly nice to me from now on I’d definitely still choose Jonathan Huntington …
    “OK, this way,” Marcus says, interrupting my thoughts. He leads me a little further along, to the door next to the one with the sheet hanging over it, and pushes it open. I look past him and am pleased to see a spacious room with a bed, a desk in front of the two windows, a closet, and several bookshelves, which are empty. It looks very clean and is obviously unoccupied. My suitcase is on a rug by the bed, on its own. “That’s your room for tonight, then,” he explains, although I had already guessed as much.
    I enter hesitantly and look around. It looks bare and not as lively as the hallway, with its posters and books, but that’s hardly surprising. “Has the room been empty for a while?,” I ask.
    “For just over a month,” Marcus replies. “Claire, who used to live here, moved back to Edinburgh. She worked for Huntington Ventures too, in the press department. It was a good job, actually, but she found something else. It was rather sudden. She had paid her rent for the month, and we just haven’t got around to looking for a new roommate.”
    I’m shocked by the news. So the woman from the press department Annie was talking about earlier was not just a colleague but also a friend? Is that why Annie was so insistent when she warned me about Jonathan Huntington? What does she know about him that she’s not telling me?
    “Is anything wrong?” Marcus asks. He looks concerned and I smile quickly, so as not to let on.
    “No, no,” I reassure him and go back into the hallway.
    Marcus points out three more doors, without opening them to show me the rooms behind them. “That’s my territory, Ian lives over there, and that’s the boss’s residence.” He says it affectionately. You can tell that the two of them get along well. “And here,” he opens the door next to my room “is the bathroom.”
    It’s not particularly big and it’s in urgent need of renovation but it’s got everything you might need and it’s clean—a bathtub with separate taps, which looks pretty antiquated, a rather worn shower curtain, a toilet, and various cabinets. Some of the cabinets are open and contain an impressive collection of men’s and women’s toiletries. There are also several stacks of towels of every color, clearly thrown together from various people’s belongings. A colorful beach towel, still wet, is hanging over the edge of the bathtub to dry. There’s a large picture on the wall opposite the bathtub, showing the sea at sunset. “And now we reach the heart of our kingdom, the kitchen,” Marcus continues, walking on to