Miranda’s mouth went dry when she saw Allessandro standing in the shadows.

He was wearing nothing but a pair of well-worn camouflage pants and a white undershirt that emphasized the darkness of his tan, the strength of his chest. In his hand he held his semiautomatic, as if it were as an impenetrable shield between him and the world. In his eyes glittered a harshness she didn’t understand, a look that was equal parts pain and pleasure.

Dangerous, she thought. Not just because he held a gun in one hand and her life in the other, but because his brutal exterior couldn’t hide the glimmer of compassion deep inside him.

He didn’t move, didn’t speak. He just watched her, the light from across the street slashing in, momentarily rescuing him from the shadows, then returning him to darkness.

Something deep inside her started to tremble. Dangerous…

Dear Reader,

“In like a lion, out like a lamb.” That’s what they say about March, right? Well, there are no meek and mild lambs among this month’s Intimate Moments heroines, that’s for sure! In Saving Dr. Ryan, Karen Templeton begins a new miniseries, THE MEN OF MAYES COUNTY, while telling the story of a roadside delivery—yes, the baby kind—that leads to an improbable romance. Maddie Kincaid starts out looking like the one who needs saving, but it’s really Dr. Ryan Logan who’s in need of rescue.

We continue our trio of FAMILY SECRETS prequels with The Phoenix Encounter by Linda Castillo. Follow the secret-agent hero deep under cover—and watch as he rediscovers a love he’d thought was dead. But where do they go from there? Nina Bruhns tells a story of repentance, forgiveness and passion in Sins of the Father, while Eileen Wilks offers up tangled family ties and a seemingly insoluble dilemma in Midnight Choices. For Wendy Rosnau’s heroine, there’s only One Way Out as she chooses between being her lover’s mistress—or his wife. Finally, Jenna Mills’ heroine becomes The Perfect Target. She meets the seemingly perfect man, then has to decide whether he represents safety—or danger.

The excitement never flags—and there will be more next month, too. So don’t miss a single Silhouette Intimate Moments title, because this is the line where you’ll find the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

The Perfect Target
Jenna Mills

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNA MILLS

grew up in south Louisiana, amid romantic plantation ruins, haunting swamps and timeless legends. It’s not surprising, then, that she wrote her first romance at the ripe old age of six! Three years later, this librarian’s daughter turned to romantic suspense with Jacquie and the Swamp, a harrowing tale of a young woman on the run in the swamp and the dashing hero who helps her find her way home. Since then her stories have grown in complexity, but her affinity for adventurous women and dangerous men has remained constant. She loves writing about strong characters torn between duty and desire, conscious choice and destiny.

When not writing award-winning stories brimming with deep emotion, steamy passion and page-turning suspense, Jenna spends her time with her husband, two cats, two dogs and a menagerie of plants in their Dallas, Texas, home. Jenna loves to hear from her readers. She can be reached via e-mail at writejennamills@aol.com, or via snail mail at P.O. Box 768, Coppell, Texas 75019.

For my terrific editor, Stephanie Maurer…

this one is all yours!

Thanks for the inspiration and collaboration.

I’ll always remember our thunderstorm in New Orleans.

Thanks also to Patrick and the rest of the SPSS gang,

for helping make this book possible.

And always, my husband, Chuck.

You are my light. I love you

more than words can express.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Prologue

Two roads diverged in a wood

And I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

—Robert Frost

“Turn on your TV.”

Alessandro Vellenti squinted through the darkness of his Lisbon hotel room. He’d seen closets bigger, closets dedicated solely to shoes and handbags. But the small room had a shower, and that’s all he’d really wanted.

Well, maybe not all he wanted, but all he could have.

Night had fallen while he’d stood under the spray of a lukewarm shower, trying to ignore the metallic smell of the water. Now, flashing lights from the discotheque across the street cut through the threadbare curtains like something straight out of a macabre horror flick.

“My TV?” He positioned the mobile phone against his shoulder and fumbled for the bedside lamp. Anticipation increased his heart rate. Javier was hardly a television kind of guy. Sandro doubted his partner wanted him to see the newest reality show to disgrace the airwaves. “What’s going on?”

“Something big. What took you so long to answer the phone? I’m not finally interrupting something, am I?”

Sandro ignored the jab and wrapped a threadbare towel around his hips. Rivulets of water clung to his chest and slid down his legs, but he didn’t finish drying. There was no need. The room reeked of stale cigarettes and harsh antiseptic, but the temperature was only slightly cool. Sandro had certainly endured colder. And hotter.

He preferred the hot. “I’m not a kiss-and-tell kind of guy,” he muttered, looking for the remote. “What’s going on?”

“Jorak Zhukov was arrested crossing into the United States from Canada. The ambassador to Ravakia is giving an interview right now.”

Finally, the urgency in Javier’s voice made sense. Implications and questions immediately surfaced, raised more questions. “Was he by himself?”

“Apparently.”

Sandro went down on one knee, locating the remote under the narrow bed, adjacent to a skimpy black bra and slinky white scarf. He didn’t even want to think about how the erotic garments had found their way under the bed. Doing so would be too depressing. Instead, he aimed the ancient control at the pathetic excuse for a television across the room.

Nothing happened. “Has he been charged with anything?”

“Just traveling on a falsified visa. So far. But I can’t imagine the United States letting him slip through their fingers, not after what happened to those agents.”

Sandro hit the power button again, still with no luck. Banging the useless instrument against the nightstand, he recalled the countless reports he’d reviewed about Jorak Zhukov and his father Viktor, the overthrown leader of the Eastern European country Ravakia. The two were wanted in connection with the deaths of eight undercover operatives. Word on the street had it something even bigger was going down.

It was Sandro and Javier’s mission to find out what.

“What of Viktor?” Anticipation whirred deep inside Sandro. Nailing the notorious father-son duo would save countless lives. “Any indication they were traveling together?”

“The State Department doesn’t think so.”

Sandro gave up on the remote, took the room in three long strides, and jabbed the on button. A bright light yawned across the screen, but no picture and only the sound of static.

“They think Viktor’s holed up somewhere in Europe,” Javier added.

Maybe. Probably. When the U.S. got determined about finding something, safe hiding places became scarce. “Do they know where?”

“If they do, they’re not saying.”

A distorted picture finally formed. Sandro flipped through channels on the old black-and-white until he found the familiar CNN logo. The picture remained fuzzy, however, the sound garbled.

“The State Department’s heightened the travel warning for American citizens and interests,” Javi added. “With Jorak in custody, Viktor will be desperate. They fear retaliation.”

Sandro slammed his palm against the side of the television, still no sound. Against a backdrop of a proud American flag, Ambassador Peter Carrington grew more animated by the second. Defiance glowed in his eyes, hardened the lines of his patrician face. His hands moved as he talked, slicing through the air like a chop to the neck of an invisible opponent.

“What’s he saying? I can’t get any volume.”

“The usual. The United States is not in the business of negotiating with criminals on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.”

Sandro stepped back from the television, suddenly cold. “Zhukov will take that as a direct challenge.”

A hard noise broke from Javi’s throat. “I don’t understand people like Carrington, so snug in his ivory tower that he doesn’t realize he’s not insulated from the real world.”

“He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” Sandro pointed out. The highly revered, much loved Carrington family skirted as close to royalty as America got. “He’s never had his world blow up around him.”

“That’s about to change,” Javi warned as the interview ended. A shadowy image of General Viktor Zhukov replaced that of the newly appointed ambassador to Ravakia. “Viktor’s already on the move, knows he needs leverage.”

Leverage. The word snaked through Sandro like rancid meat. “You mean a hostage.”

“Viktor made contact about thirty minutes ago,” Javi said, his voice practically drowned out by a siren somewhere in the city. “He’s already got a plan. And a target.”

The news didn’t surprise Sandro. “Who?”

“Miranda Carrington.”

The name did. An image immediately formed, of leagues of chestnut hair and exotic green eyes. “The ambassador’s daughter?”

“A child for a child,” Javi muttered cryptically. “Word on the street is she’s in Europe indulging some gypsy fantasy. She was last seen in Seville.”

Only a few hours’ drive from Lisbon.

“Cristo.” Sandro knew little of the ambassador’s youngest child, other than that in her late twenties, she seemed the exact opposite of her perfect, politically correct older sister and brother, Elizabeth and Ethan, dubbed the E-twins by the press. Not that Miranda wasn’t perfect in her own right…

She sure as hell could kiss, he thought, then wished he hadn’t. Vividly, he recalled a tabloid photo of a bikini-clad Miranda wrapped around some Ivy League frat boy, mouths locked in a pose more suited to the cover of an X-rated video.

Sandro sucked in a sharp breath and shoved wet hair back from his face. His body groaned in frustration.

Don’t go there, he warned himself. Don’t even think about there. Especially not with a woman targeted to become a pawn in a high-stakes international game. Especially not while he stood wet and naked in a hotel room that reeked of sex by the hour. He couldn’t afford to be distracted any more than he could afford the nasty kink in months of grueling undercover work. His mission was clear: gain the general’s trust, learn his secrets, then bring him down.

“It gets worse,” his partner added, seemingly reading his mind, as always. “That’s why I’m calling.”

Sandro braced himself. “Lay it on me.”

“The general wants you to get her for him, amigo. Said if you can deliver the girl, he’ll know where your loyalties lie.”

Sandro went very still. A test. The irony of it burned clear down to his bones. If he failed the test, he failed his country.

But if he succeeded…

Reeling, Sandro dragged the phone back to the narrow cot and slipped his hand under the pillow, where his 9mm awaited, silencer intact. “Tell him I’m onboard.”

He’d always excelled at tests, wouldn’t fail now. Training and loyalty left him no choice. He had to find her. Find the ambassador’s daughter. Find her fast, find her first.

Before the long-awaited chance to cozy up to the general went up in flames.

Chapter 1

No one recognized her.

Miranda Carrington lowered her tortoiseshell sunglasses and glanced around the open-air market, savoring the sense of liberation. No one watched her every step. No one shoved a camera in her face. There was no one grabbing a mobile phone to excitedly report her outfit, her language, the drink in her hand. No one waiting for her to commit a faux pas worthy of splashing all over the covers of every grocery-store tabloid.

Exhilaration tumbled through her hard and fast. Miranda wanted to twirl around the crowded cobblestone sidewalk, to laugh. Instead, she smiled. Last night a storm had raged, but the morning held nothing but clear blue skies and cool Atlantic breezes.

And freedom.

Here, in the small Portuguese village of Cascais, no one gave a flip about her or her prestigious family. No one noticed the two glasses of port she’d nursed the night before. No one paid attention to her slightly off-kilter sense of fashion. No one watched. No one cared.

Here, she was just another woman, on just another day. She could dance in the street without speculation that she was practicing witchcraft. She could laugh out loud.

Smiling, Miranda reached for the camera draped over her shoulder, lifted it to her face, and snapped several shots of the vendors working the market.

“Bom dia,” she greeted the older gentleman who’d moved from South Africa to Portugal, where he now made his living carving wooden toys for children by night and selling his crafts by day. He offered her a big smile, which she captured on film.

“Astrida! Astrida!”

Down the cobblestone walkway, an older woman grinned despite her missing front teeth.

“Rosita,” Miranda greeted, then snapped a shot of the woman standing proudly in front of her stall, with a fine array of brightly colored scarves blowing in the April breeze. Miranda had purchased one just yesterday, and now used the slinky turquoise fabric to hold blond hair back from her face.

“Obrigada,” she said in thanks, then continued on her way. A few feet away, she took a shot of a young woman showing off handmade seashell wind chimes to a group of older tourists.

Years of sweltering under the public eye kept Miranda walking at a brisk pace. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. She wanted to savor anonymity as long as she could.

The thrill never went away. Sometimes, she still couldn’t believe she’d finally convinced her father to let her live her own life. Eleven years before tragedy had forever changed their family, and in its wake, he’d tightened the net around his family to near unbearable restrictions. But Miranda hadn’t seen Hawk Monroe or any of his men in weeks. And she’d certainly looked. She knew the tricks, knew the small tests to figure out if someone was shadowing her or merely living their own lives.

More than anything, Miranda wanted to live her own life.

At the end of the street stood a trendy boutique, boasting the seaside village’s finest collection of European perfumes. Miranda was tempted to dash inside but didn’t want to waste the hazy morning light. She’d seen a fleet of old, rainbow-colored fishing boats bobbing in the harbor from her hotel window, and—

The all too familiar feeling of dread slammed in from nowhere. She stopped abruptly and sucked in a sharp breath, but the icy fingers at the back of her neck didn’t go away. Slipping her sunglasses back on, she turned slowly, carefully scanning the crowd milling about the bazaar.

Nothing. Nothing out of place, anyway. No one hurriedly ducked into a shop. No one covertly turned away. No one quickly raised a newspaper to cover their face. She was only imagining things, so used to living in a fishbowl that even here, in this small seaside village, she felt the eyes of the world watching.

Posh, she scolded herself. Get a grip. She flat-out wasn’t that important, even if her family was.

Her heart, however, refused to slow. The uncooperative organ kept pounding, spewing adrenaline with every hurried beat. Dismayed, Miranda forced herself to round the corner and head for the ocean. No way would she let paranoia spoil the perfect, storm-washed morning.

Beyond the battered seawall, the glistening blue of the Atlantic stole her breath. The day before, she’d stood in just this spot, staring over the water and imagining what it must have been like for those long-ago Portuguese sailors, who left their familiar worlds behind, in search of something new.

Freedom.

Odd, she thought. Her own quest for freedom had carried her across the very same ocean, but in the opposite direction.

Silently, she thanked God for airplanes.

Through the camera’s lens, she scanned the swelling waves and bobbing fishing boats, over to the palm-lined promenade along the shore, where pigeons flocked and a young couple kissed with what could only be described as desperation. They were wrapped around each other so tightly, not even the breeze could squeeze between them. The man had one hand buried in the woman’s dark brown hair, the other hand securely around her waist. Their mouths moved like a ballet, not overtly sexual, but erotically intimate, as though they were making love right there—

Miranda caught herself. She of all people knew better than to aim a camera at intimate moments. Returning her attention to the harbor, she tried to focus on the weathered fishing boats practically begging to be photographed, and not the unwanted longing yawning through her.

“No, no, no. That’s not right at all.”

The rough-hewn voice rumbled through Miranda, causing her pulse to surge like one of the waves against the seawall. She abandoned the perfect close-up on a battered blue boat and turned. Felt her body tense.

A tall, dark-haired man stood less than a foot away, closer than American manners dictated, invading her personal space in a style common to European men. She’d grown accustomed to the practice, but this man’s nearness kicked her nerves into high gear. Dark sunglasses concealed his eyes, the frames and lenses the color of the whiskers shadowing his jaw. They were the kind worn by rock stars to create that edgy, mysterious persona that drove women wild. In hiding his eyes, he concealed his intent and sent a current streaking through Miranda, as indefinable as it was unsettling.

“I beg your pardon?” she said with a refinement that would have done her perfect older sister proud.

He nodded toward the camera in her hands. “The picture you were about to take. It’s all wrong.”

“Wrong?” She felt her spine stiffen. She may have been a novice when it came to political intrigue, but she knew photography inside out. “How so?”

He slid the sunglasses from his face, revealing eyes as dark and impenetrable as the lenses that had shielded them. A slow smile touched lips too full for a face of sharp angles and hard planes. “Because you’re not in it.”

The breath stalled in her throat. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Not just because of the unexpectedly provocative words, but because of the way he looked at her, like she was the coveted trophy at the end of a long, hard fought battle. She’d never seen a gaze so full of secrets and promises, never seen eyes that dark, like the color of midnight.

Walk away, countless hours of security training commanded. This man wasn’t what he seemed. He watched her way too expectantly; his stance held the same deceptive casualness as the bodyguards who’d followed her around at Wellesley. But instead of finding his nearness threatening, Miranda found herself curious. No one knew her here, she reminded herself. No one lurked in the shadows, ready to hurt her or shame her family.

“I’m not in it?” she repeated with a smile of her own. He was tall, she noted, well over her brother’s six feet. And his hair matched the color of his eyes. “I see myself in the mirror every morning. I hardly need a picture of myself.”

His voice dropped an octave. “Then give it to me.”

This time she did step back. “Now why would I do that?”

His eyes met hers. “So I can remember the way you look standing here, with the sun in your hair and the smile on your face.”

Something inside Miranda turned hot and liquid. Fascination whispered louder. The man’s dark hair and unshaven face lent him an aura of danger, but he spoke like a poet. He was dressed like a tourist, but held a professional-looking briefcase. His swarthy skin hinted at Mediterranean ancestry, but he wore his loose-fitting black shirt and olive slacks like only an American could. He spoke accented English, but used perfect grammar.

“I should be going,” she said, pulling away before she stepped in too deep.

He reached toward her. “Let me take your picture first.”

Miranda went very still. She looked down at her arm, where his warm fingers curled around her wrist. The sight jarred her, of a blatantly masculine hand on her body. For the past few years, if a stranger so much as brushed against her in a crowd, agents or bodyguards emerged from the shadows, alert and ready.

And Miranda had hated it. She’d hated being watched, monitored, hated being denied a normal life because of her family’s notoriety. She hadn’t asked to be born a Carrington. She didn’t care about politics. She had no interest in carrying on the family legacy.

She’d just wanted to live her life, to laugh and dance and even fall down sometimes, without the whole world watching.

Butterfly, her maternal grandfather had called her. The only butterfly in a family of eagles.

Instinct had her covertly scanning the surrounding area, half expecting to see Hawk Monroe running toward her. But just like before, she found only a dazzling fountain spraying toward the pale blue sky, pigeons, street merchants and tourists.

Slowly, the stranger released her. “Bella? Did I say something wrong?”

Bella. There it was. The first clue to the puzzle. Italian. “No,” she said. “You didn’t say anything wrong.”

“Then why do you look so…nervous?”

That got her. She didn’t want to be nervous. She didn’t want to react with paranoia to the very situations she’d come to Europe to experience. “What makes you think I’m nervous?”

“The way you’re standing, like you’re about to take off running. The fact you’ve yet to let me see your eyes.”

She lifted her chin, smiled. Very slowly, very deliberately, she slid the Euro-chic tortoiseshell sunglasses from her face.

“Should I be nervous?” she challenged.

“That depends upon what makes you nervous,” he answered in that faint but drugging accent. He glanced toward the showy fountain, then around the open-air market, as though looking for something. Then he stepped closer. “If you’re worried that I’m a serial killer, I assure you I am not. This is Portugal, not America. That kind of thing is rare here.”

Laughter broke from her throat. “I don’t think you’re a serial killer.”

He didn’t grin or smile as she expected. Instead, his gaze turned serious. “Don’t let down your guard quite so easily,” he muttered darkly. “Just let me take your picture. That’s all I ask. Here,” he said, reaching for her camera. “What harm can there be? Just one shot.”

The man could no doubt talk her cousin’s four-year-old into surrendering her favorite teddy bear, Miranda thought absently. Intrigued, she decided to play along.

“Just one,” she agreed, uncurling her fingers from the sleek 35mm she’d purchased before leaving the States.

“Back up a little,” he instructed. The camera hid his eyes, but she knew they would be focused and intense.

Odd, Miranda thought, stepping against the seawall. He held her camera in his left hand, but he’d yet to put down his briefcase.

“Perfect,” he murmured. “Now untie the scarf.”

She blinked. “The scarf?”

“Hair like yours is too pretty to confine. Let the wind play with it.”

Heat streaked through her, completely unrelated to the burgeoning warmth of the day. Something about the word play, she knew. And that raspy voice. “I prefer it off my face.”

“Just for the picture,” he coaxed. “Just for me.”

Caution warned her to call the whole thing off, but her newfound sense of freedom refused to be denied. Having a man flirt with her, with no ulterior motive, felt too good. Charmed, she reached for the turquoise scarf she’d purchased from Rosita and pulled the fabric free. The breeze blowing off the ocean instantly sent long strands of blond hair fluttering around her face and tangling over her shoulders.

“Perfect,” the stranger said. “Perfect.”

Miranda fought an odd jolt of self-consciousness, as though she stood before the man completely naked, rather than in an off-the-shoulder crimson shirt and a long, gypsylike skirt she’d purchased from one of the locals. Every nerve ending felt charged and exposed. Her heart strummed low and expectant. The stranger had her posing for him, and she didn’t even know his name.

For the moment, she didn’t care.

Identity had nothing to do with what was scrawled on your birth certificate, but rather, the ideals you carried deep inside. If she asked the stranger his name, he’d ask hers.

She wasn’t ready to taint the moment with either the truth, or a lie.

“What are you waiting for?” He almost seemed to be stalling.

“The sun,” he answered without hesitation. “You’re not a woman for shadows.”

His voice was hoarse, like a man who lived on cigarettes and whisky. No one had ever talked to her like that. No words had ever drifted through her like a feathery caress. She studied him closer, that full mouth and those dark whiskers sprinkled across a strong jaw, the thick neck leading to the kind of chest women dreamed about—

Miranda jerked her gaze back to his neck, where a nasty scar slashed across his throat, a faded testimony to a brutal attack. This man’s raspy voice did not stem from pleasure or vice, but from pain and violence.

“Hurry up,” she said. Well-honed instincts kicked harder. He may not have asked her name, but he’d skillfully pinned her between his big body and the ocean behind her.

“Don’t be so impatient, bella. Some things aren’t meant to be rushed. There can be tremendous reward in lingering.”

The words were soft, but they robbed her of breath like a punch to the gut. Miranda hungered for freedom and adventure, but she also knew when she’d stepped in over her head. She could fend off attackers and wield a knife like a pro, but when it came to playing cat and mouse with outrageously good-looking, mysterious men, her defenses jammed like traffic in gridlock.

Fortunately, her legs didn’t. Pushing away from the seawall, she strode toward him, hand outstretched. “Give me my camera back.”

“But I haven’t—”

“The camera,” she said, firmer than before.

He refused to hand over her prized possession. “Have lunch with me. Maybe the clouds will clear by the time we’re done.”

“No.” Fascination crumbled into determination. This man was not what he seemed, and she knew better than to teeter on a rocky outcropping with the tide rushing in around her.

“Look, I really need to get going, so just give me my camera,” she said, extending her hand, “and—”

He took her wrist and started to tug. “Relax, bella. I know just the place—”

“Miranda!”

The urgent voice came from behind her and had her spinning toward the shopping district. A large Viking of a man broke from the crowd of older tourists and sprinted toward her. “Miranda!”

Hawk.

Her heart started to race, adrenaline spewing like a geyser out of control. They’d found her.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The second a man touched her, one of her father’s men always, always came running.

“Miranda!” Hawk shouted, gaining ground.

The stranger’s grip on her arm tightened. “Do you know him?” he asked with an urgency that hadn’t been there before. But before she could answer, the sound of gunfire ripped through the late morning and sent the crowd scattering like leaves in the wind. Pigeons took flight. Hawk went down.

Miranda screamed, lunging toward her fallen bodyguard.

But the stranger wouldn’t let her go.

“Get down,” he commanded, shoving her toward the nearest merchant’s stall. He crouched beside her, sandwiching her between a display of rooster tablecloths and his big body. “Stay low.”

A large man dressed in army fatigues bolted around the corner, with what looked to be a semiautomatic in his hand. “Hold your fire!” he was shouting. “We’ve got you surrounded!”

“Too bloody late,” the stranger muttered.

The man in fatigues kept running. He was beside the fountain when another volley of gunfire ripped through the chaos. His arms flew out as though he’d slammed into an invisible wall, and he crumpled to the ground.

“Cristo.” The stranger glanced around sharply. “Where the hell are the shooters?” He held his briefcase in front of him, scanning the crowd. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”

“But Hawk—”

“—is probably dead.”

Horror convulsed through her. Hawk. She’d spent the past year evading the unyielding man at every turn, but she didn’t want him dead. Until now, everything had always seemed more like a game than life or death.

“Look!” she cried, “he’s getting up.”

“Fool,” the stranger hissed, just as the first police officer arrived, running from the perfume boutique to dive behind a nearby stall. Sirens screamed nearby.

“Stay down,” the stranger shouted. “Be ready to run when I tell you.” Then he took aim on the police officer’s hiding place and sprayed the area with bullets.

From his briefcase.

More screams. And Hawk went back down.

The sirens wailed louder.

But there was no movement from behind the stall.

The stranger didn’t stop firing. He pointed his briefcase toward a tree, unleashed another volley and brought a slender man with a ponytail crashing into the fountain.

Miranda cringed as the water turned red.

Her heart was beating so crazily she could barely breathe. And when the stranger faced her, she felt her eyes go wide with shock. He hardly resembled the man who’d brought her senses humming to life barely minutes before. Seduction no longer glimmered in his gaze. Those black pools were hard and dark and empty. The planes of his face were severe. Even the whiskers covering his jaw looked forbidding now. Dangerous. “Run!”

She did. Miranda shot to her feet and turned from the violent man who’d just mowed down her bodyguard, ran as fast as she could. The playful skirt tangled around her legs like vines, forcing her to grab a handful of fabric and yank it above her knees. She ran past a local vendor and down an alley, around the side of the building. She ran through muddy puddles and around trash bins. She ran until her sides hurt and her lungs protested.

Then she ran some more.

He was behind her, she knew. Running. And his legs were longer, stronger. She could hear him gaining on her, the pounding of heavy footsteps, the harsh edge to his breathing. She tried not to think about what would happen if he caught her, all the things he could do, but years of security lectures echoed insidiously through her mind. Small dark rooms. No windows, no light. Cold. Darkness. Blindfolds. No contact with the outside world. Favors for food. Bloodlust.

Comparatively, Hawk’s fate was a gift.

The truth spurred her on, the knowledge of what a critical mistake she’d made. She knew better than to trust strangers. She knew better than to let a stranger’s smile, no matter how seductive, lure her into lowering her guard.

But, God help her, here so far away from American soil and the media who hounded her family, she’d thought she could live a little without inviting disaster.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The man with the enigmatic eyes and seductive words had only been playing her, melting her guard by claiming he wanted a picture of her, then trying to lure her away. That’s when the shots had started. When he’d put a hand on her body, Hawk had broken from hiding and tried to fulfill his duties.

And now he was probably dead. Because of her.

The thought, the reality, chilled as badly as the knowledge the stranger was gaining on her.

“You can stop now, bella.”

The raspy voice tore through her as though he’d used his lethal briefcase and not his vocal chords. “Stay away from me!” she gasped, racing around a corner and into a narrow street. A car horn blared and brakes squealed, but she didn’t slow, not even when the driver shouted at her.

“Bella! It’s okay now.”

God, no. A cramp cut deep into her side, but she refused to let the pain deter her.

“Please,” he roared. Closer. Harder. “It’s not safe to be on the streets.”

Determination pushed her forward, when fatigue had her stumbling. She didn’t know where she was now, just knew she had to make it back to the embassy. The ruthless stranger had already killed.

She doubted he would hesitate to do so again.

“Help!” she shouted as she ran down a narrow alley. Laundry flapped in the breeze from second-story windows and dogs barked rambunctiously, but no one came to investigate the commotion.

Because they didn’t understand English.

Before, she’d liked knowing little of the Portuguese language, had reveled in the sense of anonymity. Now, her inability to communicate sent her heart hammering furiously against her ribs.

“Someone help me!”

“No, bella, no!” the stranger shouted, just as his hand clamped around her arm. She struggled against his grip, but he was too strong, and she couldn’t move.

“There’s a safe house not far from here,” he was saying, but she barely heard. Training kicked in, and in one fluid move she reached down to the strap around her ankle and came back up with her last line of defense. She’d never thought to need the hunting knife which once belonged to her maternal grandfather as anything more than a token to prove to her father she could take care of herself, but now…

She jutted the weapon toward the stranger. “Let go,” she said through clenched teeth.

Surprise registered in his dark eyes. “Bella—”

“You’re making a terrible mistake,” she warned, trying to twist her wrist free of his hand. Shallow breaths tore in and out of her. “Trust me when I say I’m not someone you want to mess with.”

“I know you’re scared,” he coaxed in a surprisingly gentle voice, “but you don’t need to be afraid of me. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

She swallowed hard, fighting the lure of his words. Deception came in all shapes and sizes, she knew. Seduction made a perfect disguise. She looked at him standing there, the heat radiating from his body fighting with the chill in her blood. His black shirt was damp now, clinging to a powerful chest. In his hand, he still held his briefcase.

That was really a gun.

Cold fingers of certainty clawed at her. No matter how badly she wanted to believe him, the fear pounding through her refused to go away. He’d approached her with a hidden agenda. He’d been trying to coax her away with him, out of the public eye. He’d wanted her alone…like he had her now.

And somewhere by the ocean, Hawk lay bleeding, maybe dead.

The truth reverberated through the narrow alley as explosively as the gunfire in the marketplace. She’d always known life turned in a heartbeat, but nothing had prepared her for the abrupt transformation from seductive Casanova to machine-gun-toting commando. Nothing about him even looked the same here in this shadowy place. Everything was harder now. Darker.

“Lower your weapon,” the stranger warned. His gaze flicked to her fingers curled bloodlessly around the hilt of the knife. “Don’t make me force you.”

Because he would.

She didn’t stop to think any further. Knife in hand, she lunged.

The stranger swore hotly, dropping the briefcase and grabbing the blade before impact. Just as quickly he tossed the family heirloom to the ground and retrieved his briefcase.

Never once did his left hand leave her body.

“Are you out of your mind?” he growled incredulously.

She looked at the fingers closed around her wrist and realized she’d gravely underestimated him.

“What do you want with me?” she asked, not sure she really wanted to know, but determined to meet her fate with at least some modicum of dignity.

“I want to get you to safety.”

“You killed Hawk,” she accused in horror.

“I saved your life,” he corrected. “I almost took a bullet for you, damn it.”

There were worse things, Miranda knew, than death. “You shot at the police.”

His jaw tightened. “I shot at a known criminal, who just happened to be wearing a police uniform. He killed the man you call Hawk. If I wanted you dead, bella, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

There was a cool logic to the claim, but Miranda warned herself not to fall for his verbal skills once again. Her thoughts tumbled back to the scene by the ocean, the way Hawk had fallen that first time, then staggered to his knees. Shots had erupted only moments later. Which way had he fallen? she tried to remember. Toward the man in the police uniform, meaning the stranger had shot him? Or toward her, meaning—

“No,” she muttered. “No.”

For the first time since the shooting, the stranger’s face softened. His eyes didn’t look quite so ominous, and that mouth which had been a grim line returned to the almost sensuous fullness of before. Around her wrist, his fingers loosened.

“Look, bella,” he reasoned. “There’s nothing I can say that you’ll believe right now, but think about this. Someone who wanted to hurt you wouldn’t waste time coaxing. If that’s what I wanted, I’d have you over my shoulder and out of sight before you even realized I’d moved.”

Miranda cringed at the realization of how easy it would be for him to do just that. She could fight him—she would fight him—but kicking and thrashing would not overpower a man of hard muscle and brutal determination, a man who enjoyed a six-inch, hundred-pound advantage. A man who could shoot with a briefcase.

Toward her, she remembered abruptly. Hawk had fallen toward her. The shots that felled him had come from the opposite direction, not the tall man who looked at her through eyes burning like chips of black ice.

If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here.

Her thoughts returned to those frenzied moments, but this time, she saw his actions through a different lens. When shots had sprayed the plaza, he’d shielded her with his body. When he’d told her to run, he’d covered her back. Even now, when she’d pulled a knife, he’d simply disarmed her, not using her weapon to teach her a lesson, as her father had warned an attacker would do.

Hawk had always chided her not to expect a kidnapper to politely ask permission. They would act first, consider damage later. Men who lived on the fringes of civility didn’t show restraint. This man did.

His actions almost seemed…protective.

“Look, I appreciate what you did back there,” she said, “but I’ve really got to go.” The rational side of her brain realized he was right; if he’d wanted to hurt her, he would have by now. But he held a briefcase that turned into a semiautomatic. That made him dangerous, her uneasy. “I need to contact the embassy in Lisbon.”

He frowned, but before he could speak, a nearby door flung open and a middle-aged woman with a baby on her hip stepped into the shadowy alley.

“Paulo?” she called, then continued speaking in Portuguese.

Miranda took advantage of the momentary distraction to break away and bolt down the alley. “I need your phone—”

She only made it two steps. “Bella, bella, bella,” the stranger murmured, taking her arm and drawing her against the hard planes of his body. His voice was drugging, his eyes liquid. “Mi dispiace,” he muttered, pressing the hand with the briefcase against her lower back.

“Stop it,” Miranda said, struggling against him. She had no idea what he said, but the Portuguese woman’s sappy smile seemed to approve.

“Anima mia,” he continued, leaning closer.

Anima mia she recognized. My love. She tried to push him away, but he simply released her wrist and slipped his hand up through her hair. He held her tightly now, securely against his hard body.

“Tu hai le labbra le piu morbide del mondo,” he whispered, gazing into her eyes. “Baciami.”

Her heart changed rhythms, from a frantic pounding to a frantic thrumming. Her limbs seemed to thicken. The world around her dimmed, blurred. She didn’t understand the words he spoke, but his glazed gaze gave away his intent. Miranda opened her mouth to protest, to somehow convince the smiling Portuguese woman that the man was playing her for a fool, but the words never had a chance to form.

The moment her lips parted, the stranger lowered his head and settled his mouth against hers.

Chapter 2

“Stop it,” Miranda struggled to say, but realized her mistake too late. In trying to speak, she moved her mouth against his, a sensuous rhythm that felt more like invitation than protest. Her body reacted instinctively, betraying her clear down to the tips of her toes. Her blood heated. Her bones went liquid. She tried to yank away, but her hand settled against his shoulder instead.

Shock, she told herself. That was all. Nothing more.

But then his hold on her shifted, tightened. She struggled against the arms that held her like steel bands, but instead of releasing her, he groaned, a sound that rasped from deep in his throat, one that sounded more of pain than pleasure.

“Dio,” he muttered against her parted lips. He tasted of desperation and brute strength, iron will and…coffee. His hands moved possessively against her back as he changed the angle of his kiss, all the while his mouth moving with relentless slowness, coaxing and promising, persuading.

Dizzy, off-balance, reeling, Miranda held herself completely still against the onslaught, resisting the temptation to play his dangerous game. She knew she should pull away. She told herself to pull away. Wipe the taste of him from her mouth. This man was a stranger. And he had a gun. But she was desperately afraid that if she moved, she’d be grabbing the damp cotton of his shirt and pulling him closer. Maybe it was leftover adrenaline or the stark realization that she could have been killed, but there was something blatantly masculine about the way he kissed her, and it sent her defenses into complete meltdown.

Swaying, she lifted a hand to steady herself, but found her fingertips skimming the stubble along his jaw instead.

And this time, the ragged cry came from her throat, not his.

He ripped his mouth from hers, staggered back almost violently.

Miranda groped for a nearby trash can and braced her hand against the cool metal lid. She struggled to breathe, to think, but could do little more than stare at the man who’d just kissed her with a gentle urgency that muddled her senses. His eyes were dark, but somehow managed to glitter. He stood alert, ready, as though face-to-face with one of Portugal’s famous apparitions. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he didn’t know who she was or where she’d come from.

At the moment, she wasn’t sure she did, either.

“Dio,” he whispered again, shoving dark hair from his face.

The thrill streaking through her made absolutely no sense. She sucked in a jerky breath, tried to calm the surge of craziness, but her lungs had other ideas. Her pulse tripped along at an alarming rate. She felt like she’d just run a dead sprint, rather than shared a kiss with a stranger.

Who held a gun on her.

That thought jarred her out of the sensual haze and forced her to swing toward the woman with the baby. But she no longer stood in the alley, and her door was firmly closed.

Panic crawled up Miranda’s throat. The trembling started then, first deep inside, quickly racing to her extremities. She pivoted toward the stranger, only to find he’d recovered from their encounter. He looked taller than before, broader. She couldn’t see the alley beyond him, only the width of his shoulders and the solid wall of his chest. He watched her carefully, the mouth that had kissed her so gently now a hard line.

Unable to look away, not trusting her voice, she lifted an appallingly shaky hand to her mouth, only to find her lips moist and swollen.

“I know, bella, it surprised the hell out of me, too.”

For one of the few times in her life, words failed her. So did movement. Coherent thought. She should do something, she thought wildly. Tell him to go to hell. Slap him. Run from the man whose briefcase turned into a gun. She could, she knew. He’d finally released her. But her legs wouldn’t work. Nothing, it seemed, not Emily Post nor boarding school nor Secret Service training had adequately prepared her for the shock of this man’s mouth moving against hers, the reality of his body pressed to hers. The unmistakable evidence that he reacted to her as strongly as she reacted to him. The regret and desire warring brutally in his midnight gaze.

The completely misplaced blade of fascination.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“I’m someone who’s trying to help you,” he answered vaguely, impatiently, and she realized she believed him. Then he reached for her. “Come on. We need to get out of here before anyone else sees us.”

She pulled back from his touch, but couldn’t stop staring at his hand. He held it outstretched, square palm up and callused fingers extended, exposing dried trickles of blood from where he’d grabbed the hunting knife instead of twisting her wrist. He hadn’t winced, hadn’t cursed, hadn’t given any outward sign of a pain she knew he had to have felt.

And he hadn’t made her suffer in return.

Confused, she looked up. She’d been seeking his eyes, but never made it past his jaw. His lips were slightly dry, a hint of her coral lipstick smeared against the olive skin at the corner of his mouth.

“If I didn’t know better, bella, I’d think you’ve never been kissed before.”

Squaring her shoulders, she met his eyes, those enigmatic pools of midnight, determined not to let this man who wouldn’t even disclose his identity see the absurd curiosity that had her wanting to push up and brush her mouth against his once again.

Nonchalance, she reminded herself. That was the Carrington way. Cool, calm, collected. Unaffected and untouchable. Meet adversity with a smile, and no one ever had to know you bled.

“I haven’t,” she said with a saccharine smile. “At least, not by somebody holding a briefcase that’s really an Uzi.”

God help her, he laughed. It was a deep sound, rich and amused. “It’s an MP5K submachine gun,” he said, stroking the weapon in question like a man would caress a beautiful woman. “Uzis are Israeli. This baby is German.”

A shiver ran through her, but she hid the reaction with a perfectly executed shrug. “Yes, well. Thank you for clarifying.”

“And you hardly left me a choice. I couldn’t let you tell that woman I’m some kind of monster.”

“If the shoe fits…”

A sound of pure male frustration broke from his throat. His English may have been accented, but American slang was no stranger to him. “Relax, bella. You can add kissing to my list of formidable crimes, if you like, but rest assured, there will be no repeat performances. I’m not here to get you naked.”

No emotion underscored his words, or his expression. Not threat or regret, not ferocity or hostility. He sounded matter-of-fact. Almost…indifferent.

And in that moment, Miranda realized a fundamental truth. She’d stopped being afraid. Somewhere along the line she’d forgotten about the fear that had chased her down the streets and alleys, forgotten the cold certainty that this man wanted to hurt her. Or worse.

She’d forgotten to think at all.

But she was thinking now, more clearly by the second.

Vividly, she recalled the scene along the promenade, Hawk breaking toward her, the way he’d gone down, the stranger reacting without hesitation, the man in fatigues racing from around the corner, then falling only feet from her. Everything had unfurled almost methodically, carefully orchestrated step by carefully orchestrated step.

Horrified at her own gullibility, she swallowed hard.

“Think about it,” the man who’d just happened to be in the right place, at the right time, was saying. “How many kidnappers stand around and beg their prey to leave with them?”

The last of the fog cleared, leaving the truth shivering in the glare of the sun. The family net had closed around her once again. No wonder there’d been no warnings.

They’d have ruined her father’s pop quiz.

“Is that what you’re doing?” Incredulity drilled through her. Disappointment whispered along behind. “Begging?”

His gaze turned smoky. “Do I need to?”

Down the alley a door opened and closed, destroying the heated moment. Suddenly he was all warrior again, looking around, ready and alert. His eyes were dark, his mouth hard. Even his grip on the briefcase tightened.

And in that moment, she made her decision. “Give me back my knife.”

“What?”

“You want me to believe you’re on my side. Fine. Show me I can trust you. Show me I have no reason to be afraid.” Prove to me you’re who I think you are. “If I really have nothing to fear from you, you’ll give me back my knife.”

The man looked as though she’d just asked him to roll naked over hot coals. “So you can try to skewer me again?”

“I won’t try anything, so long as you don’t.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re testing me.”

“I’m asking you to trust me, no more, no less than you asked of me.” She stuck out her hand. “Actions speak louder than words, after all. So do we have a deal, or are you going to make me scream?”

That light glinted in his eyes again. He held her gaze as a slow smile curved his lips and bared startlingly white teeth.

“Trust me, bella,” he said, squatting to retrieve the knife, then placing the ivory hilt in her hand. Never once did he take his eyes off hers. “When I make a woman scream, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with a knife.”

Miranda curled her fingers around the cherished gift from her grandfather, trying to focus on something, anything, other than the stranger’s smoky words and clever mouth, those big battered hands…

She had absolutely no business thinking about just how he might carry out his promise.

“Now come on,” he growled. “I doubt our shooter was traveling alone. I’ve got to get you off the streets before the bullets start flying again.”

He was good, she’d hand him that. The take-no-prisoners words destroyed any lingering doubt about his identity. And his employ. She’d heard those words, that tone, before. Many times. They were the hallmark of security personnel.

The words of a bodyguard.

“So what’s it going to be?” her father’s man asked. “Are you going to take your chances with me or wait for those thugs back there to find you? I doubt they’ll be as patient as I am.”

For now, she realized, she had few alternatives. This man meant business. She could go along with her father’s latest orders willingly, or she could resist and leave the stranger no choice but to exert force. And while the latter carried a rebellious little thrill, Miranda thought it wiser to lull him into the same sense of complacency her father had used with her.

She put her hand in his. “If we’re going to trust each other, the least you can do is tell me your name.”

“I thought the knife was all you wanted.”

Now that she knew what she was dealing with, she lifted a single eyebrow, determined not to give him the upper hand her father’s men always wanted.

“Since when has a knife been all a woman wants?” she challenged. Her mother constantly warned her about rattling cages, but she’d never been one to back down.

His smile was quick, blinding, devastating. “A man can dream, can’t he?”

“Is that really what you dream about? That a woman wants nothing from you but a blade?”

His gaze dipped from her face to where her blouse had fallen over her shoulder, down lower to her brightly colored skirt, all the way down to her leather sandals. Then he reversed his perusal, just as slowly, just as thoroughly.

“You really want to know what I dream about, bella?”

Heat washed through her, as though he’d touched her with those big capable hands and not just a look. The image formed before she could stop it, of what a man like him would dream about. She could see him too well, his big nude body thrashing about among tangled sheets—

“I’ll settle for a name,” she said.

“Smart lady.” He glanced toward the end of the alley, where two children ran after a scrawny black dog. Only when they turned the corner did he return his attention to her. “My friends call me Sandro.”

“And your enemies?” she couldn’t help asking.

He didn’t hesitate. “They’d like to call me dead.”

The brutally frank words made her wince. She couldn’t imagine this vital, capable man dead. Didn’t want to.

“Sandro what?” she asked instead.

“Just Sandro.”

Miranda didn’t know whether to laugh or slug him. “Watched a few spy movies growing up, did we?”

But his smile was gone now, replaced by that same grim expression she was already growing to despise. “Just Sandro, okay? It’s safer for us all.”

Safer from what, she wanted to ask, but knew she’d only be wasting her breath. Her father’s men never shot straight. They were always engaged in their little intrigues. If this man’s orders were to conceal his last name, not even cruel and unusual torture would pry the information free.

For now, it was better to indulge him.

Later, she would outsmart him.

Sandro picked up the pace, practically dragging her around a corner and down an even narrower alley.

“What did you say when that woman came out?” she asked. Before he put his mouth to hers and knocked the foundation from beneath her feet.

He kept walking, his long legs gobbling up the cracked cobblestone. “It doesn’t matter.”

She refused to break into a run to keep up with him. “It does to me.”

“Sweet nothings don’t translate well.”

“Sweet nothings?” She didn’t understand the little jolt of disappointment. “Sure sounded like something to me.”

He stopped abruptly, landing her in a lingering puddle from the storm the night before. Muddy water splashed up over her sandals and against her calves.

“If you must know,” he said, lifting a hand to her face and easing back the tangled blond hair, “I told her we’d had a lovers’ quarrel and I was trying to earn your forgiveness.”

The words, his touch, seared through her, the image they created as dangerous as the lingering feel of his mouth on hers. A quarrel. Lovers. A man and a woman, intimately involved. Big battered hands skimming along smooth—

Surprise flashed through her. Not only was this man a stranger, but he was one of her father’s chosen few. Men like him thrived in a world of intrigue and betrayal, a world where nothing was as it seemed and the truth often hid secrets more dangerous than lies.

A world she wanted desperately to leave behind.

“Does that usually work?” she wanted to know.

He quirked a dark brow. “What? Kissing a woman senseless?”

The smile broke before she could stop it. “No, lying through your teeth.”

He streaked a finger down the side of her face. “If I’m lucky.”

“And if you’re not?”

He took her hand and started down the street, his strides long and purposeful, determined. “There’s always Plan B.”

Plan B lay in ruins, much like the abandoned villa hiding behind an overgrown wall of olive trees and cork oaks, oleander and hibiscus.

Sandro bit back a virulent stream of frustration. He was a careful man. He did his job efficiently, and he did it well. He left no room for error.

But this time, with the stakes so dangerously high, error had found him anyway.

Plan B featured Miranda Carrington safe and sound with a bodyguard, not dragged through the dirty alleys of Cascais. He’d arranged the scenario carefully. He’d approached Miranda just as the general had ordered, making it appear he was luring her away. But he’d also arranged for his kidnapping attempt to be thwarted. He’d even planned to go down in the process.

But the agents he’d had breakfast with only an hour before had not arrived.

Straddling a thin dark line was a hell of a way to live. He’d been forced to stall, to keep Miranda in the open, in front of witnesses who would see the ambassador’s daughter forcibly wrested from him. Whether with Hawk Monroe or Plan A’s fatigue-clad security agent Pedro Vasquez, she should have been nearing Lisbon by now, hustled onto a plane out of the country. But an unknown assailant had mowed down both plans and both men, leaving Sandro with an angry woman and one hell of a problem.

Possession of Miranda Carrington didn’t figure into any of his plans, not C, not D, not even Z. Possession of Miranda Carrington went against every strategy, every rule, in the International Security Alliance operations manual. And unless Sandro played his cards right, the ominously silent ambassador’s daughter could not only ruin years worth of work, but get them both killed in the process. Again.

This time for good.

Staying alive demanded he find a way to unload his unwanted charge before anyone realized he had her. Her disappearance would be viewed as kidnapping, and the fallout would create an international fiasco. The United States government couldn’t sanction his actions, nor could the ISA claim him, not when doing so would forfeit years of undercover operations.

The low burn in his shoulder intensified, forcing Sandro to bite back a muttered curse. He had to maneuver out of this jam all by himself, just like he’d fallen into it. He’d long since learned the risk of putting his life into the hands of others. No way would he jeopardize the fate of an innocent woman.

The term collateral damage turned his stomach.

Frowning, he glanced at the woman walking beside him. He held her hand securely in his, but instinct warned touching Miranda Carrington required more than flesh to flesh contact. She held her chin high, shoulders back, those fascinating gypsy eyes focused on some point in the distance, as though being shot at and pursued through back alleys was an everyday occurrence.

“Almost there,” he said, unnerved by her silence. She hadn’t uttered a word in over thirty minutes, but he could tell she was thinking as rapidly as they were walking. He could only imagine the questions racing through her, the uncertainty.

He would get her inside, get her safe, then tell her what he could.

Which wasn’t much.

“Almost where?” she asked, but didn’t look at him.

He, on the other hand, couldn’t stop watching her, all that thick blond hair cascading around her face and over a shoulder bared by her loose-fitting crimson blouse, that lush mouth set in a mutinous line and those defiantly high cheekbones. He knew where he wanted to take her, all right.

He knew where he wanted her to take him.

He also knew he was flat out of his mind.

Javier was right. Sandro had been living in the shadows far too long.

But he felt the light now, the heat, and that was the problem. All because of one stupid kiss. A reckless, desperate measure to keep her from rousing suspicion in the local woman. An insane curiosity to see if her mouth would feel as welcoming as the long-ago tabloid picture had promised.

A smart man would erase the encounter from his memory. A smart man would forget the feel of her lips, the soft little sigh that had escaped. He’d expected her to slam her fists against his chest and shove him away, to stomp down on his feet, to fight. But she’d barely resisted. It was as though he’d laid siege to her with a stun gun rather than his mouth. She hadn’t been angry as he’d expected, as he deserved, but…frozen.

The realization should have brought him great relief.

It didn’t.

Stopping adjacent to a crumbling stone wall, he pointed toward an overgrown oleander, dotted by a showy display of bright pink flowers. “Just through here.”

She leaned closer. “Through where?”

He pulled a tangled clump of honeysuckle aside, revealing a broken-out section of the wall. The sun beat mercilessly against his back, but in the forgotten world beyond the opening, shadows beckoned. He itched to step through to the other side, to the familiar, secretive world in which he thrived.

“Through there,” he said.

Miranda pivoted toward him. In the space of a heartbeat the unflappable facade faded, replaced by a vulnerability he hadn’t sensed before. Hadn’t expected. Wariness glinted in the near-translucent green of her eyes, as though he’d asked her to go skinny-dipping in the frigid waters of the Atlantic, rather than crawl through a hole to safety.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

There was a threadiness to her voice now, one that unnerved him more than her earlier silence. Whereas she’d been all fire and defiance when she thought herself threatened, when he offered security, she pulled back.

“Somewhere safe,” he told her.

“This isn’t the way to the U.S. embassy.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then I’ll ask you again. Where are you taking me?”

“Relax,” he said, glancing up and down the narrow street to ensure no one watched their movements. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

Her gaze remained wary, her stance alert, prompting Sandro to give her hand a gentle squeeze. Her flesh was clammy now, making her hand feel smaller. More fragile.

The temptation to pull her into his arms made absolutely no sense, so he discarded the misplaced notion and urged her toward the opening. “Hurry up. We need to get off the streets before anyone sees us. You can bet the shooter didn’t come alone.”

The reminder of the danger did the trick. She turned from him and climbed through the jagged opening in the stone wall. He followed, letting the thick vines swing into place behind him.

Only then did he breathe easier.

“My God,” she whispered. “It’s like stepping back in time.”

An old wall separated the overgrown grounds of the abandoned villa from the rest of the world. Exiled aristocrats had constructed the Moorish-influenced home in the waning years of the nineteenth century, the pastel-washed, stuccoed limestone walls providing shelter and security to generations of a family on the decline. Not even two world wars had penetrated the safe haven.

Only death had possessed that right.

When the great-grandson of the original owner passed away some ten years before, none of his seven children expressed interest in taking over the villa. They’d scattered to Italy and France, a daughter in Scotland, two sons in America, and the prospect of returning to the less modern culture of old-world Portugal had held little appeal.

“This place looks deserted,” Miranda said.

He tossed her a wicked little wink. “That’s the point.”

The villa stood abandoned now, a shadow of its former glory. Red clay roof tiles were cracked and faded; vines had long since taken over pale yellow walls that retained only a hint of their former color. Even the blue and yellow clay tiles framing the broken-out windows were chipped. Azulejos they were called, imitating familiar patterns of Moorish rugs.

Miranda walked toward a crumbling statue of the Virgin Mary, who rose from a tangle of thigh-high sage and stood with her arms outstretched toward the old house. “She looks…sad.”

Sandro joined her. “She’ll keep us safe,” he said, reclaiming Miranda’s hand and leading her toward the entry-way.

Like so many other houses of central Portugal, the neglected villa boasted a wide front porch, framed by a series of three archways. The second story featured two smaller verandas, with the third story reserved for windows, dark now, almost gaping, like an old woman smiling through missing teeth.

The scent of rosemary grew stronger with every step, escorting them through an overgrown herb garden sprawling over the steps and engulfing the porch. Miranda broke off a stem as they passed.

“Through here,” Sandro said, leading her inside.

“It’s dark.”

“You’ll adjust.” He kept her hand in his and headed along the familiar path to the back of the house, carefully checking for signs of unwanted visitors. Only a few hours had passed since his last inspection, but a man could never be too careful.

Beneath the stairs at the back of the house, he opened a small closet and pulled Miranda into the darkness.

“Just stay close,” he instructed, whispering even though he didn’t need to.

She stopped abruptly and tried to pull her hand free. “Where are we?”

Her voice was sharp, frightened. And in the ensuing silence, he could hear the frenetic rhythm of her breathing. The pounding of her heart. “Just a little further.”

“But—”

“Shh,” he soothed. “Trust me.”

She didn’t bother pointing out that she had no choice. He hadn’t given her one.

Against the back wall, Sandro reached up and knocked twice against a hollow portion. A panel slid open, granting them access to a narrow stairway. He retrieved a flashlight from the ledge where he’d left it that morning and turned it on, drenching the narrow corridor in light.

“Straight up there,” he said.

Disbelief flooded her expression. “A secret passageway?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes paranoia is its own reward.”

At the top of the stairs he opened another panel, this one leading to the small room where he’d slept the night before and on several other occasions when he’d needed to melt into the shadows for a few days.

Miranda stared at the threadbare sleeping bag crammed against the far wall.

“There’s no electricity,” he told her, “but thanks to a well outside, we’re okay for water.”

She followed his gesture toward the small chamber off the side of the room, where a primitive toilet and shower stood in equal abandon.

“We’re staying here?” she asked, hugging her arms around her waist.

Compassion tugged at him. Compared to the ritzy resort she’d been staying at back in town, this small dank room rated somewhere between slum and prison. “You’ll be safe here, Miranda. I promise. That’s what counts.”

She stiffened for a moment, then spun toward him, eyes flashing with a fire he hadn’t seen since before he’d put his mouth to hers in the alley. “What did you say?”

“This is a safe house,” he explained, trying to restore the calm. “No one will find us here.”

She shook her head almost violently, sending tangled blond hair over her shoulders. “No. What did you call me?”

“Miranda.”

“Miranda?” She stepped back from him, her stance alert. “You think my name is Miranda?”

“I know it is.”

Her gaze sharpened, her expression pensive. “Well, that explains that,” she muttered. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but there’s been a mistake. You’ve got the wrong woman.”

Now it was his turn to stare. He studied her standing there, all that blond hair spilling over her shoulders, those unusual eyes imploring. Could he have—

No. He hadn’t made a mistake. No way.

Mistakes got men like him killed.

“You’re the right woman,” he insisted, battling an admiration he didn’t want to feel. “I’m a very thorough man. You’re Miranda Carrington, youngest daughter of Peter Carrington, the U.S. ambassador to Ravakia and youngest granddaughter of the late Albert Carrington, former U.S. senator and one-time presidential hopeful.”

She shook her head. “Didn’t you see that man and woman kissing by the boardwalk?”

“Yes.” But only for a moment. The second he’d locked onto Miranda, the rest of the busy promenade had dissolved.

“I overheard them talking. She’s Miranda.” Sincerity and conviction laced the claim. “She has dark brown hair, not blond.”

Sandro crossed his arms over his chest, wincing when the motion pulled against his shoulder. He knew she had a penchant for giving her bodyguards hell, had played enough games to recognize a pro when he saw one. She clearly thought she could play him.

He just didn’t understand why she wanted to.

“Let me see your passport.”

“By all means.” She dipped a hand into the satchel slung over her shoulder and pulled out a well-worn blue passport bearing the emblem of the United States. Flipping it open, he studied the picture of a gorgeous blonde, the accompanying name and address.

As far as forgeries went, the ambassador’s daughter had a beaut in her possession.

“Astrid, huh?” Somehow, he kept the laughter from his voice.

She nodded. “That’s right.”

“Astrid Van Dyke of Stockholm,” he mused, “who just happens to have Carrington eyes. And,” he drawled, executing a lightning-quick move to bare the shoulder still covered by the crimson blouse, “her tattoo.”

She froze, like an exquisite dragonfly captured in amber, wings forever in flight. Just like the one imprinted on her upper arm. Her face drained of all color, all expression.

And then she started to shake.

Regret hit hard and fast, but he shoved the useless emotion aside before it muddied the waters any further.

“Don’t look so confused, bella,” he told her, his voice deliberately husky. He kept his hand on her arm, his fingers tracing the tattoo. “A woman like you doesn’t go unnoticed. A woman like you doesn’t just fade into the shadows or melt into crowds. A woman like you cannot hide, not even from yourself.”

She backed away. “What do you mean, ‘a woman like me’?”

The way she spat the words, Sandro would have thought he’d accused her of something hideous. He looked at her standing there, green gypsy eyes too big and dark against her pale face, that lush mouth he wanted to taste again still swollen from his earlier mistake.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Intelligent. Full of life. Living, breathing sunshine.”

She lifted a hand to her mouth, but said nothing.

“Why the games?” he asked, steering the conversation to safe ground. The questions rattling through him didn’t bear answering. “Did you really think I’d just let you waltz out of here?”

She shoved the hair from her face, managing to look alarmingly provocative as she did so. “Maybe I’m just playing the same kind of game you are. The same kind of game he is.”

Game? “What are you talking about? Who is he?”

Resentment flashed in her gaze, bringing color back to her cheeks. “Look, I know who you are, okay? I know what this is all about.”

“Of course you know who I am. I told you.”

“Not your name—names don’t matter. I know what’s going on here, why you were on the promenade, why we’re here now. I know who you work for and what you want, and I can tell you right now it’s not going to work.”

Sandro went very still, all but his heart. It slammed against his ribs. She spoke with fire and conviction, making his blood run cold. She couldn’t know. She couldn’t. Only a handful of people did.

And only that handful knew he was still alive.

Chapter 3

For the first time since they’d met alongside the ocean, Mr. Confident didn’t look quite so sure of himself. He stood unmoving, his midnight eyes wild, his mouth a hard line. Even the shadow against his jaw seemed darker. He stood with his feet shoulder-width apart, arms at his side, hands curled into semifists.

He looked like a man ready to pounce.

The breath stalled in Miranda’s throat. She’d only been playing him, testing him, gauging his competence. She hadn’t expected him to react so strongly. She hadn’t expected the air in the small dank room to thicken, her heart to start hammering.

“Who am I?” he asked in a chillingly soft voice. “Who do I work for? What do I want?”

Her mouth went dry. Suddenly, she wasn’t quite so sure herself. “You tell me.”

“I already have. I’m the man who’s not going to let anyone hurt you.”

The take-no-prisoners words curled though her like an ominous mist rolling in from the ocean. She held his inscrutable gaze a moment, then glanced at the nasty scar slashed across his throat, then over to the briefcase he’d finally set down.

“You’re the backup,” she said.

“Backup?” He spoke slowly. Quietly. “Backup for what?”

“Not what, but who. My father. He’s a very careful man. He knew I’d try to give Hawk the slip the second I saw him, so he sent a backup.” The mere thought caused her chest to tighten. Betrayal slashed brutally. She’d believed her father this time. She’d believed that for the first time in eleven years, he was willing to let her live her own life.

Now she knew everything had been staged, just like so many times before. Hawk was probably throwing back a cold one somewhere, congratulating himself on a job well done, indifferent to the trauma he’d caused.

Just like he’d done with Elizabeth.

“You casually come on to me, then I see Hawk, run, shots are fired, and voila, there you are, ready for me to run gratefully into your arms.”

Like a perfect little puppet.

Over the years, she’d become adept at sniffing out her father’s security drills, but she hadn’t seen this one coming. She’d been too intrigued by the man with the penetrating eyes and flattering words.

Humiliation left a bitter taste in her mouth.

But Sandro didn’t seem to notice. He wasn’t frowning anymore, wasn’t glowering, didn’t look like a warrior primed for battle. A purely male smile curved the mouth Miranda found entirely too erotic for a face of such hard lines and sharp planes.

“You were already in my arms,” he reminded.

Miranda narrowed her eyes, wondering where the commando had gone and half wishing he would return. At least she knew how to defend herself against him.

“Your hands, not your arms,” she corrected tartly. “There’s a difference.”

“Not always,” he said, “but we’ll save that nuance for another time. Right now I’m more interested in knowing why your father would expect you to run from someone assigned to protect you.”

Miranda stiffened. With skillful precision Sandro was steering the conversation down a path she had no desire to travel.

“It’s not like that,” she defended, but knew he wouldn’t understand.

“Then tell me how it is.”

An emotion she didn’t understand tangled through her. She couldn’t summon one single memory of any of her father’s men asking her opinion on anything. Ever.

“I’m just…tired,” she admitted, and with the words, the fight drained out of her. Weariness took over, a bone-deep fatigue sharpened by the chase through back alleys and the unexpected kiss, the battle of wills, the long walk to the abandoned villa. She slid down against the wall and sat on the pathetic excuse for a sleeping bag, pulling her knees to her chest as she did so.

The family net had closed around her once again.

“I thought for once I was…free,” she said, surprised by her candor. She and Hawk had rarely spoken, certainly not about anything personal. Of course, she’d never had any desire to confide in the smooth-talking yes-man who’d almost shattered her sister’s life, and he’d never regarded her as more than an escape from the mess his heartlessness had created.

He was ridiculously lucky her father had no idea what had really gone down between his perfect daughter and the hardened bodyguard he’d assigned to protect her.

Intimacy always carried a price.

But Sandro seemed different from the clowns her father usually sent to shadow Miranda’s every step. He seemed…more human. He seemed more real. And the way he looked at her, that dark gaze concentrated fully on her, loosened the tight flag of indifference she normally kept furled close.

“As Astrid, I could go places,” she told him with a smile her grandfather had called impish. The one her father called willful. For two months she’d been traveling the European countryside with her camera as her companion, capturing slices of a life she’d never known existed. “I could do and see things without worrying about attracting unwanted attention.”

Her smile faded, along with the sense of freedom she’d embraced only a few hours before.

“Now I realize these past weeks were just an illusion. I never left the Carrington fishbowl after all.” The sting of disappointment burned her throat. “He’s been watching me every step, hasn’t he? All his talk of trust and freedom was nothing but lies.”

Sandro frowned. “You don’t know that.”

But she did. Sandro with the machine-gun briefcase was living, breathing proof of that.

She looked at him standing in the hazy light creeping through the dirty window, but for a moment didn’t see the man who’d chased her through alleys or followed her father’s orders. She saw only the man who’d approached her alongside the ocean.

The picture you’re about to take. It’s all wrong.

Wrong? How so?

Because you’re not in it.

Her heart staggered. Moisture stung the backs of her eyes.

I see myself in the mirror every morning. I don’t need pictures of myself.

Then give it to me.

Now why would I do that?

So I can remember the way you look standing here, with the sun in your hair and the smile on your face.

Emotion swelled through her. She’d wanted him to be real, damn it. She’d wanted the moment to be real.

But like everything else in the Carrington world, the encounter had only been a carefully orchestrated means to an end. Just like her first drink. Her first kiss. Except those hadn’t been arranged by her father but, rather, pathetic scum who wanted to use the Carrington name as a meal ticket.

“Miranda?” Sandro asked, going down on one knee.

The gesture struck her as foolishly gallant. “I’m sorry he dragged you into this,” she said, forcing a smile and pushing to her feet.

“I’m tired and I’m hungry,” she added. “So why don’t you take me back to my hotel, so I can call my father and tell him I’m not interested in playing any more of his games.” If he insisted on having someone shadow her, she didn’t want the man to be Sandro. She couldn’t look at him without remembering the ray of anticipation she’d felt by the ocean. She couldn’t stay with him in a small room like this without remembering the way he’d made her feel for those first few minutes, that seductive sense of intrigue, the intoxicating glow of discovery.

If her father had to keep tabs on her, she’d rather Hawk or Aaron or any other of his yes-men, not this tall man with the midnight eyes and rough voice, who reminded her how foolish she’d been to hope, for even a few minutes, that she could have a life beyond the Carrington mystique.

Slowly, Sandro rose to his full height. “You think this is a game?”

“Not a game. A drill. A lesson. A powerplay.” Eleven years before, a tragic accident had forever changed the Carrington family. After burying his oldest daughter Kristina, her father had never left anything to chance, ever again.

Equal parts grief-stricken and naive, a seventeen-year-old Miranda had been unprepared for the measures Peter Carrington had implemented to protect his remaining children. Only months later, during her freshman year at Wellesley, she’d been horrified when the caring, considerate girl with whom she’d shared secrets, clothes and a dorm room turned out to be a female bodyguard, hired to keep an eye on her. Watch her. Report back to her father. Since then Miranda had become skilled at spotting his setups. It burned her that she hadn’t seen this one coming.

But then, never before had her father sent someone who looked like temptation and spoke like a poet.

“You’re not the first, you know,” she said, deliberately dismissing him. “Dad excels in orchestrating little security exercises to prove I need to be more careful.”

“Security exercises?”

“You know. Because of Kris. Friends that turn out to be federal agents, bouncers that turn out to be bodyguards. Once he arranged for a raid at a college bar, just to prove that if he could find me drinking, so could the media or a kook.”

Sandro swore under his breath. “You think the scene by the ocean was staged for your benefit?”

She lifted her chin. “Wasn’t it?”

“Bella,” he said in that hoarse voice of his, that seeped through her defenses like a smoky mist no matter how hard she worked to reinforce them, “I hate to shatter your illusions, but this isn’t a drill or a lesson. This is as real as it gets.” His gaze on hers, he lifted his hands to his chest, his fingers practically brutalizing the buttons of his black shirt.

Her heart started to hammer again, this time in a halting, irregular rhythm. “What are you doing?”

“Those shots back there were the real thing,” he said, his voice softer than before. Almost strained. Reaching the waistband of his pants, he shrugged out of the cotton shirt.

Miranda braced herself for the sight of darkly tanned flesh and hard muscle, but instead found herself staring at a thick gray vest.

A vest she instantly recognized.

“The man trying to hurt you was real,” Sandro continued, working the buckles and snaps of the familiar body armor. Impatience snapped through his voice. “And come morning,” he growled, dropping the heavy vest to the floor and turning his back to her, “this will be a real damn bruise.”

Shock cut through Miranda. She stared at the nasty green and purple already discoloring the center of a back otherwise magnificently perfect. His shoulders were broad, bronze, thickly muscled. They tapered to the center of his back, which in turn tapered perfectly to the waistband of his pants.

Perfect, that was, save for the nasty streaks of dark red.

Abruptly, she followed the trail of dried blood back to his shoulder, where a crust tried vainly to conceal blood still oozing from a nasty wound. “You’re bleeding.”

Sandro twisted around to look at his upper back. “Am I?” he asked, then grimaced. “Son of a bitch. No wonder my shoulder feels like it’s on fire.”

Deep inside, Miranda started to shake. The chill came next, starting in her heart and seeping through her blood. This man had risked his life for her. He’d been not only shot at, but shot.

Because of her.

“Here, let me,” she said, stepping closer. She lifted her hands to his back, not really knowing what she planned to do, but knowing she had to touch him. Help him. Very gently, she touched her fingertips to the heat of his flesh—

“Cristo!” he shouted, then continued in a language she didn’t understand.

She jerked back. “I’m sorry. I—”

“Your hands are like ice!”

And his skin was like fire. She stared at him, but the room started to revolve. The walls pushed closer. The air grew too thick to breathe. Thoughts and possibilities crashed around inside her like bullets in a mausoleum. Horror stabbed deep.

It was real. Everything that had gone down in the crowded marketplace had been authentic, not staged. The shots and the shouting. Hawk going down, then pulling himself back up, only to be mowed down again.

Dear God, Elizabeth. Her sister said she didn’t love Hawk, had never loved him, but Miranda had always believed—

“Miranda?”

She blinked rapidly, working desperately to bring Sandro’s face into focus. He was moving closer, his big body blocking out the meager light seeping through the window, until her world consisted only of him.

“If there was a th-threat, he should have told m-me,” she whispered in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “He should have warned m-me. T-told me about you.”

“Miranda—”

“I wouldn’t have been on the street like that,” she insisted, gazing up at him. She widened her eyes, imploring him to believe her. She’d seen how her sister’s death had shattered her family, would never do anything willingly to put them through that again. She wasn’t foolish. She didn’t have a death wish. She’d taken countless self-defense classes. Had a few tricks up her sleeve. “I would have been more careful.”

“Miranda.” Sandro took her shoulders in his hands and gave her a gentle squeeze. “Your father loves you,” he said softly but firmly. “He wants to keep you safe. Where’s the crime in that? If I hadn’t been there, don’t you realize where you would be right now? What could be happening to you?”

She did realize, that was the problem. If he hadn’t been there, she could be with the horrible man who’d killed Hawk—or dead. But in not warning her about the threat or telling her about Sandro, her father had left her equally vulnerable.

“What if you’d been shot somewhere besides your chest or back? What if I’d stabbed you? Then what would have happened? Both my bodyguards would have been down, and because my father chose an underhanded method of protecting me, I wouldn’t have had a clue what was really going on.”

Sandro lifted a hand to her face, his fingers skimming her cheekbone. “None of that happened. I have you now, and everything’s going to be okay.”

There was an unmistakable gentleness to his touch, a persuasiveness that sent an unwanted rush through her. “Why didn’t he warn me? Why didn’t he tell me about you?”

“Everything happened too fast. There wasn’t time for warnings.”

“He should have found a way!”

“Bella, bella, bella,” he said, his voice like velvet. “Are you always so tough? Do you always malign those trying to help you? Protect you?”

The softly spoken questions hit with unerring accuracy. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, ripping away from his touch. She needed to think, but couldn’t gather her thoughts when he stood so close she felt his every breath, his every heartbeat.

“Don’t you have something more important to do than psychoanalyze me?” she asked with a sharpness he didn’t deserve. “Like report back to my father?”

His expression darkened. “Actually,” he said, glancing at the nasty wound on his shoulder, “I do.”

Regret hit hard and fast. This man had been shot because of her, was bleeding. This man had put his body between her and a bullet. And here she stood, berating him because he willingly followed the orders she’d grown to despise.

“I’m sorry,” she said, appalled at her thoughtlessness. But when she started toward him, he lifted a hand to stop her.

“Don’t, bella. I can take care of this myself.”

“But I can help you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

She didn’t know what she heard in his voice, bitterness or resolve, maybe regret, but she recognized the look in his eyes, that hard, cold look of a man who didn’t allow others to interfere with his code of conduct.

“You’ve been shot,” she said.

“It’s only a flesh wound.” He turned from her then, reached for the body armor. “Bullet barely grazed me.”

“What are you doing?”

He fastened the vest around his upper body and retrieved his black shirt, wincing as he slid the wrinkled cotton over his injured shoulder. “This is wrong, bella. This isn’t how things were supposed to go down.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re not supposed to be with me,” he growled, and almost sounded pained. “There are things you don’t understand. Things I need to find out. What went down back there was a mistake. You’re right. I was the backup. I wasn’t supposed to end up with you. Hawk was. Now I’ve got to figure out what went wrong and what happens next.”

She watched him fight with little black buttons far too small for his fingers. “Why can’t we just go to the embassy?”

“Too risky,” he answered without hesitation. “Too public.”

“What if someone sees us?” she asked, glancing toward the window. Not much light made it through the grime and the overgrown foliage surrounding the villa, but beyond this secluded world, the sun shone brightly.

“No one will see us,” he said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because we won’t be anywhere. You’ll be here, and I’ll be doing what I do best.”

Miranda just stared at him. “You’re leaving me?”

He strode toward the small window and peered outside. “You’ll be safer here than out there with me.”

She hugged her arms around her middle, not wanting to be left alone, but unaccustomed to asking one of her father’s men for anything. “What if you don’t come back?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

But what if it does? she wanted to ask, but the words jammed in her throat. He was hiding something, she realized with cold certainty. Holding something back. It was there in his eyes, an edgy, unsettled look, like he wasn’t quite sure what he’d find when he turned the corner.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He picked up his briefcase. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Nothing I need to worry about?” She crossed to him and took hold of his forearm. “A man shoots at me and my bodyguard goes down, then I’m dragged through alleys to some abandoned old house and led through a secret passageway to a room that looks more like a jail cell and you tell me not to worry about it?”

His lips twitched. “You do have a way with words, bella.” He glanced at the black-banded watch around his wrist. “Give me an hour, two tops. When I get back, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Until then, I need you to try and relax.”

“Sandro—”

He took her hand and led her to the door. “Here,” he said, pressing a metal object into her hand. “This lock works both ways. When you hear me turn it from the other side, I want you to do the same.”

She looked at the small silver key in her palm. He was trusting her, she realized. He was giving her a small measure of freedom, of respect, just like when he’d given her back her grandfather’s knife.

Beware of strangers bearing gifts, she’d always heard.

“How do you know I’ll let you back in when you return?” she asked softly.

“I don’t.”

Surprised, she looked up, just in time to be blinded by his smile.

“I’ll have food, clean blankets, and flashlights,” he said matter-of-factly. “If you’d prefer to spend the night hungry, cold and in the dark, that’s your decision.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small black device, which he pressed into her palm, as well. “If anything happens, if you hear anything, if you get frightened for any reason, push this button, and I’ll be back before you can catch your breath.”

Her throat tightened. God help her, she wanted to believe him. “When I’m scared, I breathe pretty fast,” she said with a small smile.

His expression gentled. “There’s no need to be scared.” Reaching down to the bottom of his pant leg, he came back up with a sleek black semiautomatic. “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

He had no way of knowing how many memories a simple question could unearth, memories that tumbled hard and fast, of long afternoons spent at the shooting range, determined to prove to her father that she could take care of herself.

He’d been furious when a tabloid photographer had found her instead, splashing her photo over the cover, along with a headline that insinuated she didn’t trust the government to protect its own. “Yes.”

Sandro put the butt of the gun into her hand. “If anyone comes through that door besides me, shoot.”

She swallowed hard. “You’re trusting me not to shoot you?” she tried to joke, but his expression remained grim.

“You’re a smart woman,” he said, lifting a hand to her face. An odd light glimmered in his midnight eyes. “I think you realize someone out there wants to hurt you. I also think you realize that as much as you don’t want to be with me, you want to be with him even less.”

And then he was gone. He didn’t give her time to protest or agree, simply let himself out the door, turned the lock, and headed down the stairs, until footsteps faded into silence, leaving only the ragged rhythm of her own breathing. She tried the door, desperately, vainly, but the lock wouldn’t budge.

She was alone in the small room, but Sandro’s presence lingered like a seductive mist. She inhaled deeply, drawing in not the scent of a villa abandoned to the fate of time, but of a man who’d stepped out of her dreams and into a nightmare she’d never imagined would come to pass.

Frowning, Miranda put her key to the lock, then wandered to the other side of the room, where she sat on the old sleeping bag, pulling the threadbare fabric around her legs, not at all sure why she’d suddenly become so cold.

Or why she wanted to have something of Sandro as close as possible.

The backup. Sweet Mary, she thought he worked for her father. The absurdity of it would have made him laugh, if the stakes hadn’t been so obscene. For now, Sandro figured, they were both better off if he let her continue believing the simple explanation.

His real identity didn’t matter, he reminded himself as he kept to the shadows and made his way back toward the resort community. The nature of his ultimate goal didn’t change the immediate objective. He had to keep the ambassador’s gypsy daughter away from the general’s men and arrange an exchange that didn’t jeopardize her life or his cover.

And he had to do it fast, he thought as he pulled his mobile phone from his belt.

“Cristo,” Javier swore a few minutes later. “Are you out of your mind? Taking the girl wasn’t part of the plan.”

Sandro glanced covertly around the alley where he’d stopped to call his ISA partner. “Tell me about it,” he muttered into the phone. He’d wanted to protect her, not take her. But obviously he’d been double-crossed. The informant who’d sold him the information about Miranda’s whereabouts had obviously had more than one buyer.

The question was who?

Regardless, Sandro was stuck with a complication he couldn’t afford. “I had no choice.”

“We all have choices,” Javier reminded.

“Yeah, you’re right. I could have left her for the shooter.” Just the thought had his blood running cold all over again.

“I would tell you to just leave her at the villa,” Javier mused, “call someone from the embassy and let them retrieve her, but there’s no telling who else is on Viktor’s payroll. But you can’t keep her either, amigo.”

“You think I don’t know that? But I can’t let her go right now. She’s safer with me than anywhere else.”

“Do you realize how insane that sounds?”

He did. “Javi, I need you to find out what happened to the bodyguard, Hawk.” If the poor bastard still lived, he might be Sandro’s best chance for a quick handoff.

“Consider it done,” Javier said, then lowered his voice. “But there’s something else you need to know first. Viktor knows you have her.”

Damn. Implications stabbed deep. In order to infiltrate his organization, Sandro had been working to win General Viktor Zhukov’s trust for close to a year. Turning the general’s coveted bargaining chip over to the United States government would destroy Sandro’s credibility. Countless lives, including his own and Javi’s, would be thrown into jeopardy.

“How the hell does he know already?”

“He’s got eyes and ears everywhere. He’s pleased and waiting for you to bring her in.”

Sandro leaned his head against the stone wall. His shoulder burned like a son of a bitch, he had an untrained, frustrated woman on his hands, a ruthless criminal on his heels, and now years’ worth of work threatened to blow up in his face. “Cristo.”

A hard sound broke from Javier’s throat. “I thought you might feel that way.”

“Get word to Omega,” Sandro said, thinking quickly. With international security on the line, arrangements needed to be made carefully. Discreetly. He could afford neither the risk to his cover nor the time of making plans himself. Calls could be traced, tapped, overheard. Any of those would be akin to signing his death warrant. There were appropriate channels and protocols, well-rehearsed methods designed to minimize risk.

Sandro’s job was to keep straddling that line. If the general caught so much as a whiff that Sandro was working to turn his prize over to the United States government, he was a dead man. This time for real.

And the carefully engineered plan to avenge eight operatives and bring the general to justice would be set back immeasurably.

“Tell Omega what’s going on,” he instructed. “Have him notify Ambassador Carrington.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“And I’ll await your call.”

Javier muttered something under his breath. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

Sandro frowned. “So do I.”

Javier Fernandez thumbed off his phone and threw a wad of cash on the small round table, quickly exiting the Stockholm café where he’d been grabbing a late lunch before Sandro’s call. He had to get back to his hotel room, make those calls and figure out how the hell he was going to extract his comrade from a potentially explosive debacle. And he had to do it fast.

“What’s the hurry, Fernandez?”

Javier glanced over his shoulder, realizing his mistake too late. Three men circled him. Three guns were trained on various parts of his body.

“I don’t think you’ll be taking care of anything, after all,” one of them said in broken English. “The girl is ours.”

“It’s me. Open up.”

Shuffling came from the other side of the door. “Sandro?”

“Expecting someone else?”

“How do I know you’re alone?”

He heard something in her voice, a fear and uncertainty that hadn’t been there before. Obviously, the time alone had allowed her imagination to kick into high gear.

“Sweetheart, I appreciate your caution, but you need to know something about me. I’m a trained professional. I’d die before I’d let someone follow me back here. Now open up.”

Nothing. Sandro put his hand to the door, wondering if he’d made a serious mistake by trusting her. But he’d had no choice. Giving trust was the best way to receive it in return.

More than anything, he needed her trust.

He waited, silently, patiently, until the lock clicked and the door opened. The ambassador’s gypsy daughter stood there, blond hair smoothed behind her ears, those fascinating green eyes darker than before, her expression somewhere between relief and alarm.

The sight damn near knocked the breath from his lungs.

Ignoring the reaction, trying to ignore her, Sandro strode into the small room and secured the door behind him. That morning, when he’d awakened in the old sleeping bag, the cramped quarters had seemed stale and dank, but after only a few hours of Miranda Carrington’s presence, everything seemed brighter, fresher, more welcoming. Like sunshine.

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