Page 159 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Gra­cias a Dios!” the king said.

“Su Ma­jes­tad, if you would ac­com­pany me?” Mikel swept his hand to­ward the door. “I would like to get you to the palace as soon as pos­si­ble.”

The king nod­ded and al­lowed Mikel to usher him away.

“I’ll come with you in the am­bu­lance,” Hélène said to Gabriel.

“And I,” Lorenzo added.

“It is truly noth­ing more than a scratch,” Gabriel said to his par­ents, his voice kind. “There is no need for a parental es­cort.” He leaned in to kiss his mother’s cheek be­fore he touched his fa­ther’s hand where Lorenzo clutched the back of the sofa. “I’m fine, Ma­man, Papa. I need to talk with Quinn right now.”

Lorenzo laid his hand on Hélène’s shoul­der. “Of course. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion must come first. We will fol­low you to the hos­pi­tal.”

Gabriel nod­ded and turned to Quinn. “Come with me in the am­bu­lance.” He took her hand be­tween both of his, his palms warm against her skin. “Por fa­vor, car­iño mío.”

It was im­pos­si­ble to say no.

Chap­ter 36

Quinn watched the doc­tor care­fully sew up Gabriel’s wound. He sat bare-chested on the hos­pi­tal bed, his Cal­e­van dragon snarling on his rib cage. Quinn crossed her arms to tuck her hands un­der her el­bows be­cause she wanted to touch him so badly.

How­ever, his par­ents sat in the two chairs by the win­dow, their wor­ried gazes never wa­ver­ing from their son.

“There you are. All stitched up,” Dr. Al­varez said. “The su­tures will dis­solve on their own, and there should be vir­tu­ally no scar­ring. I’ll give you some oint­ment to rub on it af­ter it heals to help with that. If there is any red­ness or in­creased pain be­fore then, please call me im­me­di­ately.”

“I will make sure of that,” Hélène said.

Gabriel pressed his lips to­gether at the ma­ter­nal in­tru­sion but did not con­tra­dict her.

The doc­tor laid her tools on the stain­less-steel tray. “I will want to see you again in one week.”

Dr. Al­varez was the top plas­tic sur­geon in Cal­eva, but, of course, she would per­son­ally tend to Gabriel’s flesh wound un­til it was com­pletely healed. An­other re­minder of how dif­fer­ent his life was from Quinn’s.

She was not go­ing to let that stop her any­more.

The door swung open, and Mikel walked in, his face tense with worry. “Doña Hélène, Don Lorenzo.” He dipped his head in a brief nod to the duke and duchess be­fore he turned to the pa­tient. “Gabriel, how are you feel­ing?” He swung around to the doc­tor. “How is he? Any com­pli­ca­tions?”

“Mikel, it’s a graze,” Gabriel snapped.

“Señor Silva, he’s fine,” Dr. Al­varez said. “I’ll keep close watch over the heal­ing process. In the mean­time, I’ll get his dis­charge pa­pers ready.”

“Gra­cias, Dr. Al­varez.” Mikel held the door as the doc­tor ex­ited and turned back to­ward Gabriel’s par­ents. “If I may ask your in­dul­gence, I would like to speak pri­vately with Quinn and Gabriel about tonight’s events.”

Hélène looked un­happy about be­ing thrown out of her son’s room, but she and Lorenzo stood. She kissed Gabriel on the fore­head be­fore she and the duke walked out the door Mikel once again held.

Quinn’s boss closed the door, took a deep breath, and ex­ploded.

“Por Dios, Gabriel! Do not ever throw your­self at some­one with a gun again!” The usu­ally con­trolled Mikel ran his fin­gers through his hair as though he wanted to tear it out. “You could have been killed!”

“Odette was go­ing to shoot Quinn. I couldn’t al­low that.” Gabriel lifted his chin to meet Mikel’s fu­ri­ous gaze. “I didn’t know Quinn had a gun.”

Quinn felt again the jolt of un­der­stand­ing that Gabriel had en­dan­gered his life for her, even af­ter she had bro­ken up with him. What kind of man did that? But she al­ready rec­og­nized the an­swer to that. It was the rea­son she had ended their re­la­tion­ship.

Mikel slumped against the foot of the bed, his hands braced on the metal. “You both acted with tremen­dous courage. I can­not fault you for that. But you fuck­ing ter­ri­fied me.”

Quinn and Gabriel stared at each other in shock. Her boss ream­ing out and then curs­ing at a royal duke? He re­ally had been ter­ri­fied.

Mikel pushed him­self up­right again, his shoul­ders stiff. “My apolo­gies. Know­ing all of you were in dan­ger on my watch has been…dif­fi­cult.”

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