THE PERFECT TARGET by Jenna Mills Read Free Book Online Page A

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