Page 112 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Your opin­ion about Gabriel is of no in­ter­est to me,” Quinn said. “How­ever, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. He’s a royal duke, and we both know what I am.”

“You are the smartest, most hon­or­able woman on God’s green earth.” Bren­dan’s voice rang with pride and sin­cer­ity. Such a good ac­tor. “Your duke is lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, well, his fam­ily might not agree with you.” She heaved a sigh of re­lief as the door opened and Gabriel stepped through.

The golden light from her house glinted in the silk of his dark hair and high­lighted the el­e­gant planes of his face. He caught her gaze and smiled, his teeth a flash of white in the gloam­ing.

A rush of emo­tion flooded through her with such power that she could barely breathe. Love, long­ing, re­gret, loss—it all swirled to­gether and swamped her heart.

“Car­iño mío.” It was a re­as­sur­ance and a ca­ress as he sat be­side her on the love seat and drew her against his side. She nes­tled into the warmth and so­lid­ity of him, wish­ing she could co­coon her­self in his arms un­til her fa­ther de­parted from Cal­eva. Gabriel’s gaze fell on the packet of money sit­ting be­side the wine bot­tle. “Per­haps we should put that some­where safe.”

“I’ll take it to the bank to­mor­row,” Quinn said.

“It’s time for me to rest my weary bones.” Bren­dan pushed out of his chair and picked up his bag. “You don’t need to get up. Just give me di­rec­tions to the guest quar­ters.”

“No, I’ll show you,” Quinn said, al­though she hated to leave the shel­ter of Gabriel’s body. “I have to get some tow­els for you.”

Gabriel boosted her to her feet, and she scooped up the packet of money. “I’ll be right back,” she said to him.

She trudged up the stairs and showed her fa­ther to the guest room, pulling a set of tow­els out of the linen closet on the way.

“’Tis a lovely home you’ve made.” Bren­dan’s gaze swept around the room with its sim­ple pine fur­ni­ture, wo­ven teal and gold rug, and long, bil­lowy cur­tains. He turned to her, and she saw tears welling in his eyes. “Thank you for let­ting me stay the night.”

Maybe some of the emo­tions she felt for Gabriel spilled over onto her fa­ther. Or maybe she lost her mind.

Quinn walked over and put her arms around him. “You’re wel­come, Dad.”

Her fa­ther wrapped her in the em­brace that she re­mem­bered from child­hood, with the aroma of whiskey, a rasp of late-night stub­ble against her tem­ple, and the feel­ing that she was safe from the world. She shoved away the knowl­edge of how wrong that feel­ing was and let her­self stand in the mem­ory.

“I’ve kept my prom­ise to you. Straight as an ar­row I am now.” He loos­ened his hold and kissed her on the fore­head. “I love you, Quin­nie dar­lin’. For­give me. Please.”

She stepped back, saw the plead­ing in his eyes. “I can for­give you, but I can’t for­get. I thought I could es­cape the past, but it fol­lows me ev­ery­where, even here to Cal­eva. It raises a wall too high to climb be­tween me and the man I love.”

Her fa­ther slid his hands to her shoul­ders. “If I could turn back the clock and do things dif­fer­ently, I would.”

“Let me know when you find a time ma­chine.” But she stood on her toes to press a quick kiss on his cheek. “Sleep well.”

She stopped to stash the money in her home safe be­fore re­join­ing Gabriel on the pa­tio. “Can we just sit and not talk?” she asked as she snug­gled in against him again, find­ing com­fort in the heat of his body and the strength of his arm around her. “I prom­ise to ex­plain ev­ery­thing about Bren­dan and me to­mor­row, but right now I’m too ex­hausted to find the words.”

His arm tight­ened, and she felt his lips on the top of her head. “You’ve had a dif­fi­cult night. I will say only one thing. Your fa­ther loves you.”

“I know he does. Your fa­ther loves you too. That doesn’t mean they are good par­ents.”

She heard Gabriel blow out a breath. “But per­haps love can build a bridge.”

Chap­ter 28

The next morn­ing, Quinn found the door to Bren­dan’s room open and the bed stripped. Rest­ing in the cen­ter of the bare mat­tress was an over­sized post­card sport­ing a pic­ture of a Cal­e­van dragon.

My dar­ling Quin­nie,

You treated me bet­ter than I had any right to ex­pect. I thank you for that. I prom­ise not to re­turn.

While you might not trust my wis­dom, here’s a piece of ad­vice: Never un­der­es­ti­mate the strength of love. You and Gabriel love each other. I could see it wrap­ping you both in light last night. Be­lieve an old pro at read­ing peo­ple when I say that Gabriel is a good man. Your past will not stop him, so don’t let it stop you from be­ing with him. Maybe you can’t for­get, but you can put it be­hind you and refuse to look back.

“Ah, Bren­dan, if only it were that easy,” Quinn mut­tered.

Maybe there’s a lit­tle self-in­ter­est in­volved when I say that.

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