The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (5 page)

But three days ago, Tiffany ate, pooped, and
slept at the park and at the petting zoo where he’d taken her on
their morning date. It was a hot day and he guessed she wasn’t
feeling up to impressing him or attracting ladies, so he’d taken
her back to her grandmother earlier than planned. And if he hadn’t,
he would not have run into Tashi.

He’d questioned Felicia about the scared
little rabbit who’d cried in his arms. How long had she been coming
to the café? Did she have a pattern, a specific time when she came
in? Was she ever with anyone? A man specifically. Had she ever
ordered out? What was her address? Felicia answered all his
questions, but the last.

As fond as she was of him, she refused to
give up a customer’s address, just as he would never give up a room
number of a guest in his hotel. And so Adam had stuck around for a
good portion of the day, and the next, hoping that Tashi would make
an appearance, but he got nothing.

Nothing
seemed to be all he was
getting these days, he thought, glancing down at his now flaccid
shaft. With no playmate available, it had gone back to sleep. Too
bad
he
too couldn’t enjoy the luxury of slumber.

At the chime from the coffee maker indicating
his brew was ready, Adam made his way toward it. He picked up the
coffee pot and a mug and walked back to his bedroom. He pulled on
his robe, then made his way down the hall toward his home office.
It was midmorning in Europe, a good time to check in with his hotel
managers on the other side of the pond. He’d barely sat down at his
desk and taken a sip from his mug when his landline rang. He
glanced at the display. It was the general manager at Hotel
Andreas-Granite Falls.

Now, for what possible reason would his
general manager be calling him at two thirty in the morning? A
disgruntled guest or an employee, perhaps? What would anyone have
to complain about while staying in one of the most luxurious hotels
in the world? As to his employees, they knew they would never find
better employment anywhere in the hotel industry.

He picked up the receiver. “Yes, Oscar.”

“I’m sorry for calling at such an odd hour,
Mr. Andreas, but a young woman called here looking for you a little
while ago.”

He frowned. Why would a woman be calling his
hotel and not his cell? And why in the middle of the night except
for a booty call? The fact that he wasn’t currently involved didn’t
stop his cock from stirring at the very thought of playing a game
of hide and go seek. “Well, did she leave a name?” he asked with a
touch of restiveness.

“She said her name was Tashi, sir.”

Adam’s heart flew to his throat and his back
became ramrod straight. “Did—did you say Tashi?” He could hardly
get the words out as he pushed to his feet.

“Yes. She sounded a bit hysterical.”

“What do you mean, hysterical?”

“She was crying, Mr. Andreas.”

Adam felt like a ton of lead had been slammed
into his gut. He pulled on his ponytail in an effort to keep his
mind from going numb as his body was threatening to do. “Did she
leave a message?” He paced the floor, forcing his blood to
circulate.

“She left her number and her address. She
said she needed you, sir. I forwarded the information to your cell,
but I know you turn on the DND feature after midnight.”

“Thanks, Oscar.” Adam dropped the phone on
his desk, and sprinted back to his bedroom.

Tashi needed him.

He grabbed his cell from the nightstand and
searched for Oscar’s message as he shrugged out of his robe. He
memorized the address then dialed the number Oscar had forwarded
while he reached for the pair of shorts he’d draped over the
footboard not too long ago.

Tashi’s number just kept ringing, and as the
seconds ticked by, the sound of Adam’s racing heart beating against
his chest grew louder and louder and his breath seemed to solidify
in his throat.

Tashi was in trouble. What if whomever she
was running from had found her? What if he was too late? Refusing
to entertain the horrific possibility, he pulled his shirt from the
foot of his bed and raced downstairs like a pack of wolves was
after him.

He made the thirty-minute drive to the
not-so-nice section of town in less than fifteen. He brought his
Aston Martin to a stop in front of 85 Temple Street and got out.
The multi-family house was shrouded in darkness, as was the
neighborhood with many of the street lamps burned out. Adam flew up
the short flight of steps, made a right on the rickety porch, and
passed an old ragged sofa, a three-legged coffee table jammed
against the wall, and a half-worn-down broom. He knocked on the
door with the number four.

“Tashi,” he called. The only response to his
call in the night was the bark from a neighbor’s dog. “Tashi,” he
said again, trying the door. Of course it was locked.

A prickly feeling crept along Adam’s back as
his mind raced ahead of him. Suppose the people she was running
from were holding her at gunpoint inside the apartment? Or worse,
suppose they’d done what they’d come to do and had already left,
leaving her lifeless body to be discovered by a neighbor?

Adrenaline pumped through Adam’s veins. He
had no idea what was waiting for him behind that locked door. He
could be walking into a trap for all he knew. He thought about
kicking the door in, but realized that if her captors were still in
there, he might startle them into shooting blindly at him. Then he
would be of no use to her. He thought of calling the police, but
immediately decided against it since he didn’t know the nature of
Tashi’s trouble. Involving the authorities might…

“Adam.”

He cocked his ears as he heard the faint
whisper of his name through a crack in the window on his right. He
moved toward it. “Tashi?” His voice trembled on those two
syllables.

He heard a low moan, then, “In here.” It was
barely a whisper.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes. I’m sick.” She whimpered again. “I’m so
sick.”

Sick
. She was sick. He let out his
breath, and on his intake, the stench of seasoned vomit and other
putrefied odors he didn’t care to identify wafted up his nostrils.
Why hadn’t she called 911 instead of him? Sliding a finger under
the crack, and finding no screen, he pushed the curtain aside and
peeked inside. It was still too dark to make out anything in the
room. “Can you open the door?”

“I can’t move. I can’t walk.”

The panic, the pain, in her voice brought
tears to Adam’s eyes. “Okay, baby. I’m gonna climb through the
window then,” he said, sliding his hands beneath the splintered
wood on the bottom of the sill.

Her response was another heart-wrenching
groan.

It was a small window, but he was a man, and
since men always delighted in the challenge of squeezing big
objects through tight openings, Adam welcomed the scrapes and cuts
on his arms and legs and the splinters piercing his flesh as he
forced his frame through the window.

He landed on a pile of clothes on the floor
and stood to adjust his eyes to the darkness, even as he forced
himself to ignore the stench in the air. Another moan gave away her
location and Adam made his way toward her, bumping into what felt
like a trashcan at the side of the bed. He swallowed the bile that
rose to his throat.

“Tashi,” he called, making his way to the
head of the bed. He switched on the bedside lamp and almost fainted
at what he saw. Tashi was rolled up in a ball on the bed. Her long
auburn hair—encrusted with only God knew what—was spread out above
her head, and the pink nightgown she was wearing was stained with
human excrement, and
blood
.

Adam’s heart dropped to the pit of his
stomach. “Tashi.” Without a moment’s hesitation, he dropped down on
the mattress and gathered her into his arms. She was burning up
with fever. “Tashi.” He pushed her hair out of her face and cradled
her head in the crook of his arm. “
Cara
, why are you
bleeding? Did someone hurt you?”

“No. No. I—I have my—my period.”

Adam let out his breath, relieved that he
didn’t have to go out and commit murder. “Is it always this
bad?”

“No. It’s not because of that. I didn’t know
my fridge had died and I ate some leftover chicken.”

“When? How long have you been sick?”

“Since the day I met you. I had the chicken
for dinner that night and I woke up with a bellyache.” She sank her
nails into the fresh cuts on his arms and screamed as cramps
apparently ripped through her stomach.

Her breath smelled horrible, but Adam pressed
her face against his. He spoke softly and soothingly to her, and
rubbed her belly lightly as he waited for her cramps to subdue.
When they finally did, and she relaxed her hold on him, he gazed
down into her eyes. They were hollow, almost transparent like her
ashen skin. The vibrant colors he’d seen in her complexion and her
eyes three days ago were gone. It was as if he was gazing into the
face of a completely different woman—her apparition.

“I have to get you to the hospital,” he said,
easing off the bed with her in his arms.

“No. No. No hospital.”

No hospital?
The girl was dying from
food poisoning and she didn’t want to go to the hospital. “Why,
Tashi? Why don’t you want to go to the hospital?”

She started to cry, her lithe body shaking
from her sobs. “If I use my name, they—they could find me.
They—they’ll kill—they’ll kill me. I have to stay below the
radar.”

“Who? The people you’re running from?” he
asked, caressing her arms and her back in an effort to calm her
down.

She nodded as more tears poured out of her
eyes, ran down her cheeks, and into the fresh cuts on Adam’s arms.
He steeled himself against the stinging of his raw flesh from her
salty tears.

Dear God, his suspicions were correct. She
was
a damsel in distress. The worst kind, if she was too
afraid to seek medical help even though she was one hairsbreadth
away from death. People wanted to kill her. Who? Why?

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t take you to the
hospital, but I have a friend who’s a doctor and I’m going to call
him. I can trust him. He wouldn’t tell anyone about you. Is that
okay?”

She nodded.

He reached into his pocket for his phone only
to realize that he’d left it in the car. He picked up hers from the
nightstand. It was dead. Her charger was nowhere in sight. That’s
why she hadn’t answered his calls earlier. He was grateful she was
able to make the last call to his hotel before the device went
completely dead.

He glanced around the chaotic room, hardly
able to breathe in the foul air. Soiled clothes, used tissues, and
dishes with leftover food were strewn everywhere, but he noticed
the two empty gallon water containers on the floor. At least she’d
been drinking water to ward off dehydration. It was probably the
reason she was still alive.

She’d been sick for three days. Sick, alone,
and scared to seek medical help. That’s why she hadn’t been back to
the café. Felicia had said that she came in at least three or four
times a week, and always on Thursdays for the special lunch buffet.
Yesterday was Thursday and Tashi hadn’t shown because she was
sick.

Adam’s gaze landed on the trashcan he’d
bumped into in the dark. Now he could see the gross contents inside
it. She’d started using it because she’d become too weak to walk to
the bathroom. He shivered as a small black rodent scurried from one
corner of the room to the next and disappeared behind the
radiator.

Adam shook his head with disgust. He couldn’t
ask Erik to come here. He didn’t want his friend to see Tashi in
this condition, in this place, this neighborhood. He glanced down
at her again. She needed a bath, and so did he now that he too was
covered in her waste.

“Tashi. I’m taking you to my home. No one
else is there. It will just be the two of us,” he said, just then
deciding that his entire household staff would be enjoying a nice
paid vacation for however long it took to nurse Tashi back to
health. “Is that okay?”

She nodded, then closed her eyes and groaned
as another cramp apparently ripped through her. As he held and
caressed her through it, the heat from her body seemed to burn off
Adam’s clothes and flesh.

When she went limp again, he eased her back
down on the mattress and stood to his feet. She curled up into a
ball, trembling. He hated to leave her side, but he had to get
going. He took the trashcan into the bathroom and flushed its
contents down the toilet.

“I’m going to clean you up a bit and change
your clothes before we leave,” he said, returning to her bedside.
She needed a good soak, but he didn’t want to spend any more time
than necessary in this dump. A quick wipe-down would have to
suffice for now.

He walked to a bureau on the other side of
the room and quickly scanned the contents of the top drawer—a
neatly folded colorful pile of silk and lace thongs on the left
side, and a pile of practical cotton panties on the right. He
grabbed the first item from the right pile—a pair of pink boy
shorts with white polka dots and the word “Angel” printed on the
front.

Two side steps brought him to her tiny
closet—more like a hole in the wall. He pulled a lime green dress
from its hanger, and a clean bed sheet from the shelf. He set them
on the nightstand, next to a box of sanitary napkins, then walked
into the bathroom. He took a washcloth from the shower curtain rod,
lifted a plastic tub from the floor and half filled it with cool
water. Grabbing a bar of soap, he returned to the bedroom, took off
her nightgown—the only piece of clothing she wore—and gave her a
hasty bird bath.

“Hold me tight,” he said, picking her up.
While she wound her arms about his neck and her legs around his
waist, he cradled her naked body with one arm while he stripped the
bed of the soiled sheets and tossed them on the floor. He arranged
a clean sheet on one half of the mattress, eased her back down on
it, and dressed her.