Page 133 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“You’ve been here be­fore,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know about the traf­fic, and you say ‘city’ in that way that sounds like it has a cap­i­tal C. I would say New York or New York City.”

She shrugged. “I lived in New Jer­sey for a time.”

He gave a crow of sat­is­fac­tion. “A piece of your past!”

She quirked one cor­ner of her mouth at him. It wasn’t a big deal that she’d lived in the New York metro area. Mil­lions of peo­ple did.

Gabriel walked down the aisle to un­latch the seat belts around his two gui­tars. One case was smooth black leather and held a very ex­pen­sive gui­tar he had promised to Marisela Alejo on the same day he’d learned about Ko­dra. Quinn’s throat had clenched when he’d told her that. She hoped like hell that the pre­cious in­stru­ment came back to Cal­eva with them.

His other in­stru­ment—what he called a true fla­menco gui­tar—was in a scratched brown leather case. He’d bought it when he was ad­mit­ted to the con­ser­va­tory in Spain.

He held the gui­tar cases like they were ex­ten­sions of his body. In fact, in his black jeans and T-shirt with his dark hair wav­ing down to his shoul­ders, he looked more like a mu­si­cian than a duke.

She hoped like hell that the to­caora they’d trav­eled all this way to see had some­thing en­cour­ag­ing to say. Oth­er­wise, Quinn might use the Glock on her.

As they got to the door, Isaac ap­proached Gabriel and of­fered to carry one of the gui­tars down the nar­row steps of the air­plane. Quinn was star­tled when Gabriel handed the stew­ard the fancy one.

“Watch your step,” Isaac said as Gabriel ges­tured for her to exit ahead of him.

A black limo was parked just be­yond the jet’s wing tip. She saw her small red overnight bag be­ing loaded into the trunk by a man in a dark suit. He had to be Vin­cent, who was both a body­guard and their driver.

Travel was fric­tion­less for the very wealthy. And the very no­ble.

She shook her head in amaze­ment all over again. While Gabriel su­per­vised stow­ing the gui­tars in the limo, she walked over to the driver and held out her hand. “I’m Quinn.”

“Vin­cent.” He gave her a firm hand­shake and said in a low voice, “I slipped the pack­age in your bag. Thought you’d pre­fer that to ex­plain­ing it to Don Gabriel.”

“I ap­pre­ci­ate that.”

“An­neliese is al­ready at the ho­tel, so the room will be se­cure by the time we ar­rive. Ivan and Doug are in the sedan by the gate. They’ll be right be­hind us on the road.” He closed the trunk. “The duke is wait­ing.”

She glanced up to see Gabriel stand­ing by the limo’s open door. “Thanks again,” she said to Vin­cent. It felt good to be treated as a mem­ber of the team.

Gabriel fol­lowed her onto the leather seat, and Vin­cent closed the door be­hind him.

“We have a cou­ple of hours be­fore we meet with Kyran Redda,” Gabriel said. “How about a shower and room ser­vice?”

All her other con­cerns had eclipsed the meet­ing with the in­ter­na­tional rock star. “You said we. Am I go­ing with you?” She fig­ured Vin­cent and com­pany would be enough se­cu­rity so she could stay be­hind in the suite.

“Don’t you want to meet him?” Gabriel’s smile was teas­ing since he knew that al­most ev­ery woman on earth wanted to meet the sexy rock god.

“Now that I hang out with kings and dukes, it’s not that big a deal,” she said with a shrug.

That got a laugh out of him.

Two hours later, they were back in the limo. Gabriel had changed into a black col­lared shirt but re­tained his black jeans and boots. He felt a suit wouldn’t be the right at­tire for charm­ing a rock star. So Quinn had worn her jeans but put on a dark red silk blouse un­der her leather jacket and left her hair in loose waves. She planned to re­main in the back­ground while Gabriel worked his magic.

Vin­cent dropped them—along with An­neliese—at the en­trance to one of the most ex­pen­sive ho­tels in New York City. The ho­tel man­ager met them at the door and whisked them to a pri­vate el­e­va­tor that rose di­rectly to the pent­house suite.

They stepped into a mar­ble-lined foyer, where they were met by two large men who stared hard at them be­fore open­ing one of the dou­ble doors to al­low them in.

Quinn’s first im­pres­sion was of peo­ple sprawled ev­ery­where in the vast sit­ting room, on couches, on chairs, on the car­pet, even on a ta­ble. Their at­tire of T-shirts, jeans, scruffy hair, and boots or bare feet clashed with the or­nate fur­ni­ture.

She glanced up at Gabriel to find him sur­vey­ing the room with his chin tilted up­ward at a ducal an­gle, his gaze cool. “Ah, Mr. Redda,” he said in a voice that cut through the din of mul­ti­ple con­ver­sa­tions with­out be­ing a shout. He started to­ward a couch on their left.

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