Читать книгу The Perfect Target - Jenna Mills - Страница 9

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.