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but, rather, pathetic scum who wanted to use the Carrington name as a meal ticket.
"Miranda?" Sandro asked, going down on one knee.
The gesture struck her as foolishly gallant. "I'm sorry he dragged you into this," she said, forcing a smile
and pushing to her feet.
"I'm tired and I'm hungry," she added. "So why don't you take me back to my hotel, so I can call my
father and tell him I'm not interested in playing any more of his games." If he insisted on having someone
shadow her, she didn't want the man to be Sandro. She couldn't look at him without remembering the ray
of anticipation she'd felt by the ocean. She couldn't stay with him in a small room like this without
remembering the way he'd made her feel for those first few minutes, that seductive sense of intrigue, the
intoxicating glow of discovery.
If her father had to keep tabs on her, she'd rather Hawk or Aaron or any other of his yes-men, not this
tall man with the midnight eyes and rough voice, who reminded her how foolish she'd been to hope, for
even a few minutes, that she could have a life beyond the Carrington mystique.
Slowly, Sandro rose to his full height. "You think this is a game?"
"Not a game. A drill. A lesson. A powerplay." Eleven years before, a tragic accident had forever
changed the Carrington family. After burying his oldest daughter Kristina, her father had never left
anything to chance, ever again.
Equal parts grief-stricken and naive, a seventeen-year-old Miranda had been unprepared for the
measures Peter Carrington had implemented to protect his remaining children. Only months later, during
her freshman year at Wellesley, she'd been horrified when the caring, considerate girl with whom she'd
shared secrets, clothes and a dorm room turned out to be a female bodyguard, hired to keep an eye on
her. Watch her. Report back to her father. Since then Miranda had become skilled at spotting his setups.
It burned her that she hadn't seen this one coming.
But then, never before had her father sent someone who looked like temptation and spoke like a poet.
"You're not the first, you know," she said, deliberately dismissing him. "Dad excels in orchestrating little
security exercises to prove I need to be more careful."
"Security exercises?"
"You know. Because of Kris. Friends that turn out to be federal agents, bouncers that turn out to be
bodyguards. Once he arranged for a raid at a college bar, just to prove that if he could find me drinking,
so could the media or a kook."
Sandro swore under his breath. "You think the scene by the ocean was staged for your benefit?"
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She lifted her chin. "Wasn't it?"
"Bella,"he said in that hoarse voice of his, that seeped through her defenses like a smoky mist no matter
how hard she worked to reinforce them, "I hate to shatter your illusions, but this isn't a drill or a lesson.
This is as real as it gets." His gaze on hers, he lifted his hands to his chest, his fingers practically brutalizing
the buttons of his black shirt.
Her heart started to hammer again, this time in a halting, irregular rhythm. "What are you doing?"
"Those shots back there were the real thing," he said, his voice softer than before. Almost strained.
Reaching the waistband of his pants, he shrugged out of the cotton shirt.
Miranda braced herself for the sight of darkly tanned flesh and hard muscle, but instead found herself
staring at a thick gray vest.
A vest she instantly recognized.
"The man trying to hurt you was real," Sandro continued, working the buckles and snaps of the familiar
body armor. Impatience snapped through his voice. "And come morning," he growled, dropping the
heavy vest to the floor and turning his back to her, "this will be a real damn bruise."
Shock cut through Miranda. She stared at the nasty green and purple already discoloring the center of a
back otherwise magnificently perfect. His shoulders were broad, bronze, thickly muscled. They tapered
to the center of his back, which in turn tapered perfectly to the waistband of his pants.
Perfect, that was, save for the nasty streaks of dark red. Abruptly, she followed the trail of dried blood
back to his shoulder, where a crust tried vainly to conceal blood still oozing from a nasty wound."You're
bleeding."
Sandro twisted around to look at his upper back. "Am I?" he asked, then grimaced. "Son of a bitch. No
wonder my shoulder feels like it's on fire."
Deep inside, Miranda started to shake. The chill came next, starting in her heart and seeping through her
blood. This man had risked his life for her. He'd been not only shot at, but shot.
Because of her.
"Here, let me," she said, stepping closer. She lifted her hands to his back, not really knowing what she
planned to do, but knowing she had to touch him. Help him. Very gently, she touched her fingertips to the
heat of his flesh
"Cristo!"he shouted, then continued in a language she didn't understand.
She jerked back. "I'm sorry. I "
"Your hands are like ice!"
And his skin was like fire. She stared at him, but the room started to revolve. The walls pushed closer.
The air grew too thick to breathe. Thoughts and possibilities crashed around inside her like bullets in a
mausoleum. Horror stabbed deep.
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It was real.Everything that had gone down in the crowded marketplace had been authentic, not staged.
The shots and the shouting. Hawk going down, then pulling himself back up, only to be mowed down
again.
Dear God, Elizabeth.Her sister said she didn't love Hawk, had never loved him, but Miranda had always
believed
"Miranda?"
She blinked rapidly, working desperately to bring Sandro's face into focus. He was moving closer, his
big body blocking out the meager light seeping through the window, until her world consisted only of him.
"If there was a th-threat, he should have told m-me," she whispered in a voice she barely recognized as
her own. "He should have warned m-me. T-told me about you."
"Miranda "
"I wouldn't have been on the street like that," she insisted, gazing up at him. She widened her eyes,
imploring him to believe her. She'd seen how her sister's death had shattered her family, would never do
anything willingly to put them through that again. She wasn't foolish. She didn't have a death wish. She'd
taken countless self-defense classes. Had a few tricks up her sleeve. "I would have been more careful."
"Miranda." Sandro took her shoulders in his hands and gave her a gentle squeeze. "Your father loves
you," he said softly but firmly. "He wants to keep you safe. Where's the crime in that? If I hadn't been
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