Page 16 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Ha­tred for the doc­tor surged through her as she watched Gabriel lift his hand to touch his ear again. He dropped it abruptly and straight­ened in the chair. “You will let me know as soon as you com­plete your re­search.”

It was not a ques­tion but a com­mand.

“Of course.” Well, Mikel would tell him, be­cause her boss should be back in the of­fice by then. “I’m sorry to put you through this.”

He stud­ied her, his face an im­pas­sive mask. “It’s not nec­es­sary to apol­o­gize. Crim­i­nals can­not be al­lowed to es­cape pun­ish­ment when they threaten the crown. I am al­ways at your dis­posal to as­sist in cap­tur­ing them.” Sud­denly, he smiled, a shock­ing flash of hu­mor af­ter the ten­sion of a few sec­onds ago. She felt its power in the mar­row of her bones. “Not to men­tion that the tapas are ex­cel­lent.”

“Have some more, please.” She shoved the tray to­ward him in re­lief.

“We’ll share. I rec­om­mend the chorizo.” He used the tongs Emilia had set on the plat­ter to put a cou­ple of the glis­ten­ing disks of sausage on her plate and laid a slice of pale cheese across them. “With the manchego. Try a driz­zle of honey as well. The sweet makes the salt and fat sparkle.”

Her stom­ach grum­bled as the aroma of the cheese wafted into her nose. She winced as he laughed again. “Eat!”

She picked up a bite of chorizo and cheese but dropped it when he stood, his height ac­cen­tu­ated by his dark blue shirt and black jeans. “I think wine would be a good idea,” he said, start­ing to­ward the cre­denza where the drinks were ar­rayed. He picked up a corkscrew and a bot­tle of Ri­oja be­fore she could jump to her feet. He ges­tured her back to her seat with an­other of his flash­ing smiles. “Open­ing a good bot­tle of wine is a plea­sure. And Mikel al­ways has good wine.”

She knew noth­ing about wine ex­cept that she didn’t drink it dur­ing work hours. How­ever, she was pretty sure now was a le­git­i­mate ex­cep­tion.

The cork came out with a low pop. Gabriel scooped up two deep-bowled glasses and car­ried them and the bot­tle to the ta­ble. “Too bad we didn’t have time to let it breathe,” he said as he poured gen­er­ous serv­ings, deftly turn­ing the bot­tle so not a drop was spilled.

He sat and lifted his glass. “A toast!”

She copied his ges­ture. “To?”

“Jus­tice.” A shadow dark­ened his eyes. “Or is it vengeance?”

Chap­ter 6

Sud­denly, Gabriel didn’t want to be there any longer, sur­rounded by mu­rals of glo­ri­ous mo­ments in Cal­e­van his­tory. He didn’t want to be a duke or part of a grand her­itage or a trau­ma­tized crime vic­tim. He also didn’t want to be alone with the mem­o­ries the im­ages had stirred up.

He looked at the woman watch­ing him war­ily over the rim of her wine­glass. “It’s lunchtime. Let’s go out and eat.”

She low­ered her glass, and panic flit­ted across her face. “You want me to go with you?”

“Surely Mikel al­lows you a lunch break. You can con­sider this a work­ing meal and bill me for it.”

“It’s not that,” she said, twist­ing the stem of her wine­glass be­tween her fin­gers. “I’m just not… I mean, I don’t…” Her fin­gers stilled, and she lifted her chin. “Let me get my bag and tell Emilia I’m leav­ing.”

Re­lief flashed through him, and he smiled at her. She slammed shut her lap­top and scut­tled out of the room. He drummed his fin­gers on the table­top a few times and then poured an­other glass of wine, sa­vor­ing the silky smooth, full-bod­ied taste.

He frowned at the mu­ral be­side the now-blank screen, fo­cus­ing on it to avoid the darker im­ages push­ing at his mind. The paint­ing showed the dis­cov­ery of the Valle de los Lirios in the early days of Cal­eva’s his­tory. Of course, it would take sev­eral cen­turies be­fore sci­en­tists dis­cov­ered how valu­able the lilies were, and the money would pour into the crown’s cof­fers. But even then, the sailors who landed on Cal­eva had con­sid­ered the fra­grant red lilies pre­cious. They’d car­ried bulbs back home and planted them in their wives’ and moth­ers’ gar­dens, but out­side of Cal­eva, the trans­planted lilies had bloomed pink as well as less fra­grant.

It turned out that their medic­i­nal prop­er­ties faded as well.

Quinn hus­tled back into the con­fer­ence room, a leather jacket in her arms and a black leather satchel slung over her shoul­der. Her cheeks held a flush of pink that height­ened the tug of at­trac­tion he felt.

He liked feel­ing de­sire for her. It spoke of life and light and plea­sure.

“I’m ready,” she said bluntly.

So Amer­i­can. Al­ways rush­ing. But he liked that, too, to­day.

He stood, notic­ing again how tall she made him feel.

“My car is parked out front,” he said, ges­tur­ing for her to go ahead of him. He watched the fluid sway of her hips with ap­pre­ci­a­tion, let­ting the sen­sual move­ment stoke his hunger.

When she glanced back over her shoul­der, he smiled again, which made her walk faster.

He sighed in­wardly. He’d hoped be­cause she was an Amer­i­can, she wouldn’t be af­fected by his ti­tle. His smile turned wry as he re­mem­bered he was a client. That alone could ex­plain her un­ease. The smile faded as he con­sid­ered that she also knew the de­tails of his ab­duc­tion. Some peo­ple found that un­set­tling.

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