Page 161 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Both of you, stop,” Luis said. “Gabriel, sit. How is your wound?”

Gabriel took the shirt from Quinn’s mo­tion­less hands and shrugged into it with a wince. “All stitched up but a lit­tle sore. Dr. Al­varez says it will heal fine.”

“Muy bien!” The king rubbed one hand over his face in a ges­ture of weari­ness. “I am sorry to ask an in­jured man to leave his room, but se­cu­rity in­sists I stay in here. May I have a mo­ment in pri­vate with Quinn? Your par­ents are just out­side in the lounge. You can re­as­sure them once again that you are well.”

Shit! Quinn threw a plead­ing glance at Gabriel, but he was al­ready headed for the door.

Af­ter it closed, Luis took the chair where Hélène had been sit­ting. “I thank you again for your brav­ery. What you did…to save Raul and Gabriel…” The king closed his eyes for a mo­ment, and his face twisted with an­guish be­fore he con­tin­ued. “It was ex­tra­or­di­nary. Be­yond ex­tra­or­di­nary.”

The damned tears welled in her eyes again, and she blinked rapidly. She de­cided to go with her truth. “I care deeply about all of you. I couldn’t bear to see any of you hurt. Or worse.”

The king’s ex­pres­sion smoothed back into its usual re­gal com­po­sure. “You demon­strated ex­cep­tional re­source­ful­ness and hero­ism.” He leaned for­ward. “I also wish to of­fer you a heart­felt apol­ogy.”

As­ton­ish­ment made Quinn open her mouth, but no sound came out.

“I know Odette bet­ter than any­one else,” Luis said. “The rea­son I ended our re­la­tion­ship all those years ago was be­cause I sensed some­thing off-bal­ance about her, even then. Once again, Gabriel bore the brunt of my sins. I should have be­lieved you when you and Mikel brought your case to me. I am pro­foundly sorry.”

“I…uh…” What were you sup­posed to say when a king apol­o­gized to you? “No apol­ogy is nec­es­sary. I didn’t have solid ev­i­dence, just a strong in­tu­ition.” That sounded un­gra­cious, so she added, “But thank you, Su Ma­jes­tad.”

A flicker of amuse­ment crossed Luis’s face. “You are an un­usual young woman.”

Was that a good thing?

Luis’s tone soft­ened with his next words. “I be­lieve that you care for Gabriel. More than care, in fact. I have seen how you look at each other.”

Quinn needed to work on her poker face. She nod­ded.

“It would be un­der­stand­able if you did not wish to take on the me­dia at­ten­tion a re­la­tion­ship with Gabriel would en­tail.” The king sighed. “He is very much in the pub­lic eye and will be more so when his fame as a mu­si­cian grows. In ad­di­tion, he will be prom­i­nent as the founder and leader of the cul­tural fes­ti­val. He is ac­cus­tomed to be­ing scru­ti­nized and may not un­der­stand how in­tense the pres­sure can be for an out­sider.”

The king paused to scan her face. Quinn tried not to give away her be­wil­der­ment about where this was lead­ing.

“How­ever,” Luis con­tin­ued, “if you love Gabriel as much as it ap­pears you do, we will sup­port your re­la­tion­ship with ev­ery re­source avail­able. And our re­sources are con­sid­er­able.”

Wait, was Luis giv­ing his bless­ing to her re­la­tion­ship with Gabriel?

“Now I speak to you not as the king, but as the un­cle who loves Gabriel like a son.” Luis’s pos­ture eased, and his voice lost its for­mal ca­dence. “Once I would not have thought you were a good match, but now I have seen who you are. You are as strong and ex­tra­or­di­nary as he is. You of­fer him a per­spec­tive he has needed. I hope you will love him as he de­serves and that he does the same for you.” Luis held up one hand with a wry smile, his blue eyes warm. “How­ever, this is not a royal com­mand. You and Gabriel have to find your own way in mat­ters of the heart. If you can­not do so, you will re­ceive no crit­i­cism from me.”

Once again, Quinn searched for the right re­sponse. “I…uh…ap­pre­ci­ate the com­pli­ments you have paid me, but there’s more to my his­tory than you know.”

Luis shook his head. “I be­lieve I know all your story. Mikel is thor­ough. But it is for you to de­cide.” He stood, and the king was back, wrapped in his air of un­shak­able au­thor­ity. “I have to speak with the me­dia about the events at Finca de Bruma. Bue­nas noches, señorita.”

Quinn’s curtsy wob­bled a bit as she strug­gled to wrap her mind around the king’s rev­e­la­tions. “Bue­nas noches, Su Ma­jes­tad.”

Luis gave her that amused look that her at­tempts to con­form with royal pro­to­col al­ways evoked. As he walked to the door, it was opened by the same large man who had an­nounced his en­trance.

The door swung closed, and Quinn slumped into the chair, try­ing to ab­sorb the king’s mes­sage.

And to de­cide how she felt about it.

As the pha­lanx of body­guards who waited out­side the room en­gulfed the king, Gabriel stood from the chair be­side his mother and bowed.

Luis stopped be­fore him. “You are a for­tu­nate man.” He took in the pair of hov­er­ing par­ents. “Hélène and Lorenzo, per­haps you would come with me. We have much to talk about.”

Gabriel threw his un­cle a look of grat­i­tude be­fore he bid farewell to his mother and fa­ther.

The king swept on­ward with the duke and duchess in tow, cre­at­ing a wave of bob­bing heads as hos­pi­tal staff mem­bers in the cor­ri­dor bowed and curt­sied.

Re­lieved and grate­ful to his un­cle, Gabriel was about to go back into the room where Quinn was when he spot­ted Raul com­ing down the hall­way.

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