The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (21 page)

“Oh, tell us more,” his mother said, pushing
her brown hair—sprinkled with slivers of silver—away from her
oval-shaped face. “It’s always so exciting to hear how lovers
meet.” She leaned into her husband who tightened his arm around her
and kissed the top of her head.

“Oh, we’re not—”

“Are you a native of Granite Falls, Tashi?”
Tashi’s denial of their being lovers was cut short by his father.
“I’ve lived there most of my life and I don’t think I know of any
Hollands in the area.”

Adam held his breath, but he could feel Tashi
breathing deeply and calmly next to him. She was tapping into the
power of control he’d taught her.

“No, Mr. An—” She paused and swallowed. “No,
Alessandro. I’m not from here. I’m from Ohio.”

Blood pounded against Adam’s temples. She’d
just told his father where she was from within two minutes after
meeting them, via satellite, when she’d spent two weeks with Adam
in total silence and secrecy.

“Where in Ohio?” His father continued his
interrogation.

“I was born in Cleveland. My mother died when
I was four. She left me in the care of my uncle. He moved us to
Sebring after she died.”

Adam tilted his head and gave her an
incredulous glance as she divulged the facts methodically and
objectively as if she were talking about someone else.

“I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your
mother when you were so young, practically still a baby,” his
mother remarked in a sympathetic tone. “But it seems as if your
uncle did quite an excellent job raising you. You’re so poised and
elegant. He must be very proud of you.”

Adam watched a blush flitter across Tashi’s
cheeks as she said, “Thank you, Arabella. I think he was, up until
he died two years ago.”

“
Tu cara bambina
,” his mother
murmured, crossing her arms over her heart.

“Where was your father?” Alessandro enquired,
pushing forward in his seat. “Why wasn’t he taking care of you? Did
he pass away also, or was he just an absentee father?”

“Dad!” Adam said through clenched teeth as he
watched Tashi stiffen as if someone had dealt her a sharp blow.

He glared at his father, knowing exactly what
he was thinking. Both Claire and Denise had been emotionally
damaged from their abusive relationships, but that didn’t matter to
his father. They were both from affluent families in the
community—good stock for breeding Andreas babies—Alessandro’s top
priority for marriage. Sometimes Adam wondered if he’d forgotten
how he and his mother had met.

“You don’t have to answer,” he whispered in
Tashi’s ear.

“
Perché lei non dovrebbe rispondere? Lei
ha qualcosa da nascondere, Adamo?”

Adam closed his eyes as his father asked if
Tashi had something to hide. “I knew this chat was a bad idea. This
is the reason I—”

“I don’t know who my father is, Mr. Andreas—”
Tashi’s tear-smothered voice cut him off in midsentence. “My mother
was never married, and she died before I was old enough to ask. My
uncle didn’t know his identity either. He said my mother never told
him. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, or anything. I don’t know.
I’m sorry.” Tears brimmed her eyes. Her lips trembled, and her
hands, clenched tightly on her lap, were shaking
uncontrollably.

“
Abbastanza!
Mamma, papà, non si sa
di Tashi è qui, o nelle Granite Falls. Apprezzerei il vostro
silenzio. Per favore.”
Adam pressed Tashi closer to his side as
he requested that his parents keep her presence in his home, and in
Granite Falls to themselves.

The muscles in his father’s jaws tightened.
“
Terrò silenziosa per ora, ma—

“
Grazie.
Addio
.” He pushed the
end button on the remote, then gathered Tashi into his arms,
pressing her tear-soaked face into his chest. “Tashi. I’m sorry.
They’re very family-oriented. They want to make sure I’m making the
right decision, especially after—” He sighed. “I should not have
subjected you to their badgering.
Perdonami, cara
.”

“I killed a man. I shot him in the back of
his head two times. I just shot him in cold blood. He had a
family—little kids. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to. He was
wearing earphones and listening to his iPod when I shot him. I just
shot him and pushed him out of the car.”

The choked words staggered out of her mouth
like an ominous drum echoing from deep inside a cold empty tomb.
She clutched the front of his shirt and began to sob hysterically
as if the weight of the entire universe had just come crashing down
on her.

Adam’s mouth froze open as the shock of
Tashi’s confession reverberated through him. Ice slowly seeped
through his veins as he floundered in an agonizing maelstrom of
anguish and despair.

Tashi had just admitted to committing murder.
Cold-blooded murder. Her troubles were far worse than he could have
ever imagined. She was a fugitive from the law, and he’d been
harboring her. Thank God his parents hadn’t witnessed her
confession, or his father with his rash temperament would have had
the authorities storming the estate already and hauling Tashi off
in cuffs.

Adam tightened his arms about her as she
cried out her guilt and pain against his heart.
Take stock
.
Take stock
, he cautioned his mind as it catapulted toward a
judgmental zone.

He swallowed the groan that rose in his
throat, and forced logic into his thoughts. Knowing what he knew
about Tashi so far—what she’d told him about her upbringing and
about people looking for her, granted she hadn’t lied to him—Adam
surmised that she’d had no other choice but to do what she did.

No wonder she’d been jittery that day at the
café, and then at the supermarket when she thought he’d been
following her. Sine then, all the signs had been there: anxiety,
paranoia, withdrawal from society, inability to make friends—or
decision not to—the tensing each time he’d probed a little, the
fear in her eyes each time she looked at him.

The first time she’d ever seemed at ease
around him was the day she happened upon him in the garden and had
taken off her clothes to join him in yoga. That Tashi—Little Eve,
as pure and innocent as a newborn baby—had emerged from her cocoon
and had been dancing with him for the past three days, until today
when his father’s questions exhumed the old Tashi who was tarnished
with the ghastly crime of her past.

As the enormity of Tashi’s situation
registered in his brain, Adam knew without a doubt that the people
from whom she was hiding were notoriously dangerous, so dangerous
that she’d had to kill one of them in order to escape their
clutches. It was a simple case of kill or be killed. What she was
feeling, what she was sobbing over now was nothing more than a case
of survivor’s guilt for killing a man who had a family. Guilt,
she’d been carrying around for God knew how long.

Pandora’s box had been yanked wide open, and
there was no way of stopping the plagues of Tashi’s past from
permeating his world. If he were to help her, protect her, it was
imperative that he knew everything. Every tiny detail leading up to
the moment she shot that man, and the ensuing events that led her
to Granite Falls and to him.

Since he’d climbed through her bedroom window
that night, Adam had known that he would do anything for Tashi—even
die for her. It was time he proved it. He could not allow her to
continue living in fear.

It was time he found those maggots and made
them pay for whatever they’d done to her. Thoughts of murder
floated through his brain. He was never one to use violence as a
means of solving a problem. In fact, he avoided conflict at all
cost. This was one problem he couldn’t meditate away. He had to
face it head-on. Be the kind of man his father always wished he
would be.

Life had kicked him in the ass. He was
kicking back.

“I’m a criminal, Adam. A monster. I killed a
man, and now I’ve dragged you into my messed-up life.”

Adam tensed as the teary voice. Taking a deep
breath, he unclasped her hands from his shirt and held her a little
away from him. He cupped her chin and raised her face. Her eyes
were red and her lips were puffy and rosy. He so longed to kiss her
fears and pain away.

Forcing composure into his voice, Adam said
as calmly as he could, “You’re not a criminal or a monster, Tashi.
You’re the sweetest, purest, most innocent soul I’ve ever met. And
I’m sure there is a good explanation for what you did.” There had
to be. “Stop these negative thoughts about yourself, okay?”

She nodded.

“Would you like some water?”

“Yes. Please.” She wiped her fingers across
her eyes.

Adam walked to the mini bar in a corner of
his office. He poured two glasses of water from a pitcher and
brought them back. He placed one on the coffee table and handed the
other to Tashi. He watched her as she drank, then took her
half-empty glass and set it next to the other.

He sat back down beside her, bending a knee
and turning sideways to face her. Tears dampened her long, dark
lashes, and he hoped that these would be the last tears of fear,
guilt, and sorrow she would ever shed.

He took her trembling cold hands and held
them together on his knee. “You have to tell me everything, Tashi.
No holding back. No more secrets between us.”

She sniffed and shuddered, but nodded in
compliance.

He could simply sit back and ask her to
relate the story from beginning to end, but all Adam needed for now
were the cold, hard facts.
When
did it happen?
Where
did it happen?
Who
was involved?
How
and
why
were they involved? He would connect the dots on his own later.
“Why did you have to shoot this man?” he began in a gentle
tone.

She glanced down at her hands enveloped in
his and answered in a low raspy voice. “The FBI agent told me to do
it. He said if I didn’t kill him, he would kill me.”

Just as he’d suspected. She’d had no other
choice.
“What FBI agent?”

“The one who was in the house when I got
there.”

“Was the house in Sebring?”

A fresh tear rolled off her cheek and landed
on the back of his wrist, causing him to quiver inside from the
heat of it. “No. It was in New York City.”

New York City?
He grimaced in
confusion. “What were you doing in New York?”

She paused on a deep breath and he felt her
tense before she raised her head and looked at him. “I moved there
for college. My uncle told me that it was a big dangerous city
filled with bad people, but I wanted to go.” Her voice cracked. “I
was so bored and isolated in Sebring. I just wanted to live, to be
a part of the world, to make friends and see things.” She pulled
her hands from his to wipe at the river of tears streaming down her
face. “And then when Uncle Victor died, I didn’t want to go back.
There was no reason to go back. I didn’t have any other family
there or anywhere else. I was all alone in the world. So I just
stayed.” She buried her face in her hands.

Adam’s heart broke for her, but he sucked it
all in and waited for her to stop weeping. He dared not offer her
any more comfort until he’d heard everything. He wanted her to
remain in that dark moment, in that frozen frame of time so that
she left nothing out. As far as he was concerned, it would be the
first and last time she would ever have to relive her nightmare, or
talk about it. Finally, she dropped her hands on her lap and looked
up at him.

He breathed calm into his voice. “Okay,
Tashi, so you were living in this house where the shooting took
place?”

She rubbed her hands as if she were using her
tears as a moisturizer. “It was my boyfriend Scottie’s house. Or
that’s what he told me. I went there to meet his parents.
Supposedly.”

Her boyfriend
? Was her boyfriend the
person who was supposed to call the cell phone that had been stolen
from her? God, was she already in love with and committed to
another man? The thought made him tremble inside, but then he
recalled Tashi telling him that she’d never been kissed. Surely, if
her relationship with this boy was serious, she would have been
kissed already. Or maybe the boy was brought up with the same
philosophies as Tashi, and they were forbidden to engage in any
type of premarital intimacies. Adam was going crazy. He shook the
sour thoughts from his head. “Why did the FBI agent go to your
boyfriend’s house?”

She swallowed. “He—he was already at the
house when I got there. Scottie was supposed to be there, but
he—the agent told me that Scottie wasn’t really my boyfriend, that
he was working for these people and—and that they’d sold me to
this—this—um—” She stopped and swallowed again. “This Arabian
prince and—um—he said the man and the woman who were pretending to
be Scottie’s parents were going to drug me. The man in the car—the
one—I—I, um shot—he was supposed to drive me to the airport. He
said I would be in Saudi Arabia the next day if I didn’t do what he
said...” Her voice faded off into a whisper.

Adam felt a wretchedness of mind he’d never
felt before. He was going to track down and kill this Scottie
bastard with his bare hands. The thought of Tashi as a sex slave in
the palace of some sick prince who’d bought her, and of him
offering her to his friends and guests until he was tired of her
and either sold her to another prince, or dumped her on the streets
of Rubal Khali to live out the remainder of her life as a
prostitute in order to stay alive, filled Adam with rage and
nausea.

He was cognizant of the daily lives of the
sex slaves—both male and female—who were held prisoners in royal
palaces and other places around the globe—some way under the age of
consent, too young to be even called women and men. Some years ago
while visiting a prince he’d met on the French Riviera, Adam had
been offered a girl of his choice to warm his bed for a night. The
girls looked no older than twelve to sixteen years old. He’d
immediately left Dubai and vowed never to conduct business in that
region where the government condoned such atrocious behavior and
practices.