No Love Allowed (Dodge Cove Trilogy #1) Read Online Free Page A

put, if the States had a Palace of Versailles, it would be the Parker Estate. To Caleb, the house
was nothing more than a tomb.
    Exhausted from all of Nathan’s big ideas, Caleb got out of the car and headed straight for the front door. He promised to give his cousin a call in the morning without looking back, while
Preston eased the Mustang into the detached garage off to the side of the main building. Caleb needed a nap. Too much had already happened in the span of a handful of hours. He just wanted to sleep
everything away and start fresh.
    The sound of the front door closing echoed through the house. He didn’t move from the black-and-white-tiled foyer with its massive crystal chandelier. It took the staff a week to clean the
thing—that was after his father rehired everyone he had fired the first few months after the funeral. Caleb closed his eyes and waited. He ignored the usual sounds of activity the staff
made—maids cleaning, the butler puttering about, the gardeners cutting grass—and focused on the sounds his father would make. A barked command or the shuffling of papers or the clomping
of expensive shoes on marble. When a minute passed with nothing, hope that his father was spending another late night at the firm blossomed in his chest. He let another minute pass before actually
making a run for the curved staircase to the second floor.
    He was halfway up when the words “Caleb, get in here!” stopped him.
    Tight fists at his sides and shoulders heavy, he cursed under his breath every step of the way to his father’s study. Of course the bastard wouldn’t have been anywhere else. From the
iciness of his tone, it seemed his father wasn’t having the best day either. Great. What could the man want?
    The door to the home office was ajar. Beyond it he imagined where Jordan Joseph “JJ” Parker, Esq. would be. Probably behind his desk. It was the barrier that had defined their
relationship over the years. The hunk of wood had been passed down too, from his father’s father all the way back to the first Parker. Caleb had played underneath it while JJ worked,
sometimes even falling asleep at the man’s feet. Now he hated it with a passion.
    “What are you waiting for?” came the stern question from inside.
    Squaring his shoulders, Caleb pushed the door open. He only went as far as beyond the threshold. No need to get any closer than he had to. The air crackled with mounting anger. He felt it like
static on his skin as he inventoried what could possibly have caused his father’s ire.
    Despite the windows, the wood paneling lent gloom to the space. The chairs and sofa were all dark masculine leather. Law books covered every shelf. And a twelve-point buck head was mounted above
the empty fireplace. The thing never failed to give him the creeps.
    “What took you so long?” JJ asked from behind his imposing mahogany desk in a gray three-piece Brioni suit and silver tie, his hair slicked back. Was it too much to ask that he defy
Caleb’s expectations by standing beside the minibar? Would it be wrong for the man to relax with a glass of the best scotch money could buy once in a while instead of reserving it for his
clients?
    His gaze drifted to his mother’s portrait, which hung on the far wall. Her dark curls fell over one shoulder. The light blue of her gown emphasized the paleness of her skin. An ache
settled in his chest. His father had commissioned the painting right after they had gotten married. His mother had been three months pregnant with him at the time. The smile on her face killed
Caleb.
    But for the painting, the house didn’t have any other pictures of her. It was the only clear image in Caleb’s mind. With every year that passed, his memories grew fainter, like the
eventual fading of a photograph exposed to sunlight. It shamed him that he couldn’t even remember the sound of her laugh anymore.
    As if reading his mind, his father said, “Margaret was always such a vibrant