THE PERFECT TARGET (20 page)

But Miranda was not a criminal, and she posed no threat to freedom anywhere.

Except maybe deep inside, in a place he'd thought blown to irreparable bits one impossibly blue afternoon five years before.

He clenched the steering wheel tighter, stared straight ahead, saw only the truth. The ominously quiet, ominously still woman seated next to him, staring out the passenger window as the old car bumped down the roadway, was an innocent. Because of no other reason than her last name, she was caught up in a high-stakes game that had nothing to do with her personally, but threatened everything she held dear. Striking out at a Carrington was as much a headline grabber, as much of an attack on an American icon, as blowing up the Golden Gate Bridge or finding a way to erase the faces from Mount Rushmore.

That's all I really want,
she'd said that night in the wine cellar.
To be like everyone else. To dance in the street and not be splattered across the front of every tabloid.

But Miranda Carrington, this woman who cherished personal freedom above all else, was
not
like everyone else. There could be no anonymity for a woman with gypsy eyes and a sense of adventure and excitement that radiated from her like a diamond against a sea of black velvet. Just like there could be no glory in the actions he'd taken back at the safe house.

No, he thought again, blinking against the grainy dryness of his eyes. No glory. No satisfaction of a job meticulously planned and executed. No pleasure in stripping the light from Miranda's eyes, replacing it with the stark hollow of betrayal. No sense of accomplishment in hearing the rasp to her voice, feeling the sting of her words. No success in the fact that she believed him and Petros to be in the same league.

No glory in the fact she believed the lie.

He'd been close. So damn close to extracting her from Portugal with minimal damage. He had the raw fury under control now, but deep inside the knowledge that he'd either been set up or ambushed continued to rage. He was a careful man. Twice now, however, Petros claimed to have been only a step behind.

A hard sound broke from Sandro's throat.

Petros would be more than a step behind this time.

"Where are we going?" Miranda asked for the fourth time.

And for the fourth time, he told her only "South."

She said nothing else, just as she'd said nothing each of the three times before. She merely continued to look away from him.

She was way too calm. Shock, he wondered, or cunning? Her silence could easily conceal plotting, just like that day in Cascais, when she'd claimed to be Astrid Van Dyke.

They'd been in the car for nearly an hour. Petros would probably sleep a while longer, but not the whole night through. If Sandro had known that lowlife would be the one drinking the wine, not Miranda, he would have mixed in the whole damn bottle of sleeping pills, not just a few tablets. He'd only meant to ensure Miranda slept while the worst of the so-called rescue mission went down, to spare her that brutal moment of discovery.

None of that mattered. She knew. She knew the lie, could never know the truth, how closely the two were related. All he could do was damage control. It mattered only that she lived.

And, he amended, that General Viktor Zhukov met a certain lady named Justice.

Frustration wound deeper. There had been no rescue tonight. Only a trap. And Javier…
Cristo,
let him still be alive. Petros was a dangerous wild card. He'd lost the general's favor after a botched assignment five months before, and since then he'd been desperately trying to prove himself to his former leader. Apparently, he thought Miranda Carrington looked like his meal ticket. His arrival on the scene could easily have created a bloodbath.

No way in hell was Sandro risking Miranda's blood.

Or her body.

Clenching his jaw, he cursed the fat raindrops splattering the windshield. For a man who lived his life in the shadows, he had a peculiar lack of tolerance for being in the dark.

Sandro grabbed the mobile phone from the seat between his legs and jabbed the familiar series of numbers for the fifth time in an hour. And for the fifth time, he listened impatiently to the high shrill of a ring unanswered.

"Damn it, Javier," he bit out. "Where the hell are you?"

His partner's voice came across the line then, a recorded message inviting his fans and followers to leave a message. Sandro scowled at his friend's warped sense of humor, but a bad feeling sunk low in his gut. He wanted to talk to the man, not a machine, but left with no choice, he barked out a few nondescript words, meaningful to Javier, innocuous to others.

"Change of plans, mate. Unexpected visitors. Need to reschedule."

Miranda turned to look at him. "Who's Javier?"

Her voice was flat, empty, just like her expression. "He's my compatriot," he told her, turning the car onto a narrow, one-lane road leading between two rows of towering trees.

She wrinkled her perfect little nose. "Your
what?"

"My comrade," he clarified matter-of-factly. "My partner. He's making arrangements to get you out of the country without—" he broke off the words abruptly, regrouped "—without the wrong people finding us."

"By wrong people, you mean border patrol and whoever else it is that looks for kidnapped American citizens? Like the CIA?"

"Among other people," he answered vaguely. More often than not, that's all it took. People's imaginations filled in the blanks with unrivaled creativity and flair.

He knew this woman who'd once looked at him with mischief sparking in her eyes would be no different. He'd dulled that light for now, but deep inside, beneath that damningly sexy Surf Portugal T-shirt which rode entirely too high on her firm thighs, her spirit still burned bright. Of that, he had no doubt. She'd said it herself.

It takes more than a few lies to break me.

God, he hoped so. He could hardly remember anything he'd ever wanted more.

Swearing softly, he clicked on the radio, cranked up the volume. Out of the corner of his eye, he would have sworn he saw Miranda's lips twitch, but when he looked at her, her expression was as unreadable as the night beyond.

"I take it something went wrong tonight?" she surprised him by asking.

As far as understatements went, she'd hit the proverbial nail on the head. "You could say so."

She turned down the inspiring combination of Euro dance rhythm and static. "What?"

"It doesn't matter," he said, returning the volume to a level half of where it had been before.

"It does to me." This time, she turned the radio off.

Sharply honed survival instincts told him to ignore her request. Keep driving, keep looking ahead. But the man who already missed the light in her eyes couldn't do that, saw no reason to torture her. She'd been through enough. He didn't need to play brute now that Petros wasn't around. He could toss a few nuggets of truth, let her fill in the blanks.

"You were supposed to be escorted out of Portugal tonight," he told her. True.

She absorbed the words like a blow. "By whom?"

"Men I trust." Men who would give their life for his. And hers.

"You don't trust Petros?"

His hands tightened around the steering wheel. If Miranda hadn't screamed. If he hadn't heard her. If he'd been only a fraction of a minute later getting to the kitchen…

"Petros Racca is an amoral piece of scum," he ground out, "with no regard for human life."

Miranda frowned. "And what are you?"

This time it was Sandro's turn to absorb the impact of her words. And they hit hard. He knew he should accept her scorn and contempt, her hatred. It was safer that way. He'd complete his mission and escort her to safety, and then they would never see each other again. Piece of cake. End of story.

But Sandro couldn't leave it at that. He looked at her sitting next to him and winced at the betrayal and confusion in her eyes. But it was the horror that ripped at him like claws. They could have no future, but at the very least, she deserved to know she hadn't almost had sex with a man of evil and manipulation. They were just on opposite sides, that was all. They adhered to different ideals, hungered for different futures.

That's what he needed her to see, to understand.

"I'm just a man doing my job," he told her quietly.
Honestly.
"I'm the man who, despite what you heard back there, is not going to let a game that has
nothing
to do with you blow up in your face." He paused, struggled for the right words. Struggled even harder to breathe levelly. "I'm a man you'll be wise to forget about by the time you celebrate another birthday."

The night was dark, the rain again falling, but he saw the shadow cross her face. "My birthday is next month."

He looked back toward the road. "Like I said."

Behind them, lightning flashed, thunder rumbling seconds later. For the moment, they'd outrun the storm. But clouds continued to obscure the horizon, and Sandro knew with absolute certainty all hell would break lose again. Soon.

"How can you be so sure?" Miranda sounded angry now. Frustrated. "How can you know this game won't blow up in my face? Are you going to be there with me every second of every day? Are you going to stop the general if he gets a taste for bloodlust? Are you going to convince the Americans not to send in a special forces mission that could go hideously wrong?"

All of that. Everything. And more. "I'm going to do whatever it takes."

He didn't know if his answer satisfied her, scared her, or just left nothing further to say, but she said nothing in response. She just stared straight ahead. About fifteen miles down the road lay the quiet centuries-old village where they would ditch the car and continue their journey by other means. If he didn't hear from Javier by sunrise, it would be time to abandon protocol and do exactly what he promised her he would.

Whatever it took.

"You're wrong, you know."

Her voice was soft now, hoarse. Strained. And it damn near made him bleed. "About what?"

"Forgetting about you." She turned to look at him, practically drilled holes through his heart with her gaze. "I'll never forget what a good liar you are."

Actually, he silently corrected, she'd never even know.

God help him, he wanted to yank the car off the road and throw it in Park, pull her into his arms and put his mouth to hers, show her what was real.

"Use the memory then," he said instead. His jaw ached from how tightly he'd been clenching it. "After all this is over, when you're home safe and sound, use the memory to keep you strong."

Her eyes flared, but she said nothing.

And Sandro counted his blessings. All his life he'd been drawn to help, not wound. Deliberately hurting Miranda was twisting him up inside in cruel ways he'd never imagined possible.

"Eat something," he told her. "It's been a long time since that ice cream in Fatima."

A freaking lifetime.

"I'm not hungry."

"You need to keep your strength up," he countered. "There's granola and bottled water in my bag."

Sighing, she unfastened her seat belt and crawled toward the back seat, forcing Sandro to keep his eyes on the road and not the sight of her crouched between the two seats.

"What do you want?" she asked.

Sandro swallowed hard, but the saliva did nothing to put out the ridiculous fire in his gut. Or lower. "Nothing. Thanks."

A few bumps in the road later she returned to her seat with a bottle of water. She unscrewed the lid and drank deeply, then again turned to face him. This time her expression was oddly seeking. And if he looked, which he tried not to, he would have sworn he saw a sheen of moisture glistening in her eyes.

"Was everything just a means to an end, Sandro? Was it all a lie?"

It took every ounce of strength he had to keep his foot on the gas pedal and not slam on the brakes. To keep his hands on the wheel and not reaching for her. To keep the soldier, the commando, in charge. He kept his expression carefully blank, but beneath the surface, emotion boiled.

And for the first and only time in five years, he hated his job, the shadows and the sacrifices, the lies.

The truth.

"No," he bit out, because he could stomach nothing else. "It wasn't all a lie."

That much, at least, she deserved to know.

That much would not get her killed.

He saw her eyes widen fractionally, saw the flicker of vulnerability. "What then? What was real?"

He hesitated only a moment before answering. "I really did have a dog named Virgil."

* * *

"Walk?" Miranda looked from the car Sandro had parked behind a stash of bushes to the sleeping village around her. She didn't see a single light, much less a hotel. "Where to?"

Sandro slung his knapsack over his shoulder and reached for his attaché case. "Somewhere Petros Racca won't find us."

"He's out cold," she reminded.

"He won't be all night." Sandro slammed the door shut. "Now come on. We need to make camp before the storm catches us."

Lightning illuminated the sky, not the violent slashes and streaks of before, but flickers that reminded her of someone turning a light switch on, then off. On. Then off. The thunder was more like a gentle rolling now, as opposed to the heart-stopping booms of before.

Miranda shivered anyway. The cool breeze, she told herself, not the tall man with the eyes like chips of black ice, standing so close she felt the tension radiating from his big body. The man who'd lied to her.

The man she'd wanted to take into her body the night before.

She looked at him now, the flashes of lightning revealing the hard line of the mouth that had kissed her with a hunger and intensity she'd never experienced, the increasingly thick whiskers on his jaw. She noted the blatant strength of a finely tuned male body, one she could neither overpower nor outrun. He would be on her in a heartbeat if she tried to escape him, and now that he no longer had to pretend to be her bodyguard, she would be at his mercy. He could do … anything.