Page 122 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

As much as it an­noyed him, Gabriel had ex­pected this. Af­ter all, he had known even less of her his­tory than the king and Raul un­til last night. But he knew the essence of Quinn, and that was what mat­tered. “I will have to change that.”

Raul glanced at his watch and stood. “Time for my meet­ing.” He reached out to squeeze Gabriel’s shoul­der. “You’ve never cho­sen the easy way in your life, but I’ll al­ways sup­port you. You know that.”

Gabriel laid his hand over Raul’s. “I couldn’t ask for a bet­ter brother of the heart.”

Raul gave his shoul­der an­other squeeze be­fore he strode out of the room.

The warmth of his cousin’s grip spread through Gabriel’s chest, loos­en­ing the tan­gle of doubts knot­ted there. With Raul on his side, he could face down any­thing thrown at him and Quinn.

He seized his gui­tar and lifted it onto his thigh, his fin­gers itch­ing to con­quer the arpeg­gio.

“We need to dis­cuss your trip to New York,” Mikel said as Quinn sat in front of his desk. “I un­der­stand that Gabriel asked you not to go, but you are in­sist­ing.”

“Not long ago, peo­ple were beg­ging me to go to New York. Now ev­ery­one has changed their minds.” Quinn couldn’t keep the an­noy­ance out of her voice.

“The sit­u­a­tion has changed with Dupont in the pic­ture,” Mikel pointed out.

“But the sit­u­a­tion with Gabriel has not. If Marisela Alejo gives him bad news, I need to be there with him,” Quinn said. “You need to get the king to tell Gabriel not to go if you’re that wor­ried.”

“I am con­cerned be­cause I can­not go with you.” Mikel was more laser-fo­cused than usual. “Four of my best peo­ple are go­ing ahead of you and el duque, so you’ll have pro­tec­tion from the mo­ment you land at Teter­boro Air­port. They will be your se­cu­rity for the du­ra­tion of the visit. In fact, you al­ready know two of them from Lis­bon—An­neliese and Ivan.”

She nod­ded.

Mikel pushed a piece of pa­per across the desk to her. “Your li­cense to carry in the U.S. That took some string-pulling. You can’t bring your own gun into the coun­try, so an iden­ti­cal Glock will be wait­ing for you in the limo at the air­port. It is for your pro­tec­tion as well as Gabriel’s.”

Quinn’s stom­ach flipped. She tried to say, Okay, but her mouth was so dry that it wouldn’t come out, so she nod­ded again. This was some se­ri­ous shit if Mikel wanted her to carry a gun.

“I’ve can­celed your sight­see­ing plans in New York,” Mikel added. “The king has re­quested that Gabriel keep the trip short and fo­cused on meet­ing with Señor Redda and play­ing for Señorita Alejo, both of whom have their own se­cu­rity teams. Not that I trust them to be any good,” he grum­bled.

Quinn worked up some saliva and croaked, “So what’s the new itin­er­ary?”

“Ar­rive Thurs­day evening. Meet with Redda Fri­day morn­ing. Prac­tice gui­tar in the ho­tel room Fri­day af­ter­noon. Room-ser­vice din­ner. Au­di­tion for Alejo on Sat­ur­day morn­ing. De­part for the air­port im­me­di­ately there­after.”

That meant she would be par­tially re­spon­si­ble for Gabriel’s safety for roughly thirty-six hours, some of which would in­clude sleep­ing, she hoped. That didn’t give any bad guys much time to ex­e­cute po­ten­tial ne­far­i­ous plots. She pulled in a deep breath as the panic con­strict­ing her chest eased slightly.

“Does Gabriel know about the change of plans yet?” If so, he hadn’t told her.

“El Rey Luis is speak­ing with him to­day,” Mikel said.

That would put the royal ki­bosh on any ob­jec­tions Gabriel might have. He was wound so tight about the au­di­tion that Quinn didn’t think he would have en­joyed sight­see­ing any­way. “Hav­ing a king around comes in handy some­times.” She didn’t know if she was try­ing to lighten her mood or Mikel’s.

His re­sponse was a tight, brief smile. “Other than our trip to Lis­bon, this is the first time Gabriel has been out of Cal­eva since his last surgery. And I won’t be with him this time.” She could see the worry in her boss’s eyes, which ratch­eted up her own anx­i­ety.

“Are you sure the king shouldn’t can­cel this trip?”

A mus­cle in Mikel’s cheek flexed. “The king and I dis­cussed it, but we both feel it would be…detri­men­tal to Gabriel to de­lay his meet­ing with Señorita Alejo.”

They un­der­stood his an­guish. Even more, they cared about how he felt.

“How much dan­ger do you re­ally think there is to Gabriel?” Quinn asked.

“And to you.” Mikel’s tone was pointed. “Dupont sent you a warn­ing too.”

“I’m not im­por­tant.” Quinn waved her hand in dis­missal.

“You are very im­por­tant to Gabriel. Hurt­ing you would hurt him.”

For now. But Mikel was right. Gabriel would be guilt-rid­den if some­thing hap­pened to her be­cause of him.

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