Page 143 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

The thought hurt far more than her leg…be­cause she’d have to tear that love out of her heart.

For now, though, she would sink into his body and sa­vor the sanc­tu­ary of his arms wrapped around her.

Chap­ter 33

Many miles and jolt­ing pot­holes later, they ar­rived at the air­port, es­corted by a cav­al­cade of se­cu­rity ve­hi­cles that had joined them in the city. Mikel had also called in a mas­sive se­cu­rity team to scour the Dragon Jet’s sur­round­ings and stake out high points with their own snipers. They had searched the plane from top to bot­tom for ex­plo­sives.

The doc­tor who waited on the plane con­firmed that Quinn’s wound was not se­ri­ous and re­ban­daged it. As soon as he re­leased her, she changed into an un­dam­aged pair of jeans.

The mo­ment she set­tled into the seat be­side Gabriel, the jet tax­ied onto the run­way and hurled it­self into the air.

Gabriel took her hand and brushed his lips across her knuck­les be­fore low­er­ing it to the arm­rest be­tween them. “Less stom­ach-wrench­ing than tak­ing off from Cal­eva,” he said.

“I guess the airspace here is too crowded for aer­o­bat­ics,” Quinn said, wrap­ping her fin­gers around his. In ad­di­tion, Mikel had sat­u­rated the area with se­cu­rity.

“I could use a shot of pitorro rum right now,” Gabriel said, his voice weary.

“What’s that?”

“Puerto Ri­can moon­shine. Strong stuff.”

“Sounds good to me.” Fury at the un­known sniper boiled through her. “You should be on top of the world about your au­di­tion. And about Marisela and Kyran Redda com­ing to the fes­ti­val.” In­stead, he had to be grate­ful that he was still alive.

“Who hates me so much?” His voice was bleak.

“Not you. The king. Or Raul. Or your ti­tle. Things you have no con­trol over. You didn’t cre­ate this mon­ster.” She shook the hand that she held.

He turned to face her. “My self­ish­ness put you in dan­ger, as well as An­neliese and Vin­cent.” His mouth twisted with tor­ment and re­solve. “I will not leave Cal­eva again un­til the crim­i­nal be­hind these at­tacks has been cap­tured and locked away.”

“No one ex­pected this to hap­pen,” Quinn said. Not even her boss, and he al­ways ex­pected the worst. She had spo­ken with Mikel briefly once they’d got­ten on the plane. To say that he had been in a bad mood would be a mas­sive un­der­state­ment. None of his anger had been di­rected at her, though. In­stead, he had tried to apol­o­gize. She had shut that down in­stantly.

“You know that’s not true,” Gabriel said. “Mikel, Raul, Tío Luis, even you, asked me to post­pone my trip.”

“We all un­der­stood that you needed to go.” Quinn laid her other hand over his. “If Mikel had be­lieved there would be a prob­lem, he would have con­vinced the king to for­bid it. Don’t take this on your­self.”

“How can I not? You would not have been in the sights of a sniper if I had ex­er­cised some pa­tience,” he snapped.

“Ev­ery­one is fine, so stop beat­ing your­self up,” Quinn snapped back.

“You—”

“Have a scratch on my leg.” She soft­ened her words by lean­ing over to kiss his cheek. “Let’s fo­cus on the good things that hap­pened be­fore that ass­hole took a cou­ple of pot­shots at you. You wanted to drink cava to cel­e­brate. Does your un­cle stock that on this plane?”

Be­fore Gabriel could an­swer her, the pi­lot an­nounced, “You may move about the cabin now.”

Isaac ap­peared. “May I of­fer you some­thing to eat or drink?”

“Cava from Cat­alo­nia!” Quinn said. “Do you have any?”

“Of course.” Isaac gave a lit­tle bow and dis­ap­peared into the gal­ley.

Gabriel hov­ered his hand over the place where her thigh was ban­daged. “I don’t feel much like cel­e­brat­ing. In fact, what I re­ally want now is a shower. I feel sweaty and soiled.”

“Let’s have a glass of cava first,” Quinn said. Or two. She could see the ten­sion in his shoul­ders. She gave him a se­duc­tive look from un­der her eye­lashes. “Then maybe I’ll join you in the shower.”

A flame sparked to life in his eyes, but he said, “You shouldn’t get your ban­dage wet.”

“I’m sure there’s a med­i­cal kit on this fancy plane, so I can re­place it.”

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