The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four (20 page)

Adam’s lips tingled in anticipation of
kissing Tashi for the first time, of experiencing the thrill of
their passions blending, of the light of their love curling around
each other, becoming one. It would be her first kiss and he planned
to make it one she would never forget. He closed his eyes and
breathed deeply as he recalled the feel of her small warm hands
wrapped around him, the tentative, curious manner in which she
stroked him, the look of surprise and wonder on her face at
realizing the effect her caresses were having on him.

“Do I need to hop the jet to Granite Falls,
Adamo? I can be there tomorrow morning. Your mother and I are about
to leave for dinner, but I’m sure she’d rather visit with you.”

Adam came to a sudden halt and back to
reality at his father’s threats. “No, Dad. That won’t be necessary.
I will return to the office on Monday. By the end of next week, I
will make up all the canceled and postponed meetings. Andreas
International will be rolling again. There is no need for you to
come to Granite Falls. No need at all.”

“It sounds as if you have something to hide,
son.”

“I don’t, Dad,” he responded emphatically.
The last thing he wanted was his father pressuring Tashi like he’d
done with Claire and Denise. His father had pressured him into
proposing to Claire. Denise had had the good sense to run before
he’d made a fool of himself again. He was certain now that it was
his father’s domineering attitude that had scared them both—well
that and Claire’s claim that he’d never told her he loved her. He
was certain he had, at least once, at some point.

After Denise, even though he knew his
relationships were temporary, Adam had kept his women away from his
father—except Sadie, whom he’d taken to Positano for Christmas last
year. Yep, Sadie who was past the age of childbearing was safe from
Alessandro’s pressures. It was the first time Adam had enjoyed the
experience of taking a woman home to meet his father.

“Are you sure?” his father asked, breaking
into Adam’s thoughts again. “You don’t sound too convincing, or
perhaps you’re trying too hard to convince me that you have nothing
to hide.”

Damn it
. Adam had forgotten how
intuitive his father was when it came to his only son. His mother
had told him that his father had been in love with him from the
moment she’d told him of her pregnancy. When he was younger, Adam
had watched videos of his father dancing to music in the middle of
the night as he cradled his crying infant son in his arms.
Sometimes his mother, awakened by the music, and his crying, would
join them in the nursery, and his father would lace one arm around
his wife and the other around his son as they danced together into
the wee hours of the morning.

All that love and devotion had created a deep
bond between them, so deep that as a child, Adam had had difficulty
lying to his parents. Sometimes he felt as if they knew his
thoughts even before he did. “You’ll just get in my way,” he said
to his father. “When you’re here, you question everything I do. You
make me anxious. You and I know that I do my best work when I’m
left alone. The numbers attest to that fact.”

“
Va bene
,
allora
,” his father
stated in a somewhat conciliatory tone. “If you’re not back in the
office at Hotel Andreas on Monday, I will be in Granite Falls on
Tuesday, Adamo.”

“
Sì
,
papà
. If that’s all—”

“
Un minuto
. Your mother wishes to
speak with you about something.
Ti amo, mio figlio
.”

A smile curved Adam’s lips. “
Ti amo,
troppo, papà
.”

As he waited for his mother to come online,
Adam gazed out at the distant outlines of the skyscrapers in
downtown Granite Falls—Hotel Andreas, Fountain Enterprises and
Towers, and Andretti Industries—dwarfing all other buildings. It
was a town his ancestors, along with the Andrettis, the LaCrosses,
the Forsythes, and more recently, the Fontaines, had shaped into
the prosperous little mecca it was today.

As a child Adam had spent many summers in
Como, his mother’s native town, and on the Amalfi Coast in the town
of Positano from where his great-great-grandfather, Vincenzo
Andreas, had boarded a ship for America during the mid-nineteenth
century. Although he enjoyed visiting his ancestral homes and
learning about his family roots, Adam was always happy to return to
Granite Falls, the place where he was born and raised.

Granite Falls was the only place on earth
where he wanted his children to call home. He wanted it to be the
place that Tashi could call home, too, but his patience and his
hopes were waning with each day she kept her past a secret. He’d
been in proximity with her for the past two weeks, but now that he
had to return to the world beyond Andreas Estates, Adam’s fears
that she would slip away while his back was turned mounted by the
second.

I have to go
. Adam closed his eyes.
Tashi had been repeating those words since the first day he met
her. He’d promised himself that he’d wait for her to open up to
him, but he had to come to terms with the fact that she might never
share her secrets with him—whether from fear or shame, he didn’t
know—but what he did know was that with each passing day he sensed
her growing anxiety as she fought with the decision of whether to
stay or leave.

She was stronger now, both physically and
emotionally, and logically she would think that she could survive
on her own. That scared Adam. Although a part of him was happy
she’d recovered and was glowing with self-confidence, the other
part wanted her to remain dependent on him.

Since he was returning to work next week, he
hoped Tashi would confide in him once she returned from the garden.
And if she didn’t, he was prepared to go out and find the answers
himself. He had no idea where to begin since she’d been careful not
to drop any hints as to where she’d come from, but the Andreas
family had its own band of
polizia segreta
who were as
inconspicuous as ghosts. It was time he called upon them.

He hadn’t yet told Tashi that he’d recovered
her money and her cell phone. Granite Falls’ Chief of Police, Chief
Jordan, had brought them to the mansion in the dead of night just
hours after she’d discovered them stolen. Since he had no idea how
much money had been stolen, he didn’t know how much had been
recovered.

Adam shook his head, still unable to believe
the amount of cash Tashi had had in her possession. Where had she
gotten that kind of money? Had she stolen it from the people who
were looking for her? Was she an accomplice, a member of a
nefarious criminal gang? And how in heaven’s name did a young girl
with her kind of upbringing get mixed up with villains?

He had no answers, but deep down Adam knew
that Tashi would not have voluntarily associated herself with
criminals. It was easy for a naïve girl to be tricked by the
masterminds of the criminal world. What had been their plans for
her?

He should do the right thing and give her
back her money and her phone, but knowing she’d bolt the moment she
regained financial independence, he’d opted to do the wrong thing.
The thought of Tashi on her own, out there in the world with no one
to protect her from the vultures who were hunting her, sent icy
fear twisting around Adam’s heart.

“Adamo.”

“Adam.”

Adam whipped around as he heard two versions
of his name being called simultaneously by two different women.

“Tashi.” Her name spilled out before he could
stop it. He hurried over to where she stood at the door in a pair
of white shorts and a yellow blouse.

“Adamo, what’s going on?” his mother asked
through the phone line.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were busy,”
Tashi said.

“It’s just my parents.”

“Adamo, are you entertaining? Is that a
woman’s voice I hear? Is there a woman at the house with you?”

Now how should he respond to that question?
If he said, “No”, Tashi might think she was not important enough to
be introduced to his parents. And if he said, “Yes”, his mother
would insist on hearing more about her. He wasn’t ready to share
Tashi with his parents, simply because he didn’t know what to tell
them about her.

“Adamo. Is there a woman there with you?” his
mother asked again.

“I—I should go,” Tashi whispered, backing
up.

“No. You’re not going anywhere.” He caught
her hand, and tugging her along with him, he marched her over to
his desk and sat her down in one of the chairs in front of it.
“Yes, Mom,” he stated, dropping his weight into the chair next to
Tashi. “There’s a woman here with me.” He placed his hand over
Tashi’s that were clasped tightly together on her lap. “She’s the
reason I haven’t been to the office in two weeks.”

“Oh darling, this is so exciting,” his mother
screamed, clapping her hands. “Put her on satellite. I want to see
her. Alessandro! Alessandro, come quickly. Our son is dating
again.”

“Is that true, Adamo?” his father’s voice
boomed over the wire. “How serious are you about this woman?”

Yep, get straight to the point.

“Quite serious, I’d say,” his mother
remarked, thankfully in Italian, which was customary when they were
excited about something. “She’s obviously important enough for him
to put aside business for two weeks. Could she be the one Adam? Is
she your
Anam Cara
? The last time we visited, you promised
the next woman you presented to us would be the one.”

Yes, he’d said that, but it was only to get
his father off his case about Sadie’s incapability to produce an
heir, and he hadn’t really presented Tashi to them. It was just a
coincidence that she’d walked into his office during their
chat.

There are no coincidences in life...

“I’d like to see her. I’d like to see the
woman who’ll be bearing my grandchildren,” his father stated, more
command than sentiment in his tone.

“
Mamma, Papà, per favore, voi stessi
contengono. Non voglio che lei spaventata
.” As he warned his
parents to contain themselves and not to scare Tashi, Adam sent up
a silent prayer that she didn’t understand a word of the
conversation, which was evident in her next question.

“What are they saying?”

“Mom, Dad, give me a second.” He reached
across his desk and pushed a button on the phone. “They’re
Italians,” he said in response to Tashi’s question. “They get
excited about everything, especially any woman I date. Ever since I
was of marriageable age—twenty-one to my father—he’s been harassing
me about carrying on the Andreas bloodline.”

“But we’re not dating.”

Aren’t we?
“I told them that the next
woman I presented to them would be—” He cleared his throat. “Would
be the one.”

“The one what?” Her face contorted in
confusion.

“The one I’d marry.”

She dropped her gaze and color stole into her
cheeks. “But you didn’t present me to them. I just happened to walk
in on your conversation. I’m not the one, Adam,” she said, raising
her head to stare at him.

You are
. “They don’t know that. All
they know is that for the past two weeks I’ve neglected my duties
as CEO of Andreas International to be with you. For them, that is
serious business, and the fact that you’ve been living here with me
on the family estate—”

“But I’m only here with you because I was
sick the first time, and then because my money was stolen and I had
nowhere else to go.”

“Is that what you want me to tell them?” he
asked, guardedly.

She broke her gaze and glanced around the
office. “No. I guess not.”

“Okay, then we’ll pretend we’re dating, that
you’re “the one” just to appease them and hide the truth.”
Whatever that was
, he thought to himself. “They want to chat
via satellite, though. Are you comfortable with that?” He wasn’t,
but it was her call.

She seemed thoughtful for a minute, then
said, “Yes. I’m okay with it. It would be nice to meet them even
though it’s only through satellite.”

She’d clammed up every time he’d questioned
her about her background, but today she seemed relaxed about being
interrogated by a couple of total strangers. Was he too close for
her comfort, or did she receive some enlightenment about her
situation while meditating alone? He hoped for the latter. “My
father will grill you for information about your background, but
feel free not to answer any of his questions. Don’t let him bully
you. Okay?”

She squared her shoulders as if she were
preparing to do battle and braced herself with a smile. “I’ll be
fine.”

Still not convinced that it was a good idea,
Adam picked up the remote from his desk and walked Tashi over to
the other side of the office. He seated her beside him on the black
leather sofa facing a wall, and then pushed a button on the
remote.

His parents were already seated, arm in arm,
on a red loveseat, big grins on their faces as they looked out from
the huge monitor mounted on the wall. Adam looped an arm across
Tashi’s shoulders as he felt her shiver beside him. “Mom, Dad, this
is Tashi Holland. Tashi, my parents, Alessandro and Arabella
Andreas.”

“Hello, Tashi,” his parents said in unison,
waiving all formalities.

“Hello,” Tashi responded, smiling into the
monitor. “It’s nice meeting you, Mr. and Mrs. Andreas.”

“The pleasure is ours, my dear,” his mother
said. “And please call us Alessandro and Arabella. Adam, she’s such
a lovely delicate creature,” she remarked in the next breath. “How
did you meet?”

“Was it a formal introduction by a friend or
business associate?” his father asked, his blue eyes assessing
Tashi from thousands of miles away.

“We bumped into each other at Mountainview
Café a couple weeks ago,” Adam replied.