The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (9 page)

“Really? Where were your parents?”

She shivered as if someone had poured a
bucket of ice-cold water over her. “It’s getting late. I should
help you clean up before I leave.” She picked up her empty plate
and silverware from the table.

“No. No. Leave them. You’re to stay off your
feet. Doctor’s orders.” Adam tried to force some humor into his
voice even as he battled his frustration over her determination to
leave the safety and comfort of his home, to refuse the tender
loving care he was extending toward her. “Would you like some
dessert?” he asked, desperately seeking a way to keep her around a
little bit longer. “I have some leftover blueberry tart.”

“Thanks, but no. I’m quite full. Everything
was delicious, Adam. You are an amazing cook.”

“I’ll be happy to cook for you every day,
Tashi.”

Bypassing his bait, she pushed back her
chair.

Adam dropped his napkin on the table and
hurried around to help her up. He placed his hands on her shoulders
and turned her around to face him. “Tashi, please stay, if only for
the night. I’ll take you home first thing tomorrow morning.” It was
killing him to think of her being in that dump, much less being
there alone when she wasn’t fully recovered.

“I—I—can’t. There are things I need to do.”
She pulled out of his grasp and began making her way back toward
the bedroom.

“What kind of things?” he asked, following
behind her. There was a distinct spring in her steps now that she’d
eaten. He was happy he could do that for her. “What do you have to
do that can’t wait until tomorrow, Tashi?”

She continued walking without even as much as
a turn of her head to acknowledge that she’d heard him. Her silence
intensified his curiosity, but remembering how she’d withdrawn into
her shell when he’d asked about her parents a few minutes ago, he
decided not to push any further.

“Thanks for bringing my backpack,” she said,
picking it up from the bedroom floor and setting it on the
chair.

“It was open, and I noticed your camera,
laptop, and wallet inside it. I didn’t want to leave it at your
apartment—just in case—”

“I know. It’s not a safe neighborhood.
There’re a lot of break-ins.”

“Someone broke into your place before?”

“No. I keep my windows and doors locked all
the time. You did lock up, right?” she asked looking up at him with
panicky eyes.

“I did.” As he stared at her, Adam had the
feeling that her concern went a lot deeper than someone breaking in
to steal her clothes, furniture, and the few personal items she
might have.

She searched through the compartments of the
backpack. “You didn’t happen to grab my cell phone, too, did
you?”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
think…”

She bit her lower lip as if that bit of bad
news was particularly distressing.

“I’m sure it’s fine, and if not, I’ll buy you
another one. I’d be happy to replace your fridge, too. You can’t
live without—”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s never going to call
anyway,” she said, staring across the room as if she’d just lost
her last bit of hope.

“Who? Who’s not going to call, Tashi?”

“Nobody. I’m ready to leave.” She glanced
down at her bare feet. “Do I have shoes?”

“No. I carried you out of your apartment that
night and didn’t think of grabbing those either. I wasn’t thinking
of anything that night but bringing you here so Erik could examine
you. I’m sure I can find a pair of my mother’s you can borrow, or I
could just carry you again,” he added on a smile.

Adam was taken aback when she took a step
forward and wrapped her arms about his waist and rested her cheek
against his chest. He hesitated for a split second before his arms
went about her. Her hair was dry and stiff like straw. A good
shampoo and deep conditioning in his downstairs spa would
rejuvenate the soft, silky curls he’d felt almost a week ago. But
he knew she wouldn’t stick around for that lavish treatment. So for
now, he took what she offered and held her as tightly as he dared
in her delicate condition. Yet her fragility didn’t stop his body
from responding to her like a man responds to a woman’s touch.

Tashi was beautifully housed, exquisite, and
the image of her lovely naked hourglass body, the firmness of her
high-perched breasts, the silky texture of her skin, the soft
curves of her hips, the erotic feel of her buttocks pressed against
his morning erection were stamped in his brain for all eternity.
All the emotions and sexual tensions Adam had been suppressing
while he’d been taking care of a sick Tashi were now demanding
acknowledgement.

His body was on fire. He wanted to kiss her.
God, how he’d love to taste her lips, but he knew it would be a
terrible mistake to even attempt to satisfy his yearning. She might
be feeling better, but she was still weak. Besides, the memory of
her fighting him in the tub warned him that any kind of sexual
advances toward her would be a mistake.

Tashi Holland was a woman he dared not pursue
in a sexual way. He had to stand down and wait patiently for her to
make the first move. He hoped she would learn to trust him enough
to open up about her past so he could help and protect her. It was
impossible to help and protect someone when you didn’t know what
kind of help they needed and from what or whom you were providing
protection.

Adam rubbed his hands along the curve of her
back and basked in the blessing of having her in his arms on her
own volition.

“We should go,” she said, pulling away and
bringing his euphoria to an end, much too soon.

No, we shouldn’t
. Three days ago, he’d
vowed to set her loose the moment she was feeling better. So why
was he having such a hard time of it, especially when she wanted to
leave? Why was he finding it difficult to keep his own law: no
damsels in distress?

“If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if we
could stop at the grocery store on the way to my apartment,” she
said, picking up her backpack and looping her arms through the
strap.

“I don’t mind. Whatever you need.”

Two hours later, Adam parked his Aston Martin
on the curb across from Tashi’s apartment building. He glanced out
his tinted side window. A balding, potbellied man, wearing nothing
but a pair of plaid boxers sat on the porch steps, smoking a
cigarette. The man glanced briefly at his car as if he sensed he
was being watched before moving on, completely uninterested and
unimpressed.

A skinny young blond woman in a tank top and
cutoff jean shorts was reclined on the old couch jammed against the
wall. Her bare feet with soles black with dirt were slung over the
wooden railing of the porch. She was texting away on her cell phone
and paying no attention to the two toddlers who were splashing
water on each other from a kiddie pool that was too close to the
road. A brown lab, perhaps the one that had barked the night he’d
come to rescue Tashi, was asleep on the floor behind a screen door
situated about four feet away from Tashi’s.

Adam’s gaze shifted to the park across the
street where four teenage shirtless boys were shooting hoops into a
tattered basket. An old rusted fridge lay on its side against the
side of the broken-down fence that once surrounded the park. A
washing machine in similar shape was stacked on top of it. The
appliances had been there so long that grass and shrubbery had
grown up around them.

Adam’s jaw flinched at the scene that was
synonymous with poor neighborhoods. It had taken all his willpower
not to turn his car around and head for the hills the instant he
entered the depressing zone. He didn’t think these people were
beneath him in any way. He just felt sorry for them, and even
sorrier that he was bringing someone he’d cared for, and was now
definitely beginning to care about, to the neighborhood.

“I guess this where we say goodbye.”

Adam turned his head at the sound of Tashi’s
voice.
Goodbye?
No
. Seated beside him, she clutched
her backpack as if it held everything dear she had in this world.
“Tashi. I don’t feel right leaving you here.”

“It’s fine, Adam. I’ve been living here for a
year and a half and nobody has ever bothered me.” Her faint smile
held a touch of sadness, even though her tone rang with
tenacity.

Where did you live before that?
“There’s always a first for everything.”

“Just because these people are poor doesn’t
mean they’re bad, Adam. Most of them work hard to provide for their
families—sometimes two and three jobs just to survive.”

He noted that she hadn’t included herself in
the equation of nice poor people. She was living among them, but
the way she carried herself, her very appearance and the fact that
she owned a very expensive camera and laptop, and had nice
furniture in her run-down apartment, said a lot about her
upbringing, her past. She was used to nice things, perhaps not as
luxurious as he was, but nice.

He would guess that the uncle who’d raised
her lived in a middleclass neighborhood—nothing like this place. So
what was she doing here, two years after he died from pancreatic
cancer? Did the treatment for his illness deplete all his financial
resources, leaving him bankrupt, and Tashi without any means of
support? And again, the question about the whereabouts of her
parents surfaced.

Adam sighed inwardly as the mystery of Tashi
Holland thickened. “That’s true, Tashi, and I wasn’t suggesting
that—”

“Sometimes the privileged are the worst
people out there. They act nice at first to get you to trust them
then they prey on the poor and the naïve to satisfy their own
selfish needs.”

Adam wondered at the vehemence in her tone.
What privileged jackass had hurt this girl? What had “they” done to
make her so afraid, so paranoid, so distrustful, so hostile?
“Tashi—”

“Thanks for the ride, and for everything
else.” Her hand went to the door handle.

“Wait.” Adam unbuckled his seat belt and
exited the car. Was the fact that he was privileged the reason she
was becoming wary of him? It was one thing to call him in the
middle of the night when she thought she was dying. That was a
matter of survival. But now that she was feeling better and could
think clearly in the light of day, she was seeing him differently.
He was no longer her
savior
. He had become a threat, a
reminder of something bad in her past.

And here he was, thinking that Tashi Holland
wanted to protect him, when what she
really
wanted was to
get the hell away from him as fast as possible. He almost laughed
at himself for thinking that she needed him. She didn’t need him.
She probably despised him, merely because he was privileged.

Adam opened her door and took her backpack. A
zap of electricity coursed through him as he held her hand to help
her out of the car. He swallowed the dizzying effect her touch had
on him. He watched her eyes widen and darken as she inhaled quickly
before pulling away, dropping her gaze to his chest where his heart
was making an awful ruckus inside his ribcage. Yep. She’d felt that
too. She was becoming aware of him as a man, a man she perceived as
a dangerous attraction, and perhaps even a threat to her life.

Forcing the nauseating thought aside, he
handed her her backpack and opened the back door of the car to
retrieve her two bags of groceries—peanut butter, raspberry
preserves, bread, some cans of soup and tuna fish, a small
assortment of fruits and vegetables that didn’t need to be
refrigerated and some Gatorade he’d suggested she purchase.

“I’ll see you inside,” he said, closing the
door and straightening up to his full six feet, three and a half
inches.

She tried to pry the bags from his hand. “I
can manage from here.”

“Tashi, I’m seeing you inside.”

“There’s no need, Adam. You’ve done enough
already.” The line of her mouth tightened a fraction.

“I’m either seeing you safely inside your
apartment or I’ll put you back into my car and take you back home
with me. It’s your choice, Tashi.” He made no attempt to suppress
his steadfastness. Did she think she was the only one who could be
headstrong?

Her green eyes flashed defiance before she
turned and took an agitated step off the curb, and into the
street.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back up on
the sidewalk as a black Mazda sped around the corner and zapped
past them with its stereo blasting at top level. A few yards down,
tires screeched as it swerved and braked, barely missing a child
riding his bike across the street.

“Stupid punk!” the man on the steps shouted.
“He’s gonna kill somebody one day.”

The dog was barking up a storm from behind
the safety of the screen door. As dogs were wont to do, a couple
more from nearby houses joined the canine chorus, until the texting
young woman who was now on her feet yelled, “Shut up, Bacon!”

Bacon growled and shut up, and soon all was
quiet in the neighborhood again—well except for the clamorous
humming of the window air conditioning units.

Adam felt as if a year of his life had been
shaved off in those few frightful moments. He couldn’t tell if time
had stood still or if it had sped up since the car, now long gone,
had come careening around the corner.

As the thought that Tashi could have been
killed registered in his brain, Adam glanced down at her flushed
cheeks and wide frightened eyes. “See, you do need me.”

“Thanks for saving my life. Again.” Her hand
was pressed against her heaving chest and her breath was coming out
in gasps.

“Is this normal around here?”

“Why, isn’t it normal in your neighborhood?
No rich young punks live in your neck of the woods, Mr. Andreas?”
She stared blankly back at him.

Her flippant attitude reminded Adam that he
was the outsider here, and when she tried to tug away from his
hold, he also remembered that she didn’t trust him, even though
he’d just saved her life for the second time in less than a week.
Or was she deliberately trying to make him not like her? Well, she
might as well…