Page 35 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Quinn winced in­wardly. Her fa­ther was big on im­pro­vi­sa­tion, and it some­times back­fired spec­tac­u­larly. “Okay. Do I need any par­tic­u­lar cloth­ing? Some­thing all black?”

“That’s in­cluded in your itin­er­ary. One ques­tion. Are you com­fort­able with a hand­gun?”

Quinn shifted in her chair, mak­ing it creak. Un­cle Pete had taught her how to load and shoot a pis­tol when she was twelve, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to ad­mit that. It made her feel like the crim­i­nal she was try­ing hard not to be. “I’m pretty rusty.”

He nod­ded. “When we get back, I’ll have an in­struc­tor help you brush up. It’s a use­ful skill.”

“There’s some­thing I want to tell you about Pete Glee­son’s visit,” she said. “I’m loan­ing him money. He took me in when I was a kid, and my fa­ther was in prison. I’ve al­ways called him Un­cle Pete.” It was a re­lief to be hon­est about her past since Mikel al­ready knew most of it. Now she un­der­stood bet­ter Gabriel’s de­sire to talk with her.

“It’s un­likely that he will re­pay you.”

“I know.” She smiled at her boss. “Luck­ily, you pay me enough that I won’t starve.”

Mikel didn’t re­turn the smile. “Your loy­alty is ad­mirable, but be care­ful about let­ting your past in­ter­fere with your fu­ture. It’s bet­ter to make the break a clean one.”

An un­set­tling mix of anger and fear roiled in her gut. “I would never do any­thing il­le­gal, no mat­ter what Un­cle Pete asked.”

“That’s not what con­cerns me. I’m wor­ried about you los­ing the sav­ings you’ve earned with your hard work.” He glanced to­ward one of the mu­rals for a mo­ment. “Peo­ple like Glee­son keep com­ing back for more.”

She sighed. “The next time I’ll say no.”

“Good.”

She started to stand when a thought struck her. “Are both the prince and Gabriel fly­ing to­gether on the royal jet? Isn’t it risky to have the two clos­est heirs to the throne on one air­plane? What if the whole thing is a trap of some kind? Or some­thing hap­pens to the air­plane?”

A look of pained ap­proval crossed Mikel’s face. “You’re be­gin­ning to think like a se­cu­rity ex­pert. Af­ter much de­bate, Gen­eral Ramos and I de­cided that this was the best op­tion. There will be many, many pre­cau­tions taken.”

She was glad it was her boss’s re­spon­si­bil­ity, not hers.

“At least if the plane goes down, I will go with it. Ramos will still be here to deal with the fall­out.” Mikel’s smile was grim.

Very early the next morn­ing, Quinn stepped out of the chauf­feured sedan to find her­self in a huge hangar that held only a sin­gle Gulf­stream jet. She stood and stared. Even stand­ing still, the gleam­ing white plane’s back­swept wings, stream­lined nose, and aft-mounted twin en­gines gave the il­lu­sion of speed. On the hull, el­e­gant sil­ver let­ter­ing spelled out El Dragón with a small crown rest­ing on the top of the D. It was sub­tle but proud.

“Raul and I call it the Dragon Jet.” She jumped as Gabriel’s bari­tone came from be­side her. His eyes were lit with ironic ap­pre­ci­a­tion. “Sort of like the Bat­mo­bile.”

She choked on a laugh. “Does your un­cle know that?”

“Prob­a­bly. Hon­estly, when you live on an is­land in the mid­dle of the At­lantic Ocean, it makes sense to have a jet.” He ges­tured her to­ward the stairs lead­ing into the plane’s cabin.

“My bag…” She glanced around, notic­ing a lot of grim-faced peo­ple in dark suits sta­tioned around the hangar—some of Mikel’s pre­cau­tions.

“It has al­ready been loaded on the plane.”

“Oh. Wow.” She walked to­ward the jet, think­ing what a crazy lux­ury it was to have her bag whisked away with­out her even notic­ing.

As she be­gan to climb the metal steps, she was aware of Gabriel right be­hind her, his weight mak­ing the steps vi­brate un­der her feet as he as­cended. She con­cen­trated on not trip­ping, even as her nerve end­ings did a prim­i­tive dance.

A male flight at­ten­dant stood at the door, dressed in gray trousers and a blue-green blazer with the El Dragón logo em­broi­dered on the pocket. “Wel­come, Señorita Pier­son. We will be serv­ing break­fast as soon as the plane is at cruis­ing al­ti­tude. In the mean­time, may I of­fer you a bev­er­age?”

“Cof­fee, black, would be great, thank you.”

As Gabriel en­tered the cabin, the at­ten­dant bowed. “Don Gabriel, would you like your usual?”

“Yes, please, Isaac.”

She for­got all about Gabriel when she turned to­ward the cabin. She had a vague im­pres­sion of co­gnac leather seats and glossy wood pan­el­ing, but her at­ten­tion was drawn to the man talk­ing to Mikel and Prince Raul—King Luis IV.

His per­fectly tai­lored navy suit set off the sil­ver in his salt-and-pep­per hair and short, neat beard. He was tall and lean, and she could see Gabriel’s fam­ily re­sem­blance in the high cheek­bones and light eyes, al­though the king’s were an icy blue.

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