The Tycoon's Temporary Bride: Book Four by Ana E. Ross

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