The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (13 page)

With a subtle smile on his lips, as if he
knew exactly what was happening inside her, he’d said, “Marriage
was something I used to want when I was younger, but—” He’d paused
and shrugged. “Maybe it’s just not in the cards for me. They don’t
call me the temporary tycoon for nothing.”

As he tried to mask his loneliness with his
last statement, Tashi had detected a faint glint of sadness or
regret in his eyes and voice as if some woman had hurt him. Was his
temporary law a way to protect his heart? And what woman in her
right mind wouldn’t want to be married to a man like Adam Andreas?
If her circumstance were different, she’d… Tashi had silenced her
wishful thinking. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right woman,
yet.”

“You sound like my friends. They say I’ll
know her when I meet her, when I first gaze into her eyes.” His
eyes, shining bright in the fading light of the setting sun, had
looked like blue diamonds—assessing, alluring, daring Tashi to
prove or disprove that she might be that woman.

“Did you tell them about me, that I’m here
with you?” She’d changed the subject as the quivering inside her
increased under his sensual gaze.

“Well, Erik knows you’re back. I had to let
someone on the outside know what was going on, and since he already
knew you were here the first time, I clued him in. He doesn’t know
anything about you being robbed, just that you’re staying with me
for a while. I asked for his silence. He wouldn’t discuss you with
Bryce or Massimo.”

“What about his wife?” she’d asked, taking a
bite of the blackened swordfish Adam had grilled for dinner.

“He wouldn’t say anything to Michelle,
either. You have nothing to worry about, Tashi. I promised you
privacy and secrecy, and that’s what you have,” he’d added, placing
a spear of asparagus drizzled with hollandaise sauce into his
mouth.

“Erik seemed nice,” she’d said. “Is Tiffany
his and Michelle’s only child?”

“Oh no. She’s the youngest of three. They
have an eleven-year-old daughter named Precious and an almost
three-year old—Erik, Jr. We call him Little Erik. In fact he has a
birthday coming up in a few days.”

“What about Bryce and Massimo? How many do
they have?” she’d asked. Knowing Adam meant knowing his
friends.

He’d taken a sip of wine before answering.
“Massimo and Shaina have a daughter. Aria. She’s six months and
already a heartbreaker.”

Tashi had felt his affection for his little
cousin.

“Bryce and Kaya have a set of twins of their
own,” he’d continued after another sip of wine. “Eli and Elyse.
They’re also raising Kaya’s sister’s three children. Jason is
twelve. Alyssa is six, and Anastasia is—” He’d twisted his mouth
thoughtfully. “She’s two and a few months, I think.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of kids. What happened to
her sister?”

A dark shadow had crossed his face and he’d
adjusted his weight on the chair. “Lauren and her husband, Michael,
were killed in a car crash a couple years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Tashi had said at the pain that
was still evident in Adam’s eyes. She did a quick calculation and
realized that when she’d lost her mother, she was the same age
Alyssa was when she lost both her parents. Thank God for loving
aunts and uncles who picked up the parenting baton when parents
died, and absentee fathers were nowhere to be found. “Those poor
kids, to lose both parents at the same time.”

“It was rough for the first year, but with
the love and devotion from Bryce and Kaya they’re on their way to
total recovery. It helps that we’re all very close. The kids have a
huge support system.”

As they’d entered an interlude of silence,
Tashi had felt a deep sense of relief at the bond of trust between
the men. Even though they probably shared the most private details
of their lives with each other, they nonetheless, kept one
another’s secrets, even from each other. What she wouldn’t give for
a friend like that, a sibling, or a cousin to confide in.

She’d had friends growing up in Ohio, but no
one close enough to form a lifetime bond like Adam and his
friends—partly because of her over-protective uncle who watched her
every move and limited her social interactions. He’d tried to talk
her out of moving to New York to attend college. New York was too
big, too far away, and filled with bad people who could lead her
astray. Tashi had told him that she was going with or without his
approval. He’d stared at her as if he’d seen a ghost, like he’d
been trapped in a moment of
déjà-vu.

It was the first time she’d ever challenged
his authority, or even shown a hint of rebellion against his
principles, and it had felt good, a little wicked, actually. They’d
argued long and hard and she’d told him that since she was
eighteen, he couldn’t legally stop her. At that, he’d conceded and
given her his blessings, with warnings to be wary of strangers and
not to trust people too easily and quickly. They’d parted on the
best of terms and had spoken to each other every single day until
he died.

Tashi had thought her uncle weird when she
was a child, but as she’d gotten older, she’d begun to suspect that
his paranoia was a direct result of the ambiguous circumstances
surrounding her mother’s drowning death. They’d ruled it a suicide,
but her uncle always told her that her mother had loved her more
than life and would not have taken her own life, leaving her little
baby girl motherless.

He’d lost his only sibling, and his niece was
the only relative he had left. He’d felt it his duty to protect
her. He never displayed any bitterness or anger, just caution and
mistrust when dealing with strangers, and sometimes with people
they knew.

During her college years in New York, Tashi
had made a few friends, but still no one close enough to form a
lifetime relationship. Then her uncle had died unexpectedly,
casting her into a state of even greater loneliness. He hadn’t told
her he was sick. In the letter she’d received after the fact, he’d
explained that he hadn’t wanted her to worry about him, to give up
her life to care for him. She would have gone to him in an
instant.

Tashi had bit back the sob that almost
escaped from her throat. Scottie had come along shortly after her
uncle’s death. Her vulnerability and her need for human contact had
weakened her defenses and left her wide open to his trickery. If it
weren’t for that agent who’d died saving her, only God knew where
she’d be right now.

Her uncle had been right all alone. It was
best not to trust people, yet, she’d thought, glancing across the
table at Adam, here was a man who’d proven he could be trusted.
“It’s hard for me to trust people,” she’d said to Adam as the
prospect of her impending isolated future had settled in her belly.
The thought of being out there alone again scared her. She doubted
she’d ever meet another Adam.

“I sense that,” he’d replied, smiling. “But
trust comes with time, Tashi. It took Erik, Bryce, Massimo, and me
years to form the level of confidence we have in and with each
other. Especially Massimo,” he’d added with a chuckle. “We fought
constantly when we were children. Our fathers were best friends and
were always pitting us against each other, always pushing us to
challenge each other and ourselves. Up to this day, my father still
compares me to him.”

“How are you and Massimo related?” She’d
intended to continue her background reading on him, but then she’d
gotten sick, and since he’d been taking care of her, Tashi had felt
as if she would be invading his privacy if she continued to snoop
into his life.

“Our mothers were sisters,” he’d
responded.

Tashi had detected a catch in his voice.
“What are the odds that two sisters would marry two best friends
and settle down in the same town? I know of some siblings who can’t
stand being in the same state, much less live next door to each
other.”

“My mom was only thirteen months older than
Aunt Giuliana, so their sibling bond was formed from an early age.
They attended the same fashion design university and worked in
marketing in the same fashion house in Milan. Even though it’s been
twenty odd years since Aunt Giuli died, my mom still misses her. I
believe it’s one of the reasons she moved back to Italy where the
happiest memories of their lives were spent.” A melancholy frown
had flittered across his features as he swirled the wine around in
his glass, watching the white liquid undulate against the clear
glass as if he were predicting its movement in response to his
motions.

“So who met whom first?” she’d asked to
lighten the mood.

He’d set the glass down and captured her gaze
again. “They all met at a moonlit night festival while on a Safari
in Kenya.” His voice had regained some of its vigor. “Mom had won a
trip for two in a lottery, and quite naturally—”

“She took her sister and best friend with
her.”

“Yes. It so happened that Dad and Uncle
Luciano were also there on their annual safari.” He’d stopped
talking for a while and allowed his gaze to wander off over the
tops of the green tree line. “Fate had placed them in the right
place at the right time.”

“It reminds me of Shakespeare’s Midsummer
Night’s Dream. Was there a mischievous Puck to get them all
confused before they figured out who really loved whom?”

“Oh no,
cara
. There was no Midsummer
Night’s Dream mix-up. Each person had fallen instantly in love with
the right mate, and six months later, they exchanged vows in a
double wedding ceremony.”

“That’s romantic.” Tashi had never believed
in love at first sight. How could she when she’d been programmed to
distrust at first sight. Her paranoid heart was never opened to the
possibilities of any close relationship. It was desperation, not
love or friendship that sent her into Scottie’s arms. And although
she’d been awestruck when she’d first met Adam, and since then had
begun to develop affectionate feelings for him, she had to remember
that it was also desperation that had brought her to his home. What
she was feeling could be a strong dose of gratitude.

But perhaps love at first sight was real for
those who’d experienced it.

“Do you believe in fate, Tashi?” Adam had
asked, watching her closely, his enigmatic blue eyes glittering in
the afterglow of the radiant sunset illuminating the terrace on the
west side of the mansion overlooking a deep green ravine with the
rushing sound of what sounded like a waterfall in the far
distance.

“I don’t know,” Tashi had responded on a
shrug. “I think things just happen.”

“Do you really believe things just happen
after the way we met at Mountainview Café, then at the grocery
store? When did you Google me?”

“How do you know I Googled you?”

He’d smiled. “I only gave you my first name.
So you must have looked me up on the Internet to find out that I
was the Adam Andreas of Andreas International. Otherwise you
wouldn’t have known to call me three days later when you were in
need.”

“Okay,” Tashi had admitted grudgingly. “I
looked you up as soon as I got to my apartment. I was curious.”
She’d averted her gaze for an instant as her mind wheeled back to
the moment when she’d added his hotel’s number to her phone. It’s a
good thing she had because she would have been too sick to look him
up the night she’d needed him.

As she’d sat there, subjected to his
surveying eyes, Tashi had begun to feel lightheaded at the
realization that Adam might be right about fate having a hand in
her being in his home. He was sent to help her in her hour of need.
But why Adam, specifically, and not someone else, some other
man?

“I’m happy you decided to feed your
curiosity,” he’d said breaking into her thoughts. “But what if we’d
never met that day, what would you have done?”

“I guess I would have called someone else.”
She’d still been trying to deny the truth, the evidence of destiny
playing a role in their meeting, their lives.

“Like who?”

“Mindy.” Why hadn’t she called Mindy? It
would have made more sense since she lived next door.

“She wasn’t home. Remember she told us she
was gone all weekend? But you didn’t know that because you hadn’t
even attempted to call her, which tells me a lot.”

Could it really be fate that made her call
Adam
? “Then I guess I would have died,” she’d stated
defensively as a chill had washed over her. No one would have
missed her. No one would have known she was dead until her body had
begun to decompose and stink up the place.

Tashi flinched now at the thought. She was
too young to come to such an end. She’d read about these
end-of-life scenarios happening to lonely old women with lots of
cats, never a young vibrant woman who hadn’t yet experienced
life.

“Well, I for one am most thankful that didn’t
happen, Tashi,” Adam had said with a gentle softness in his voice.
“I’ve only known you for two weeks, but I can’t imagine my life
without ever knowing you. I’ve enjoyed taking care of you, watching
you get stronger, watching the spark return to you beautiful
emerald eyes, hearing the confidence in your voice.”

As Tashi had gazed across the table at him,
she’d been tempted to tell him something, give him a little piece
of the woman he’d nursed back to health, but she knew that the less
Adam Andreas knew about her, the less danger he’d be in if her
nemesis ever made it to Granite Falls.

Adam clearly believed fate had brought them
together. Maybe they would have met again after that initial
collision and the run-in at the grocery store—she didn’t know. But
there was some merit to his thinking: she did get sick, she did
call him, he did bring her to his home and nursed her back to
health, and just when she was planning to leave town and him
behind, her money was stolen, forcing her back to his home and his
care. What was the meaning, the purpose of it all since her
association with Adam could bring him harm in the future? Was he
fated to die because of her?