“Tell me about your lives. Everything. What you’ve been doing all these years and what you’re doing now. I’ve got less than an hour before I have to go, and I may never see you again. Talk.”
2
Sometimes life was pure irony. Casimir Prakenskii was an assassin. A premier, elite assassin. He’d been an assassin since his fifteenth birthday. He’d been in training practically from birth to be anyone – anyone at all – with the exception of Casimir Prakenskii. He didn’t even know who Casimir was. He wouldn’t recognize the man if he looked in the mirror.
The role he found himself in was unexpectedly more difficult than he had anticipated. Simple enough on the surface, he’d certainly played such roles before – enough that this one was second nature to him. A bodyguard on the estate of Luigi Abbracciabene. He usually could slide into any position easily, but Luigi kept only a very few men on the Abbracciabene estate.
The house and grounds weren’t overly large, but the estate was guarded by two roving men, not a team. Still, he managed to be in the right place when one of the bodyguards “unexpectedly” came down with a “serious illness” and decided to take leave. He’d been briefed and knew his target was coming for a visit and fortunately, he had a couple of weeks to get his cover in place.
His quarry was beautiful. There was no other word for her. Beautiful. She didn’t laugh often, but when she did, every head turned toward her. It wasn’t difficult to keep an eye on her because she liked to be outside, and her hair gave her away. When the sun poured down on her, her hair looked like a living flame. Sheets of thick red hair framed her delicate oval face. Her eyes were startling blue. Not blue green, but a true deep sapphire blue framed by thick red-gold lashes she rarely bothered to darken with mascara.
She had noticed him immediately and made inquiries. She didn’t live there. She hadn’t been there in over a year, but she still noticed he wasn’t a regular in the household. For some strange reason, he found that sexy – that she seemed to notice things other women wouldn’t.
She had come right up to him to introduce herself. Close. Unafraid. He’d never been affected by a woman before, not even when he slept with one, but there was no denying the instant attraction. She felt it too. He saw it in her eyes just for the briefest of seconds. Her breathing changed. One inhale. Two. That was it, but he’d noted it. Remembered. Would always remember that moment because, for him, it was significant. He’d felt the pull of their chemistry, and so had she. She was covering it and ignoring it, just as he was.
For the first time in his life, staring down into those amazing blue eyes, he wished a woman could see Casimir Prakenskii and not the man he was portraying. He didn’t want this woman affected by a fictional character, a bodyguard who would do his job and walk away never to be seen again. He wanted her to see him – whoever the hell that was.
Her voice was soft, pitched low and melodious. The notes sank right through his skin and branded her into his bones – not a good start for a man like him. He was a master of disguise and, along with that, he was a master of his emotions, but he found himself listening for the sound of her voice wherever he was, inside or outside the house. He didn’t allow her – or anyone else – to see his reaction to her; he tucked it away to bring out later to savor. It was a gift. Feeling. Anything at all besides loneliness and despair. Feeling for a woman was a gift.
She’d been there a week. He’d accompanied her security detail into town when she went with her uncle Luigi, which was nearly every day. She liked to wander around town. He knew it wasn’t her hometown. She’d been born in Ferrara, the only child of Marcello and Elisabeta Abbracciabene. Her name then had been Giacinta and she’d been a true Celtic throwback, just like her mother with her flaming red hair and her incredible blue eyes. His information had included pictures from her childhood along with her extraordinary history.
The child had supposedly died with her parents. Luigi had managed to keep her existence from the world, and he’d sent her away when she was eighteen. She’d returned as the artist Lissa Piner. Luigi introduced her as someone important to him, like a daughter – or a niece – and she was to be treated that way. All the men seemed to accept that Luigi and Lissa had a relationship and Luigi considered her family.
He never heard her coming, she was that soft on her feet when she moved around her uncle’s home. But he felt her. He knew where she was at any given time in the house, that was how aware of her he was. He had time to drape himself casually against the wall, a pose he knew annoyed her because she always made a comment about how easy his job seemed to be. He noticed she didn’t say much to the other bodyguards as they spent their time playing pool or video games in the recreation room. Just him. And he liked that it was just him. Even if she was reprimanding him.