The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four

by Ana E Ross

  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.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  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.

  He’d been so disgusted that he’d gotten involved with The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other organization that fought human trafficking. It was an eye-popper for him. Most people around the world still refused to believe the extent to which these people would go to drug and kidnap young boys and girls and turn them into sex slaves. Most of them were tricked with offers of bogus modeling jobs abroad, only to wake up in a palace of horror or a dungeon of filth the next day.

  And to think that his Tashi had almost fallen victim to the very criminals, rapists, and pedophiles he’d been helping to put away for years. Adam closed his eyes and fisted his hands in an effort to stop the nausea from rising to his throat and the tears from gushing from his eyes. He had to stay strong for Tashi.

  He opened his eyes to find a dead, vacant look in Tashi’s eyes. She stared through him, past him as if she were transfixed in another place.

  “What did the agent tell you to do? How did you escape?” he asked.

  “He’d already killed Scottie’s pretend parents before I got to the house,” she continued in a low, dreary voice. “They were lying on the floor with blood pouring out of holes in their heads. He’d shot them in the head. Their eyes were open wide and they were staring up at the ceiling, but they were dead,” she whispered as if she were afraid to disturb the ghosts.

  She’d seen too much, witnessed too many painful horrible scenes in her young life. Where did she find the strength to cope? She was strong. He never realized how strong until now.

  She pressed her lips together as if to stifle a cry. “And he—he—made me put on a bullet-proof vest and gloves. He said I couldn’t leave any fingerprints behind. He gave me a gun and showed me how to shoot it. He said—” She raised her hands in front of her and demonstrated as she spoke. “He said, just—just wrap your hands around the barrel, point at his head, and pull the trigger.” She dropped her hands and squeezed her eyes tightly as if she were trying to block out the vision. “I’d—I’d never even seen or touched a gun before, and I was scared, but he said I had to learn to shoot it if I wanted to stay alive.” She dropped her head in her hands again as a new wave of sobs overwhelmed her.

  Watching her, listening to her weep, seemed surreal to Adam. He felt as if he was watching a movie, or trapped in a nightmare, struggling to wake up, to cry out, but unable to move or speak. He desired to hold her and promise her that no one would hurt her ever again, but he had to wait until she’d told him the entire story.

  “What happened next, Tashi?” he urged quietly.

  “He—he said after I killed the driver, I should push him out of the car and drive around the block to another car he had left for me. He said he’d left a bag of money inside. He took my cell phone and gave me another one. He said he was going to call me and explain everything, but he never called. And—and now my money and the cell phone are gone, and—and he has no way of getting in touch with me.” She flung out her hands in despair.

  Now Adam understood her anxiety over the cell phone being left at the apartment the night he’d brought her to his home, and her falling apart three days later when she went back to find it gone, along with her only means of financial support in this world. “How did you end up in Granite Falls, Tashi?” he asked in a tremulous voice. He needed to know what wind had blown her here.

  “The agent told me to drive here. He said I couldn’t take any public transportation and I couldn’t use my driver’s license or credit cards or anything that could be traced back to me. He told me to toss the gun into the Hudson before I left the city and ditch the car in the Aiken River once I got here. He said I was a witness and that they would be looking for me. That’s why I was living in that dump. I—I couldn’t put my name on any lease. I can’t even rent a car. I couldn’t go to the hospital when I was sick. I can’t use my name. I can’t do anything. I might as well be dead.” She gulped hard as fresh tears slid down her cheeks.

  “Do you know why the agent sent you to Granite Falls, Tashi? Did he tell you why he picked this town?”

  “He said he had a friend here who would take care of me. He said he was going to call and let him know I was coming, and that he—he was to make me his temporary bride and give me the protection of his family’s name until he got here and explained everything.”

  “What’s the name of his friend, Tashi?” Adam asked in a tremulous voice.

  “I don’t know. He was about to tell me his name when some men came in and starting shooting at us. All I heard was, “His name is A—” and the rest was swallowed up in the gunfire.

  A—Adam. Temporary bride. If the situation weren’t so grim, Adam would laugh.

  “Then more men came in and fired at us,” Tashi continued without prompting. “He told me to run out the back door, and so I ran out and shot the driver like he’d told me to. But I didn’t hear anything else from inside. It was quiet like death. I don’t know if he made it out alive. And—and I’ve been searching the Internet for information about the shooting, but the only thing out there is about a man shot to death in the driveway.”

  Adam’s gut was tied up in knots but he forced himself to breathe through the pain. There was only one New York FBI Agent he knew who had friends in Granite Falls. “What was the agent’s name?”

  “I don’t know. He just said he was an FBI agent, and that he had come to rescue me from some bad people.” She dropped her head and gazed at her twisting hands.

  “Can you describe him?”

  She licked her lips, then gazed up at him with a face bleak with sorrow. “He’s black, and really tall and muscular, and he had—um—a small scar on his right cheek.” She touched her cheek. “And now he’s probably dead because of me.” She dropped her head again.

  It was Paul. Tashi’s case of survivor’s guilt wasn’t just about the driver she’d killed. It was about the agent who’d come to save her—a man she didn’t even know. “Were there any other agents at the house that night?” he asked.

  “No. He was alone.”

  Why would Paul work alone? Where was his partner? Why would he put his life on the line for a strange girl and then send her to him for protection? Why? Adam didn’t ask the questions because he was certain that Tashi didn’t have the answers. Only one person did. “How long ago did this happen? When did you come to Granite Falls?”

  She took a deep, steadying breath. “Umm—about a year and a half ago. Last—um—around the end of March.”

  The same time that Paul Dawson fell off the grid. Adam remembered Massimo trying to get in touch with Paul last year—around the time he married Shaina. But the agent’s phones had just ke
pt ringing, and the agency had simply told him that he was unavailable, which wasn’t unusual since Paul did go undercover quite a bit.

  But after hearing Tashi’s horror story, Adam had to wonder. Was Paul dead? Was that the reason Massimo was unable to reach him? Adam couldn’t remember Paul ever being undercover for this long. In his recollection, the longest he’d spend incognito was three to four months. He was a meticulous agent who got in, hit hard and fast, and then got out unscathed.

  “I’ve been waiting all this time for him to call or show up, but I don’t think he ever will,” Tashi said, cutting into his thoughts. “I was so happy when you told me your name was Adam. I knew it was a long shot that you were that man whose name began with an A, but I was holding on to hope.” A look of tired sadness passed over her features.

  Hope. The last gift to leave Pandora’s box after the seven plagues had been unleashed on the world. Adam gathered Tashi into his arms. “I am your hope, Tashi. I am the man whose name begins with an A. The agent who rescued you is Paul Dawson.” Adam refused to think of Paul in the past tense. He had to hope that his friend was alive, but for whatever reason was still unable to contact him.

  He cleared the croak from his throat. “Paul is a good friend of mine, and of Bryce, Erik, and Massimo. We met him at a restaurant in Paris a few years ago, and we became instant friends that night. Since then, we’ve gotten together at least once a year in New York or here in Granite Falls. That’s why he sent you to Granite Falls and to me, so that I can protect you.”

  “Really?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “Are you really the man he sent me to find?” Her arms tightened about him as tears of relief, he supposed, flowed freely from her, seeped through his shirt, and warmed his skin.

  “Yes, Tashi. I am that man, and you did find me. I won’t let anything or anyone hurt you again. I will protect you.”

  “It just seems too good to be true.”