THE PERFECT TARGET (10 page)

There could be no harm.

With the same cold determination he'd used when lifting his gun and standing alongside the door to the secret room in the villa, Sandro put the brush to the hair spilling over her shoulders and gently tried to ease the bristles through the tangled strands. But couldn't.

"You can go harder," she said. "You won't hurt me."

A distorted sound broke from his throat. She had no idea what a man like him would do to a woman like her, just how many ways he
could
most certainly hurt her.

Just the thought twisted him up inside. "It's too tangled," he muttered. "I think you'd better take it at your own pace. I'm not sure how much you can handle."

For a change, she didn't argue. She just lifted her hand and closed it over his, then jerked down. Hard. The brush gave way, the force of movement slamming it hard against his thigh.

Her hair pooled around their joined hands.

Sandro stared at all that luscious blond hair spilling across his lap as though she'd been scalped. "What the hell?"

She twisted to face him, revealing a row of dark auburn braids framing each side of her face, joined at the base of her neck and trailing down her back.

She'd been wearing a wig.

"Hair color doesn't matter to me," she said quietly, but her voice broke on the words. Her eyes were huge, dark, liquid. "It never has. Freedom does. Anonymity. The ability to live my life, without the whole world watching."

Sandro didn't know what to say, wasn't sure he could say anything. He felt like a man who'd just waded in about ten feet over his head. With lead boots on his feet.
"Cristo,"
he swore softly.

"So if you want to dye my hair brown or red or blue for that matter," she went on, her voice growing stronger with every syllable, "fine. It's not the end of the world."

He'd hurt her, he realized. In insinuating she was the flighty, sex kitten the tabloids painted her to be, he'd clearly prodded a wound that cut straight to her core.

"If General Zhukov's men recognize me," she said before he could apologize, "what happens?"

"I'm not going to let that happen." That much, he
could
promise her.

"But if they do," she persisted. "If the worst came to pass … what would happen?"

With the aid of the flickering light from across the street, he studied the resilience glowing in her eyes, the determination. Strength he hadn't noticed before. "You'd be taken to the general."

"That's all?"

"No, that's not all."

"What else?"

"Damn it, Miranda," he all but growled, then surged off the bed and started to pace. "Don't make me spell it out!"
Don't make me think about it.
"Do you really want to hear what those depraved lunatics would do to a woman like you? Men who live their whole lives in shadows and alleys? Men who either have to pay or brutalize to have a woman underneath them?"

Her eyes were huge, dark, but she kept her chin high, her shoulders square. "Here," she said, reaching toward her ankle and coming back up with the knife she'd pulled on him in the alley. "We'd better not take any chances."

He stopped abruptly. "Here, what?"

"If changing my identity is important enough to color my hair," she said, working to unweave the tight braids, "you should cut it, as well."

"Miranda—"

Her gaze met his. "You said it yourself," she reminded. "This isn't a game. It isn't a drill. It's real." Nimble fingers quickly freed masses of thick auburn hair. "Cut it off."

The abject horror tightening through him made no sense. She was right, he knew. Long hair always drew attention. A shorter length was less likely to stand out. And he'd certainly performed grimmer tasks than cutting a woman's hair. But…

"I'm not taking a knife to you," he growled, then strode to his duffel bag and fumbled for a pair of scissors. They weren't sharp, but they would cut through her hair without requiring him to hack or saw, like he'd have to do with the knife.

A flick of his wrist bathed the room in lamplight, taking away the shadows he preferred, but destroying the growing intimacy, as well. Miranda watched him walk toward her, then turned her back to him when he sat on the edge of the mattress.

The simple, trusting gesture practically skewered him.

Thick, auburn hair tumbled down her back, sweet-smelling from some exotic shampoo, crimped from the braids. Over the years, Sandro had learned the best way to handle an unpleasant task was to just do it. Don't think. Don't dread. Just shut off emotion and execute. But cutting a woman's hair was not like cutting a man's throat. It should be easier, he knew, but when he raised the scissors, God help him, his hands started to shake.

Chapter 5

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S
andro looked at all that gorgeous hair spilling over his hands and draped across his arm, and he just couldn't do it. He'd walked away from his life without looking back, turned his back on friends and family, held men while they died, caused more than one premature death himself, but he couldn't make his fingers lift the scissors to her hair.

"What's wrong?" Miranda asked, twisting to face him.

"I've never cut a woman's hair before." Didn't understand why the thought of doing so struck him as sacrilege.

"It's just like cutting anything else," she said, looking at him peculiarly. "And don't worry. It'll grow back."

But not in the brief time they'd be together. Every time he looked at her, he'd be reminded of the carefully constructed plan that had blown up in his face, forcing him to take this woman of sunshine into a world of shadows in which she didn't belong.

"In all likelihood this whole nightmare will be over tomorrow," he said, untangling his hands from her hair. "There's no point in doing something so permanent—"

"Sandro."

Her tone stopped the rambling stream of logic. "What?"

"Give me the scissors."

"The scissors?" he repeated lamely.

Frowning, she reached down to his lap and pulled them from his fingers. "I'm not going to force you to do something you don't want to do," she said impatiently, then opened the scissors and lifted them to the hair at her shoulder.

A swath of wavy auburn hair fell to his lap, landing in the palm of his hand. His fingers closed around it instinctively, protectively, ridiculously, because deep in his gut, Sandro couldn't quell the growing chill of inevitability.

Some damage, like the silky hair Miranda cut with such blatant disregard, could never be repaired.

* * *

Sandro aimed the remote at the old TV and jabbed viciously at the power button. He cranked the volume high, not wanting to hear the water rattling through the old pipes. He didn't want to think about the shower running in the next room, behind a door that didn't lock, the woman standing under the spray of water, behind a curtain that was more see-through than not. She would be naked, he knew. Beautiful.

And he really was a masochist.

Just the thought of her standing in the small white tub had his body hardening, which only served to heighten his frustration. Literally, and figuratively.

Earlier, he'd gathered ice from a machine down the hall. Now, he popped a cube into his mouth and sucked. Hard. Distractions weren't doing a damn bit of good.

Counting on the drone of CNN to douse thoughts he had no business thinking, he leaned against the headboard, stretched his legs and focused on the familiar anchor. But the news felt as stale as the musty hotel room and his thoughts returned to the bathroom, where Miranda had retreated after butchering her hair. She'd taken all three boxes of color with her, leaving him with no clue which she would choose.

Frustrated, he lifted the remote and began skimming channels. Several screens of static gave way to a clear picture, prompting him to pause. And groan. He heard the shower in stereo now, the one from the adjacent bathroom and the one on the television. A woman stood with her back against ceramic tile, while a man stood facing her, holding her hands stretched above her head. They were both naked. Water rained down on them, but the glazed look in the woman's eyes indicated she was completely oblivious to anything but the man. He had his mouth—

Sandro changed the channel abruptly, but not before his heart rate accelerated. He reached for more ice, chewed it this time. Closed his eyes. Opened them abruptly.

Water no longer rattled from the bathroom. A moment of silence gave way to the rattle of the curtain being pulled open. Then more silence. She would be drying off, he figured, then wondered if she'd use the lotion he'd bought for her.

Then cursed himself for wondering.

He could not afford to think of Miranda as anything more than an assignment. He sure as hell couldn't think of her as a beautiful woman. The danger she posed stemmed from far more than a smile that lit up the shadows and curves that made a man's fingers itch, extended deeper than the flesh. She was the kind of woman who could distract a man, blur his focus, make him forget.

And Sandro could never, ever let himself forget.

He'd made his choice long ago, a choice forged through brutality and cemented in blood. He was as committed to his decision as though he wore a gold band on his ring finger. And he'd never tolerated infidelity, not among his buddies, not between his parents. They'd never much seemed to care, but with each indulgent affair Sandro had discovered, something inside him had died a little further. His mother and father had never been concerned with more than the pleasure of the moment.

Sandro was determined to be different. To honor commitments. To focus on the big picture, not the indulgence of the here and now.

Except with Miranda naked in the next room, the here and now seemed pretty damn appealing.

He rolled from the bed, picked up his semiautomatic, and crossed to the window, where he used the barrel to nudge the curtain aside. Across the street, the lights from the discotheque flashed relentlessly, promising escape. In the crowded confines of gyrating bodies and ever-flowing alcohol, a man didn't have to think about responsibility or staying alive. Didn't have to think about the kind of temptation that could damn, could instead indulge in the kind of temptation that carried no consequences.

"Sandro?"

He stiffened at the sound of her voice, turned abruptly. He hadn't even heard a door open. She stood in a puddle of light spilling from the bathroom, wearing nothing but a cloud of baby powder and the oversize Surf Portugal T-shirt he'd purchased for her at the Jumbo. She had a white towel wrapped around her head, hiding her newly colored hair and accentuating her eyes. Lamplight glinted off the lotion-drenched flesh of her neck and her arms and her legs.

Wrapping her arms around her middle, she moved her hands up and down her sides, inadvertently stretching the T-shirt tighter over her breasts. He saw no signs of a bra.

"It's cold in here," she said. "Can you crank up the heat?"

Swallowing hard, Sandro squelched the urge to replace her hands with his, to create warmth through a more holistic method, rather than the rinky space heater provided by the hotel.

Never in his life had he been so sure a colossal mistake loomed just around the corner.

Never in his life had he wanted to hear from Javier more. Or less.

Never in his life had he so deeply regretted the lie he lived, the truth he couldn't hide forever. She would eventually learn both, this woman of sunshine who'd given him smiles and laughter and compassion even when her life lay on the line, and then she would hate him. There would be no more smiles, no more laughter. No more compassion.

He wouldn't deserve any.

* * *

Miranda's mouth went dry. She watched Sandro standing there in the shadows, wearing nothing but a pair of well-worn camouflage pants and a white undershirt that emphasized the darkness of his flesh, the strength of his chest. In his hand, he held his semiautomatic, as though it served some kind of impenetrable shield between him and the world. In his eyes glittered a harshness she didn't understand, a look that screamed equal parts pain and pleasure.

Danger, was the first word that came to mind. Dangerous. Not just because he held a gun in one hand and her life in the other, but because that brutal commando exterior he'd perfected to an art form couldn't hide the glimmer of compassion deep inside. He'd given her patience in the face of fear and confusion. He'd bought her lotion and shampoo. He'd been unable to cut her hair.

Standing there in the shower, naked with water sluicing over her body, she'd been unable to forget the way his hands had shook, the look of panic on his face.
Panic.
This man who had not shown one ounce of fear or worry during gunfight, or flight, or the impending discovery of their hiding spot, had shown true panic at the prospect of taking scissors to her hair.

Her chest tightened at the memory.

She didn't want to consider why.

Nor did she want to consider why she'd felt so … antsy while she showered. Maybe because she knew Sandro was just a heartbeat away and the door didn't lock. Maybe because the shampoo and soap she smoothed over her body had been purchased by him. For her. Or maybe, just maybe, because when she closed her eyes, she could see him as vividly as though he'd joined her in the shower, could imagine the hands running over her body were not her own, but rather those strong, capable hands that had been unable to cut her hair.

Danger, she thought again. Dangerous.

He still hadn't moved, hadn't spoken. He just watched her, the light from across the street slashing in, momentarily rescuing him from the shadows, then returning him with brutal speed and precision. As the day had worn on, the whiskers covering his jaw had thickened, darkened, to the point now where they looked soft, rather than hard. Tempting, rather than menacing.

Something deep inside her started to tremble. "Sandro?" she said, looking from his eyes to the gun. Her heart started to pound. "Has something happened?"