Page 104 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“The only prob­lem is that now I’ll get in­vited back again.” She was only half jok­ing.

Mikel didn’t smile. “Given your feel­ings for el duque, you should hope to be in­vited again. They are his fam­ily.”

Quinn’s shoul­ders slumped. “He says it will get eas­ier.”

“It does.”

Sur­prise made her straighten again. She couldn’t imag­ine her boss be­ing in­tim­i­dated by any­one, yet it sounded as though he once might have been over­awed by the roy­als.

Mikel went back to busi­ness. “Tell me when you set up the call with Ricci. I want to sit in.”

Be­fore she did that, she wanted to get started on in­ves­ti­gat­ing her new per­son of in­ter­est, Odette Fontaine.

By quit­ting time, Quinn had pinned Paul Ricci down to a video call the next af­ter­noon, and she’d be­gun work­ing her way through the lay­ers of Odette Fontaine’s back­ground. She walked home, stop­ping to pick up some bo­los lêve­dos, a sweet sort of Por­tuguese Eng­lish muf­fin that Gabriel liked. She was fol­lowed by one of the body­guards Mikel had as­signed to her, while a bland sedan tracked her progress along the street. It felt strange to be shad­owed, but Gabriel said she would stop notic­ing af­ter a while. He should know.

As she swung open the tall metal gate to her back­yard, she was sur­prised to hear Gabriel’s voice in the ca­dence of con­ver­sa­tion. Usu­ally, he put in a lit­tle ex­tra time prac­tic­ing his mu­sic be­fore she got home, tak­ing her re­turn as his cue to put away the gui­tar.

Walk­ing around the back cor­ner of her house, she came to an abrupt halt as dis­be­lief and fury con­gealed in ev­ery mus­cle of her body.

Loung­ing next to Gabriel in one of her wicker chairs, a rocks glass dan­gling from one hand, was her fa­ther.

“What the fuck?!”

Bren­dan and Gabriel turned. Gabriel stood and strode over to cup her rigid shoul­ders. “Quinn, your fa­ther came to visit, and I am glad I got to meet him.” He leaned down to press a kiss on her mouth be­fore mur­mur­ing, “I don’t know what the prob­lem is be­tween you, but he is here be­cause he’s wor­ried about you, car­iño mío.”

His en­dear­ment un­der­cut some of her out­rage at her fa­ther’s pres­ence. When Gabriel lifted his head, his eyes were soft with con­cern for her.

“How did he get into Cal­eva with­out Mikel know­ing?” Quinn hissed, hat­ing that her fa­ther had blind­sided her.

Gabriel shook his head and nes­tled her against his side to walk her to­ward her fa­ther. Bren­dan had put down his drink and risen from his chair. His hands were tucked into the pock­ets of his khaki trousers in a pose of non­cha­lance, but Quinn caught the ten­sion in his shoul­ders un­der the loose shirt pat­terned with gaudy pur­ple and pink flow­ers.

His sil­ver-gray hair was longer than usual, brushed back from his fore­head to curl over his shirt col­lar. He’d lost weight, so the strong bones of his face looked al­most gaunt with the shad­ows thrown by the set­ting sun.

The vivid sky blue eyes were the same, though, alight with in­tel­li­gence and cal­cu­la­tion. The usual twin­kle of amuse­ment was miss­ing to­day. He knew he wasn’t wel­come.

When they were about six feet away, Quinn came to a stand­still. Gabriel stopped as well, his arm still firmly around her waist.

“How did you—?” She waved a hand to erase her ques­tion. “Why are you here? And this had bet­ter be good.”

Gabriel’s grip tight­ened enough to make her aware of his strength and warmth, both of which en­veloped her. More of her anger drained away as she al­lowed her­self to lean into him.

“Why don’t we all sit down?” Bren­dan said, ges­tur­ing to the empty chairs near him.

“I don’t want you to get com­fort­able here,” Quinn said. “So talk first.” De­spite know­ing Gabriel would won­der what the hell was go­ing on, she couldn’t quell her anger at her fa­ther’s bro­ken prom­ise.

“Ah, Quin­nie, give your poor old dad a break. I’m not as young as I used to be.” He beamed one of his patented self-dep­re­cat­ing smiles, all crin­kles at the cor­ners of his eyes with a charm­ing rue­ful twist of his lips.

Anger gey­sered again. She felt her­self shak­ing with it. Gabriel feath­ered his fin­gers over her waist in a touch meant to soothe. “Give me the sum­mary, and then I’ll de­cide if you can sit.”

Bren­dan sighed and rocked for­ward on his toes. “I’m con­cerned that you didn’t take my warn­ing about Dupont se­ri­ously enough. I need to talk with you about pro­tec­tion.”

Gabriel’s body went rigid against her side. Shit! Bren­dan was go­ing to make Gabriel crazy with worry about her, which would get in the way of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Mikel can pro­tect me, so there’s no need for you to be con­cerned.” Quinn tried to shut him down.

“I slipped past your Mikel, didn’t I?” Her fa­ther raised his eye­brows.

She shifted out of Gabriel’s em­brace to look up at him. “I’d like to speak with my fa­ther pri­vately, please.”

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