Page 166 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

He wiped the back of his hand across his eyes and blew out a breath. “You don’t re­spond well to royal de­crees…or ducal ones. You must truly love me since you didn’t flee the coun­try af­ter my un­cle spoke with you.”

“Jerk.” But she said it with a sense of re­prieve. “If you’re done laugh­ing at me, I want to say some­thing se­ri­ous.”

He stopped chuck­ling and ran his hand over the bare skin of her back. “I’m lis­ten­ing, car­iño mío.”

She closed her eyes to re­live the mem­ory. “When you launched your­self at Odette, I was ter­ri­fied and fu­ri­ous with you for risk­ing your life. But that’s also when I knew that your love was strong enough to sur­vive what­ever the world throws at us.” She opened her eyes to sa­vor the el­e­gant an­gles of his jaw, the soft smile on his sculpted lips, and the light in his blue-gray eyes. “You did some­thing no one else in my life has ever done. When I was in trou­ble, you put me first.”

His smile van­ished, and his eyes blazed with in­ten­sity. “And I prom­ise you I al­ways will.”

Epi­logue

Four­teen months later

“Shit!” Quinn said as Gabriel led her into the tower room where dozens of can­dles stood flick­er­ing on ev­ery flat sur­face, even though it was lunchtime.

“You are ru­in­ing the am­bi­ence, car­iño mío,” he said, but he smiled.

He was go­ing to pro­pose. She fought down the panic. Not be­cause she didn’t want to marry him, but be­cause she wouldn’t know the right thing to say in re­sponse.

“Come. Sit.” He handed her into the carved dragon chair she’d sat in many times while he prac­ticed.

He sat on his fa­vorite stool and took his gui­tar out of the case. “I’ve writ­ten a new song which I wish to play tonight at the con­cert.” He set­tled the in­stru­ment on his thigh.

She sagged in re­lief. He just wanted her to hear the song be­fore his per­for­mance tonight at the Fes­ti­val de las Artes de Cal­eva. Now ev­ery­one re­ferred to it as Drag­on­Fest be­cause of the frilled dragon in the logo.

Some­how Gabriel and Raul had pulled the fes­ti­val to­gether in a lit­tle over a year, and ev­ery event had sold out. Kyran Redda and Marisela Alejo had been joined by a dozen more ma­jor in­ter­na­tional stars. Gabriel had filled out the rest of the three-day event with a care­fully se­lected ros­ter of up-and-com­ing mu­si­cians whom he felt should re­ceive more ex­po­sure.

Tonight was Gabriel’s pub­lic solo de­but. He’d been prac­tic­ing like a fiend be­tween fes­ti­val-plan­ning meet­ings and trips to re­cruit mu­si­cians.

He strummed the gui­tar, tun­ing a cou­ple of strings. She loved watch­ing him pre­pare to play. All the fo­cus of his el­e­gant face was on the mu­sic while his long fin­gers made del­i­cate ad­just­ments to the tun­ing pegs. The can­dle­light seemed to slide along the glossy, dark waves of his hair.

His hands went still, and he gave her one of the in­tense looks that sent de­li­cious shiv­ers up and down her spine. “I wanted you to hear it in this room be­cause this is where you first heard me play.”

“And where I threw my­self at you.”

“As I had dreamed you might.” His eyes went hot. “This song is for you.”

His fin­gers skit­tered over the strings in an­gry skirls of notes punc­tu­ated with the slap of his palm against the gui­tar. Then the anger fell into a trough of sad­ness that made her fight back tears. But some chords of hope crept in. She found her­self wait­ing for the next one to lighten the sor­row.

Gabriel paused for a split sec­ond, his gaze on her. When his fin­gers moved again, he con­jured a melody so ex­quis­ite that it left her breath­less. The notes held long­ing and fear bal­anced by love and those chords of hope. The mu­sic swelled and blos­somed un­til the long­ing and fear were gone. All that was left was love.

And then he played a fi­nal chord, which was pure hope.

He let the chord fade to si­lence. Un­sling­ing the gui­tar from his body, he laid it in the case and slid grace­fully onto one knee in front of her, his face hold­ing all the emo­tions evoked by his mu­sic.

Ev­ery­thing around him faded away. He filled her vi­sion as she re­al­ized what he in­tended to ask her.

“That was beau­ti­ful,” she man­aged to say. “Sad and then happy. The last part was amaz­ing.”

He smiled and took her hands, his grip warm and firm. “It is the story of how you saved me from the dark­ness and brought me to this place of joy.”

“Er, um, the au­di­ence tonight will love it.” She still had a hard time tak­ing credit for help­ing him, no mat­ter how of­ten he said she had.

“The only per­son whose opin­ion I care about is yours.” His gray eyes held re­flec­tions of the can­dle flames.

“I loved it. With all of my heart.” She wasn’t as good at com­pli­ments as he was, but she tried.

His smile was ra­di­ant. “That is what I ask you for. All of your heart for all of our lives. Be­cause I know that you have mine now and al­ways. Quinn, my beau­ti­ful, coura­geous, ex­tra­or­di­nary love, will you marry me?”

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