Page 156 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Ha sido un placer, Señor,” Gabriel said. “My plea­sure.”

He re­turned to his seat be­side Quinn, curl­ing his arm around her so their bod­ies touched from knee to shoul­der. She fought the urge to melt into his strength and warmth. In­stead, she whis­pered into his ear, “You’re mak­ing this very hard.”

He low­ered his head to re­turn her whis­per. “I’m try­ing to make it im­pos­si­ble.”

The fe­ro­cious roil of emo­tions that surged through her was too com­pli­cated to sort out.

“What a charm­ing fam­ily scene!” Odette’s voice cut through Quinn’s con­fu­sion.

The French­woman stood in front of the fire­place, sur­vey­ing the room. “So much pride and af­fec­tion fog­ging the air. Just like Hélène’s birth­day party two years ago. Ev­ery­one was fawn­ing over Raul and Gabriel in their mili­tia uni­forms, when they’d done noth­ing but play a few war games. It was nau­se­at­ing.”

“Odette, I be­lieve you’ve had more to drink than you should,” the king said. “You should re­tire be­fore you say some­thing you’ll re­gret.” He started to rise from his chair.

“Sit down!” Odette snapped as she drew her green suede clutch from un­der her arm and opened it. When she pulled out a pis­tol, the king slowly sank back into his chair.

“Put the gun down, Odette,” Luis said with an edge of com­mand. “We’ll for­get this ever hap­pened.”

“Don’t lie to me, Luis,” she said. “You won’t for­get or for­give a threat to your fam­ily.”

Quinn lis­tened while rack­ing her brain about how to alert the guards Mikel had sta­tioned around the out­side of the house. This wasn’t a sce­nario she and Mikel had pre­pared for. They had dis­cussed only her role as an ob­server.

Things had changed, so she would have to adapt.

She glanced around quickly. The staff had closed the heavy vel­vet drapes when it got dark, so the guards couldn’t see what was hap­pen­ing in­side. The serv­ing staff were across the en­trance hall in the din­ing room and kitchen. She could scream, but that might cause Odette to shoot some­one be­fore the guards could ar­rive.

Then she re­mem­bered her Glock tucked in her purse. Un­for­tu­nately, her bag sat on the cush­ion on her left side. She would have to use her non­dom­i­nant hand to grab it.

But could she ac­tu­ally shoot Odette Fontaine?

“A warn­ing,” Odette said. “If any­one moves or shouts, I will shoot Raul. To kill.”

Quinn froze, even though she didn’t think Odette could see the hand she’d been slowly slid­ing un­der the flap of her bag. The French­woman seemed en­tirely fo­cused on the king. Un­for­tu­nately, Raul sat only a cou­ple of feet away from his fa­ther, so Odette could eas­ily shoot ei­ther one of them. Or both.

“Why?” Luis’s tone was neu­tral, but Quinn heard the fear thread­ing the one word.

“Be­cause this was sup­posed to be mine,” Odette said, her grip on the pis­tol rock-steady. Quinn kept hop­ing the woman would lose fo­cus. “All of it. I was sup­posed to be the gra­cious host­ess with hand­some, ac­com­plished sons who adored me. I was meant to be queen!”

Spit flew from her mouth, and a vein pulsed in her fore­head, but her hand never wa­vered.

“You stole my life from me, Luis.” Her voice was calmer. “You need to be pun­ished for that.”

“Then why do you not pun­ish me?” Luis asked in an­guish. “In­stead, you at­tack my nephew and threaten my son.”

“Oh, yes, the heroic Gabriel, who took the prince’s place. That fuck­ing im­bé­cile Dupont!” she snarled. “I am forced to take mat­ters into my own hands to get them done right.”

Proof! Tri­umph flick­ered for a split sec­ond in Quinn’s brain.

“I should have had Gabriel killed back then, but I thought the ear would be enough to de­stroy him,” she said. “In­stead, he’s con­sort­ing with Kyran Redda, run­ning a mu­sic fes­ti­val, and cud­dling with his lit­tle Amer­i­can girl­friend. Not even a sniper could de­rail him.”

Quinn was sure she could shoot Odette right now.

“If you want to kill some­one, let it be me,” Luis said. “I’m the one who used you and tossed you away. You weren’t good enough, and I knew it.”

Shit! Why was Luis pro­vok­ing her?

“Oh, no,” Odette said, her voice shak­ing with anger. “That would be too easy. It will be far, far worse to know that you are re­spon­si­ble for your son’s death.”

That was why the king was pok­ing at her. He wanted to save his son by turn­ing her fury away from Raul and on him­self.

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