Page 117 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Quinn set out two wine­glasses on the kitchen counter and poured gen­er­ous serv­ings of a ruby-col­ored Ri­oja in both of them. She had about fif­teen min­utes be­fore Gabriel showed up.

Be­fore she watched his feel­ings for her change from love to con­tempt.

She took a gulp of wine and car­ried the glasses into the liv­ing room area, putting Gabriel’s on the cof­fee ta­ble be­fore she slumped onto the sec­tional.

She’d never had to tell some­one the truth about her­self. Mikel had al­ready known be­cause he’d done a back­ground check. He had told the king. No one else in Cal­eva knew.

Jean-Pierre Dupont knew. How­ever, he didn’t count be­cause he was from France, and he was a crim­i­nal him­self.

Who was she kid­ding? Se­crets al­ways got out. Even a skilled con man like her fa­ther got caught. She let her head fall back against the sofa.

This was go­ing to suck.

A few min­utes later, the French door swung open, and Gabriel stepped through, all six feet, one inch of him, dressed in his usual jeans and black T-shirt. For a mo­ment, she drank in the sculpted curves of his sen­sual mouth and the light of con­cern in his sil­ver-gray eyes.

“Quinn?” Clos­ing the door, he walked over to give her a kiss be­fore he pulled back to search her face. His con­cern sent a jab of pain through her. “Are you all right?”

“No, but only be­cause I don’t want to have this con­ver­sa­tion,” she said. “I think you should sit down. Over there.” She waved at the chair across from her. “And have some wine.”

He hes­i­tated be­fore he picked up the wine­glass and sat where she’d in­di­cated.

She twisted her fin­gers around the stem of her glass and took a deep breath. “I promised I would tell you about my fa­ther and my past. I’d hoped to put it off a lit­tle longer be­cause…” She glanced up at him. “Be­cause it will change the way you think of me.”

He shook his head. “Noth­ing can do that. I know who you are.”

“You don’t.” She stared into her wine for a long mo­ment be­fore say­ing in a level voice, “I am a con­victed felon. Grand lar­ceny. I served thir­teen months in a fed­eral prison in the United States.” She had hated her fa­ther ev­ery minute of her time there.

The si­lence pressed against her chest. She didn’t dare look at Gabriel.

“Why?” His voice was soft. Cu­ri­ous, not ac­cus­ing.

That jerked her gaze up to his face. There was sur­prise but no hor­ror or dis­gust writ­ten there.

“Why?” she re­peated.

“Why did you steal what­ever you stole? You must have had a good rea­son. Was your fa­ther ill? Did you need money for med­i­cal bills?”

She flinched at his faith in her. “You met my fa­ther. His health is fine.”

“But there is more to this story,” Gabriel said. “Why were you so up­set that your fa­ther came to Cal­eva?”

In a weird way, this was safer ground. “Be­cause Bren­dan is a con man, a crim­i­nal in his own right. He’s been to jail more than once.” She made a wry face. “The ap­ple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Gabriel ig­nored her last state­ment. “From the con­ver­sa­tion last night, I sus­pected some­thing like that.”

“I thought I could start over here. Mikel gave me that chance.” She sat up straighter. “I didn’t trust my fa­ther not to screw it up for me, so I told him never to come here.” And she had been right. “Now you know.”

Gabriel put his glass down with a loud click. “I don’t know the most im­por­tant thing. What drove you to do it.”

Dur­ing the hear­ing, no one had asked her what her mo­tive had been. They’d wanted to know how she’d done it and where the money was so they could re­trieve it. “It was a cryp­tocur­rency scam. So easy to trick gullible in­vestors who wanted to be on the cut­ting edge.” That’s what her fa­ther had said. “They un­der­stood noth­ing about it, so it was sim­ple to take their money. That’s why I did it.”

Gabriel ran his hand through his hair in a ges­ture of frus­tra­tion. “That’s bull­shit. I’m a rich man, yet you’ve never asked for a gift or quizzed me about my real es­tate hold­ings or even wanted to eat at an ex­pen­sive restau­rant.”

“Who needs a fancy restau­rant when you can eat at the Castillo Dra­conago?”

He snorted. “You hate go­ing there.”

She knew she was in trou­ble when he pushed up from his chair and prowled over to sit be­side her. He took her glass away be­fore he wrapped her hands in his and pulled her around to face him. His gaze rested on her face like a search­light, blast­ing away any chance of con­ceal­ment. “I hoped you would trust me with the truth.”

---