Page 80 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Now?”

“He’s your fa­ther. Fam­ily is im­por­tant.” Mikel put the SUV in gear.

“I… Okay.” Her boss still sur­prised her. She pulled out her cell phone, wish­ing she’d taken off the bulky vest be­fore she got in the car. She thought for a sec­ond be­fore she sent a text to Un­cle Pete. Pete would know if Bren­dan had got­ten into trou­ble, and she wouldn’t have to deal with her fa­ther.

“I can’t fig­ure out what mes­sage Dupont was send­ing with this.” She held up the key chain. “He proved that he knew I’m work­ing on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion when he asked for me by name.”

“I need to find out how he came by that piece of in­for­ma­tion. Some­one shared it who should not have.” Mikel’s tone was grim.

Be­fore to­day, Quinn had not wor­ried about any­one learn­ing what she did for her job, al­though she knew not to dis­cuss it with those out­side the royal cir­cle. She should have re­al­ized that crim­i­nals like Dupont would con­sider her a threat to their well-be­ing. Peo­ple like that didn’t take well to threats.

“So why the key chain?” Quinn asked.

“I be­lieve the mes­sage was meant for me,” Mikel said. “Dupont wanted me to know that he could find out who my peo­ple are and ap­ply pres­sure to them through their fam­i­lies. He chose you be­cause your fa­ther lives in the U.S. and is there­fore more ac­ces­si­ble, es­pe­cially given”—Mikel cast a wry glance her way—“the na­ture of his as­so­ciates.”

“That makes sense. It would be much harder for Dupont to op­er­ate in Cal­eva be­cause he would be within your sphere of in­flu­ence,” Quinn said. “He picked the low-hang­ing fruit.”

How­ever, Dupont hadn’t done his home­work on her fraught re­la­tion­ship with Bren­dan, or he might have searched for more ef­fec­tive lever­age. Still, the French­man was not wrong in be­liev­ing that she wouldn’t want her fa­ther harmed. Af­ter all, she had spent a year in prison to keep that from hap­pen­ing.

“You will let me know when you hear from your fa­ther,” Mikel or­dered.

“Yes, jefe,” Quinn said. “Hon­estly, I’m not all that wor­ried. Bren­dan can take care of him­self.” He al­ways had.

Mikel gave her a look she couldn’t in­ter­pret be­fore say­ing, “You han­dled your­self well at the meet­ing. Dupont tried to frighten you, but you didn’t flinch. Buen tra­bajo! Good job!”

Sat­is­fac­tion warmed her. Her boss praised oth­ers only when he felt it was de­served. She basked in the glow, even as she wor­ried that her phone lay silent in her hand. She was tempted to break down and text her fa­ther, but maybe that was what Dupont wanted her to do. Her fin­ger hov­ered over the screen.

No, she wasn’t go­ing to let that bas­tard suc­ceed in mak­ing her crazy. She tucked the phone back in her pocket.

Then she thought of an­other prob­lem. “How much of this can I tell Gabriel?”

“He has a right to know any­thing Dupont said about the case,” Mikel said. “How­ever, I would rec­om­mend that you not men­tion the key chain.”

Chap­ter 22

The next morn­ing, Quinn perched on a carved wooden chair with a green vel­vet cush­ion, wait­ing for el Príncipe Raul to meet with her. The ma­jor­domo had called the room where she sat the Sala de los Ene­bros, the Ju­niper Room. Or­nate wood pan­el­ing—the ju­niper, she as­sumed—was ac­cented by ex­trav­a­gantly draped seafoam silk around the win­dows, gilt-framed paint­ings of land­scapes, and crys­tal de­canters set on a mar­ble-topped bar.

She fid­geted with the Cal­e­van dragon pen­dant that hung around her neck and gri­maced as she re­mem­bered last night’s con­ver­sa­tion with Gabriel. He’d been roy­ally—she snorted at the word—pissed that Mikel had taken her to the meet­ing with Dupont. His mile-wide pro­tec­tive streak had been on full dis­play as he’d ranted about the dan­ger her boss had put her in. When she’d ad­mit­ted that Dupont had rec­og­nized her from Lis­bon, Gabriel had started to call Mikel about adding ex­tra guards to Quinn’s se­cu­rity. She had been able to stop him with the re­minder that he would be in­ter­fer­ing with her job, some­thing he had promised not to do.

She had taken Mikel’s ad­vice about not men­tion­ing the key chain.

She checked her phone again. Still no mes­sage from Un­cle Pete af­ter al­most twenty-four hours and six text mes­sages.

The door swung open, and Raul strode into the room. “I’m sorry to keep you wait­ing,” he said with what sounded like gen­uine apol­ogy. “Some­times you just can’t shut politi­cians up.”

Quinn jumped to her feet as he came to­ward her. She had al­ready de­cided to shake his hand. He was her con­tem­po­rary, and this was busi­ness, so he would just have to deal with her lack of curt­sy­ing. She put out her hand, and he shook it with­out any hes­i­ta­tion. “May I get you some­thing to drink?” he asked as he waved her back to her seat. “I’m parched.”

“No, thanks. Al­berto al­ready of­fered.” She watched him cross to the bar and pull a bot­tle of wa­ter out of the mini fridge. He and Gabriel shared the same body type, so his blue suit ac­cen­tu­ated wide shoul­ders, a nar­row waist, and long legs. His hair was a shade lighter brown than Gabriel’s and cut much shorter, as be­fit­ted a mod­ern prince.

He turned as he un­screwed the top and took a swig straight from the bot­tle. “Al­berto would be hor­ri­fied that I’m not us­ing a glass,” he said with a grin that made him look like a mis­chievous school­boy.

Yup, Raul had charm.

Quinn reached into her black leather tote and pulled out her tablet. “Do you mind if I take notes while we talk?” she asked, hold­ing it up.

“Not at all,” Raul said. He shrugged out of his jacket, drap­ing it neatly over a chair­back be­fore he set­tled on a vel­vet love seat, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the an­kles.

She smoothed the dark gray silk of her trousers be­fore she set the tablet on her thighs.

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