The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four Read online

  Tashi clicked on the Granite Falls People News link and began to read the first article. The four men she’d glimpsed in the magazine that night were featured together. They were all very close friends, and they were all billionaires. Dr. Erik LaCrosse was a world-renowned OB/GYN who often visited third-world countries to attend to war-torn and natural disaster victims and refugees. Bryce Fontaine was owner and CEO of Fontaine Enterprises—an international conglomeration that comprised of a vast variety of businesses. He was the man she’d seen at the outlets with the woman and twins today. His face was also featured in the Fountain Towers TV ads. That’s why he’d seemed familiar to her. The glass skyscraper of his Fontaine Enterprises headquarters towered over the town. Many buildings bore the Fontaine name. Wow. And Massimo Andretti, Adam’s cousin, was heir to Andretti Industries—the largest textile manufacturer in the world. They were all powerful men, and they were all married, with children, except Adam.

  Except for Adam. He wasn’t married. A leisurely smile spread Tashi’s lips as that realization sunk into her brain and her heart.

  The article described Adam as the Temporary Tycoon and the last available billionaire in Granite Falls to be snatched from the eligible bachelors’ shelf. He was nicknamed the Temporary Tycoon because he always warned his lovers up front that the relationship was temporary. At least he wasn’t giving anybody any false hopes. “And I shouldn’t be having any either,” Tashi vocally schooled herself. The FBI agent had said she was to be married temporarily, not that she was to marry the temporary tycoon, even though his name began with an A.

  So his little girl, Tiffany, must have been born out of wedlock. Lots of unmarried couples shared children these days. She herself was illegitimate, but unlike Tiffany, whose father seemed to be a presence in her life, Tashi had never met hers.

  She had no idea who he was, or if he was dead or alive. Her mother died before she was old enough to ask questions, and when Tashi had asked her overprotective Uncle Victor about her father, he’d said that he didn’t know him, had never met him. The one thing Tashi knew about her father was that he was black. Her light-brown complexion attested to that fact.

  Tashi clicked on some more links but found nothing about Tiffany or her mother. She wondered if Adam was still involved with the woman who’d given birth to his beautiful little girl. She smiled as she recalled the food stains on his shirt and the dried baby food in his hair that spoke volumes about him as a devoted father. Tiffany Andreas was a very lucky little girl.

  Feeling as if her head would explode with the overload of information, Tashi closed her laptop and set it back on the coffee table, but some unseen force made her open it up again. She pulled her phone from her pocket and added the phone number for Hotel Andreas to her list of three other contacts—Mindy, Mountainview Café, and her favorite pizza parlor next to the camera shop on Oak Street. Before shutting off her phone, she made Hotel Andreas her number one favorite.

  Tashi closed her laptop again as she tried to analyze her spontaneous behavior. It wasn’t like she was going to call his hotel looking for him. He’d probably not even remember her. What would she say, anyway? “Hey, Adam, remember me, the girl you met at Mountainview Café the other day?” Nope, she thought with a twist of her lips, calling Adam would be tacky, and could be construed as stalking—the very thing she’d accused him of when she’d seen him at the grocery store. There was no explanation for saving his number to her phone, except that it gave her a connection to him, made her feel close to him—in an odd sort of way.

  The apartment was a lot cooler than it had been when she first arrived home, but still her skin felt as flushed as when she’d collided with Adam Andreas. He’d left a lasting impression on her.

  Well, at least she could rule one thing out, she mused as she got up from the sofa: a wealthy, powerful man like Adam Andreas was definitely not the one the FBI agent had sent her looking for. It was highly unlikely that a New York City FBI agent would know a man like that, be friends with a man like Adam Andreas.

  And she needed to stop thinking about him, she scolded herself as her heart began to race with the memories of being crushed against his body. He was definitely out of her league. Way, way out—like a billion light years away.

  Nope, Adam’s knee-jerk reaction to her today was merely hormones—a normal reaction to a man meeting a woman he found attractive. He was probably over it by now. And if he knew she’d killed a man in cold blood, and was a fugitive from the law, his attraction would turn to disdain. He might even turn her in. Nope, it was best she stayed away from him. She needed to occupy her mind with something else.

  As she walked into her bedroom and began to separate her laundry into two laundry bags, a knot formed in Tashi’s stomach. Her savior was still a mystery. He might forever be a mystery since she had to face the harsh reality that the agent may not have made it out of that house alive.

  Maybe it was time she gave up on him and began planning a life on her own. She was so tired of not being able to enjoy the basic human things ordinary people enjoyed on a daily basis. Like owning a car, having a job to go to, making friends, and even—maybe even trying her luck at romance again.

  She would do a background check on any potential boyfriends this time—no more Scotties pulling the wool over her eyes. Her uncle was right, there were a lot of bad people in the world, but there were some good ones too, she had to admit. That FBI agent who had saved her life was one of them.

  As the loud music from her upstairs neighbor’s stereo blasted through the ceiling, Tashi knew that it was time she got out of this hellhole. Winters wouldn’t be so bad if she lived in a nicer area of town. With the money she still had left, and a salary from a job, she knew she could afford one of the luxurious studio or one-bedroom apartments at Fontaine Towers that overlooked the Aiken River.

  She wasn’t born into a wealthy family, but she’d never lived in such a destitute place either. She’d lived with her mother and her uncle in an upper middle class neighborhood, and after her mother died, her uncle had moved them into a similar neighborhood far away from the previous one.

  As a child, she never got everything she wanted, but she’d never wanted for anything. Her maternal grandparents had set up a decent trust fund for her mother and her uncle, but they’d never touched it. That money had supported Tashi through, and beyond college. She had no student loans to pay back, and she’d been able to rent a nice studio apartment close to her university in New York City. There was still a lot of money left, but she couldn’t take the risk of withdrawing it, not that she needed it with all that the agent had given her, anyway.

  As she swung her bags of dirty laundry over her shoulder and left her apartment, Tashi wondered how difficult it would be to assume a new identity. She had no idea where to begin or if attempting to change her name would trigger cyber waves that might reach her enemies, and alert them to her whereabouts.

  One thing was certain, she could not continue living like this.

  ***

  Adam couldn’t sleep. Not since he’d collided with Tashi Holland, three days ago. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get her out of his head, and his other head kept standing at attention and drooling at the prospect of making her acquaintance.

  He wasn’t presently involved with anyone, so starting something with Tashi wasn’t a problem—maybe just a quick fling to get her out of his system might be all he needed. His most recent relationship had lasted two weeks, perhaps because he’d found the woman boring compared to his previous lover, Sadie, a fifty-something-year-old with a penchant for younger lovers. Their relationship had lasted about a year. It was the first time he’d been involved with an older woman, and like the others before her, Sadie had known it wasn’t permanent, even though it had begun to feel comfortable for both of them. So when her company offered her a promotion and transfer to Austin, Texas, she’d immediately jumped on it, and four months ago, she’d spent one last passionate night with him then bid him farewell the ne
xt morning.

  She hadn’t called since she left, and he’d found himself missing her for a host of reasons. Sadie had never been married, had no children, was well traveled, well educated, and spoke several languages. She had the body of a twenty-year-old athlete, and was the best lover he’d ever had. She’d even taught him a few tricks she swore would drive any woman out of her mind. Tricks he hadn’t had the chance to try out on anyone else, yet.

  Yes, he missed her—their deep meaningful conversations, especially—but not badly enough to call her.

  Rules were rules, and he was sticking by his.

  Well, that was until he’d bumped into Tashi Holland.

  After the first sleepless night and waking up the next morning with a rock-hard cock that refused to go away, even after he gave it some attention, Adam had boarded his jet and flown to Austin. He just needed to forget Tashi. Forget her big emerald eyes, her sexy mouth, her curly auburn hair, and the soft feel of her delicate little body in his arms. Forget that she might be a damsel in distress. Sadie could help him forget.

  But Sadie wasn’t having him. It was over. She’d moved on with another lover who was even younger than Adam, but she’d treated him to lunch. When she’d asked about the real reason he’d flown to Texas, he’d told her about Tashi and the pull she had on him. He’d admitted that he was afraid he might start something he might not have the power to end. And since ending was his thing…

  Sadie had had a good laugh, and then she’d said, “You should have known the day would come when a woman would challenge your commitment to your temporary rule, Adam Andreas. You can’t stay balanced for the rest of your life. There’s no excitement there. It’s the imbalance, the chaos that provide us the opportunity to learn and grow, that make us want to take risks to tip the scales in our favor again.”

  “You, more than anyone know how to keep me balanced.”

  “No, sweetness,” she’d said, resting her hand on his. “This Tashi girl tipped your scale. You and she are on this seesaw together. You have to work with her to tip it back. The fact that you broke your rule and came to see me tells me that you know that your heart knows something you’re not ready to admit.”

  “My heart has been wrong before.”

  “Was it your heart that was wrong, or was it you, Adam?”

  His heart had skipped a beat as if agreeing with her.

  “Don’t fight the pull, darling. Explore the possibilities before this opportunity moves on to someone else.”

  “What if it doesn’t work out?” he’d asked, trying desperately to refute her wisdom.

  “What if it does? Sometimes we just have to live the questions, Adam,” she’d admonished, giving him a lingering kiss on the lips for old times’ sake before sending him back to Granite Falls and his impending fate.

  Adam tossed the sheet off his naked body and got out of bed. It was a little past two, but he knew the restless hour and a half of sleep was all he was going to get tonight. All, he thought, gazing down at his cock pressed tight against his belly with drool easing out of it. It was literally becoming a pain to wake up horny with only one way to relieve the tension—well two, but he hated cold showers.

  Adam grabbed an elastic hair band from the nightstand and secured his mane into a ponytail as he left the bedroom of his third floor master suite. He crossed the hall, and walked through the dining and living rooms to the kitchen. There he busied himself making a pot of coffee. What he would enjoy more was a strong espresso, but he was out of his favorite beans, and since his mind had been flooded with nothing but thoughts of Tashi Holland lately, he’d forgotten to restock. Coffee would have to do for tonight.

  As he waited for the java to brew, he walked to the wall of French doors on the other side of the kitchen and gazed out into the darkness of the night.

  Upon his return from Austin, he’d gone straight to the café where he’d met Tashi Holland, hoping beyond hope that she’d be there. Mountainview Café and Hair Salon was jointly owned by Lillian Fontaine and Felicia LaCrosse, the mothers of two of his best friends— Bryce Fontaine, and Erik LaCrosse who was the father of Adam’s goddaughter, Tiffany.

  Adam, Erik, Bryce, and Adam’s cousin Massimo Andretti had been best friends since high school. They were closer than best friends. They were brothers who’d sworn a blood oath to always be there for each other.

  His brothers were all married with growing families. Massimo had taken a wife just last year and had already produced an heir to the Andretti fortune. Married life had put a damper on their “guy bonding” time, and when they did manage to get together, his married friends did nothing but swap pictures and stories about their children, and talk about silly spats with their wives. Adam, of late, was feeling more and more displaced around them, having no stories of his own to share.

  It was ironic that he was the only one of the group still not married when he was the one who’d had the most interest in starting a family years ago—way back when his man-whore cousin, Massimo, had taken an oath never to marry just to spite his philandering father who’d picked out a suitable wife for him. On the contrary, Adam had caved under his own father’s pressures to expand the Andreas bloodline, and had thus proposed. He’d wanted to make his old man happy even it meant making himself miserable.

  Within a year after their breakup, Claire had married some web design entrepreneur, but four years later when his company went bankrupt and he was unable to support her lavish lifestyle, she divorced him. She’d tried to rekindle whatever she thought they’d had, claiming that Adam’s deep spirituality and journeys into his inner universe, and the pressure from his father to immediately start a family had scared her. She’d said she’d made a mistake by leaving him at the altar. He’d told her she hadn’t made a mistake and that he was over her completely. Lady Fate had been kind to him, and he wasn’t about to throw her gift back into her face.

  Ten years had passed, and he hadn’t even been mildly tempted to go that route again. But his desire to contribute to the filial conversations had prompted him to begin taking Tiffany out—once in a while. Being with Tiffany reminded him of the void in his life, but he nonetheless enjoyed spending time with her, and then reporting on the unexpected things she said and did. He also appreciated the added bonus she provided after Sadie left. Seems like a single man with a baby was the ultimate female magnet. He’d procured several dates because of Tiffany’s cute little smiles and darling antics, even her whining on cranky days.

  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.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  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.