Asha’s throat felt like there was a lump there.
“I…” She swallowed. “I was thinking of cutting it.”
The word had barely left her mouth before James said—
“No.”
It came out slightly louder than before, drawing more stares.
Then his expression changed almost at once, something tender moving beneath the possessiveness. He lowered his voice again.
“No,” he said again in a whisper. “Please don’t.”
The word ‘please’ from a man like him felt strangely intimate, like a gift.
“Don’t do that.”
His hand slipped away from her neck slowly.
But his eyes, God, his eyes promised things she did not fully understand. Things warm and dangerous and frightening. Pleasures she knew absolutely nothing about.
And sitting there in that dim bus with her sleeping son curled against her shoulder and this impossible man watching her asthough he had already imagined having her a hundred different ways, Asha realised something with sudden, terrifying clarity.
She wanted to know.
***
Somehow, her life became easier without her saying a word.
The leak in the tiny garret vanished after Asha’s landlady “happened” to have her nephew stop by. A mason with rough hands and cement dust in the creases of his clothes arrived one morning, muttered about rotten brickwork and spent three hours fixing the problem.
Asha had stood there confused.
“How—”
“Oh hush,” the landlady replied briskly. “Can’t have damp creeping in with a child sleeping there.”
But later, when she saw James nursing a pint while the mason slapped him on the shoulder with a grin, suspicion bloomed.
Then, came the other things.
A paper bag from the bakery was left near her doorstep with two cream cakes inside. She had overheard the boy asking Patrick what they tasted like. James happened to be sitting nearby.
A sack of potatoes and carrots turned up next.
A handbag appeared on her chair one evening. It looked expensive, made of plain brown leather with fine stitching.
She had stared at it in alarm.
Mavis had merely shrugged and shook her head while polishing glasses.
"Young ‘uns," she muttered, as if resigned to letting matters take their course..
Asha had flushed hot as she ran a trembling hand over butter-soft leather. She had sewn the torn handle together of her old satchel three separate times with dark thread.
Then, the books began appearing.
The first was a worn copy of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ left wrapped in newspaper beside her folded apron.
