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Authors: Jenna Mills

THE PERFECT TARGET (30 page)

BOOK: THE PERFECT TARGET
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The sight almost sent her to her knees.

"The picture you were about to take," he said in that low, hoarse voice of his. The one that warned of violence and danger. "It's all wrong."

Shakily, she reached behind her to clasp the railing. Her heart was pounding so hard its echo roared through her, blurring her vision and making her dizzy.

"Wrong?" She wasn't sure how she managed the word, where it came from. "How so?"

"Because you're not in it."

The breath stalled in her throat. Her chest hurt. Not because of the painfully familiar 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. Only once before had she seen a gaze so full of secrets and promises, eyes that dark, like chips of midnight ice.

Wake up,
the survivor in her commanded. This man wasn't what he seemed. He wasn't real. He was only another dream.

Slowly, with great effort and dread, she lowered the camera from her eyes, certain that without the aid of the lens, Sandro would vanish. Because he wasn't just standing there in broad daylight, reenacting their first conversation. He couldn't be.

But dear God, he was.

"I see myself in the mirror every morning," she mused, memory supplying the words. "I hardly need a picture of myself."

His voice dropped an octave. "But I did," he said. "I needed to see you standing here like this, with the sun in your hair and a smile on your face, to remind me why I was such a goddamn fool."

All those walls she'd tacked up deep inside, the hard, impregnable barriers to the hurt and the pain, came tumbling down.

"Bella,"
he whispered. "Did I say something wrong?" She couldn't take it anymore, couldn't play a game when her whole world had just shifted.

"Sandro…" She had to touch him, just touch him, put her hands on his body, feel the warmth of his skin. Assure herself he was real. And alive.
Here.
He'd visited her so many times in her dreams, dissolving into shadows the second she lifted a hand.

"You're here," she murmured thickly. "You're alive. You came back."

He shifted on his crutches. "I never left you,
bella.
I was always here," he said, lifting a hand to put his palm against her chest. "And you were always here," he said, drawing her hand to the wrinkled cotton of his black shirt.

Miranda wasn't sure how she stayed standing. "Your leg—"

"Nothing that won't heal," he said matter-of-factly. "A small price for making sure Zhukov never hurts another."

Beneath her palm his heart beat strong and true. She could feel the warmth of his body seeping into hers. More than anything she wanted to eliminate the scant distance between them, put her arms around him, feel his arms around her.

But first she needed to understand.

"You lied to me," she whispered. "You let me believe you were a criminal."

He winced. "I did what I had to do to make sure you got out alive. That's all I cared about."

"You tried to make me hate you."

Those midnight eyes went even darker. "I loved you," he said, his voice pitched low. Very slowly, he slid his hand from her chest to her neck, up farther to cradle her face. "I love you more than I knew possible."

Something deep inside her went hot and liquid. "Sandro—"

"I tried to forget you," he went on, "but it would have been easier to quit breathing."

Now he looked at her standing there, with the ocean glimmering behind her and the sun shining on her and had to remind himself to do just that. Breathe. He'd thought he could walk away from her. He'd thought he could turn her over to Hawk and her father and go on with his life. He'd thought he could walk away from her like he'd walked away from his life five years before.

He'd never imagined how wrong a man could be.

After finding and rescuing a badly beaten Javier from Petros's men, the two had completed their plan to bring down the general. Everything should have been over then, but thoughts of Miranda had refused to diminish. If anything, they'd grown stronger. Still, he tried to stay away, tried to pretend their lives hadn't touched for a few brief days, changing everything. But couldn't.

Through Hawk, with whom Sandro had orchestrated the exchange that ensured her safety and protected Sandro's cover, he learned of her safe return to the States. Hawk had also told him of her endless string of questions, her tireless efforts to find him. And finally he could stay away no longer, not when he knew that in setting her free he'd subjected both of them to a hellish prison neither expected.

Loving Miranda didn't mean betraying his friends or his quest for justice. The two were not mutually exclusive. He owed it to the memory of his fallen friends to live his life to the fullest. Anything less was granting Zhukov and his men a victory they didn't deserve.

Sandro stepped closer, lowered his face toward hers. "Some paths," he murmured, "…they cannot be turned away from. Some choices really are etched in stone."

"I love you," she whispered as their mouths came together.

He slid his free arm around her shoulders and kissed her slow, deep, savoring the feel of her, the taste of coffee and desire and hope.

He'd been wrong that day in Evora. It wasn't time for him to die again.

It was time for him to live.

 

* * * * *

Table of Contents

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

^

BOOK: THE PERFECT TARGET
4.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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