Page 67 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

There it was—the down­side of his po­si­tion. Along with all the ad­mirable traits like duty and honor and in­tegrity, he had ab­sorbed a deep ven­er­a­tion for au­thor­ity…of the king, of his par­ents, of his coun­try. He em­braced his place in the hi­er­ar­chy with­out ques­tion. “Who de­cides which per­son is the best fla­menco gui­tar player in the world?” she asked. “Is there a panel of judges who de­clare the win­ner?”

His brows drew to­gether in fur­rows. “What are you talk­ing about?”

“Who de­cided Marisela Alejo was top of the heap?”

“Crit­ics. Au­di­ences.” His list was ten­ta­tive. “Other to­caores.”

“Who ap­pointed them king?”

He huffed out a short, sar­donic laugh. “The king is not ap­pointed.”

“What I’m try­ing to say is that you should lis­ten to your­self. You know what it takes to be a great fla­menco gui­tarist. Do you think you still have it in you to reach that goal?”

His gaze turned in­ward, leav­ing his eyes opaque. His fin­gers flexed around her hand again, and his whole face lit with de­ter­mi­na­tion. An an­swer­ing tri­umph blazed through her.

But then he gave her his pro­file again with a long ex­ha­la­tion to­ward the ceil­ing. “I don’t know,” he said, de­feat lac­ing his words.

“Yes. You. Do.” She was damned if he was go­ing to quit on her now. “Fuck it, Beethoven was al­most deaf when he com­posed one of his great­est sym­phonies. You might have an in­finites­i­mally small hear­ing im­pair­ment, and you’re go­ing to let that stop you?”

He went silent again for sev­eral long mo­ments while she stared at the slash­ing lines that de­fined his nose and jaw.

“Come to New York with me.” Then he twisted his whole body to­ward her, and there was light in his eyes again.

That had been too easy. Raul would prob­a­bly give her a freakin’ medal. She had to ask, though. “Why do you want me in New York?”

She wanted to go with him more than was good for her peace of mind.

“Be­cause you have a per­spec­tive I need.” He stroked his palm down her arm. “Please.”

She wanted to go to New York with him for a whole roil­ing, murky cloud of rea­sons that had noth­ing to do with Raul. “Do you re­ally want me to come?”

He in­haled sharply as he nod­ded. “Dios mío, yes! I’ve re­served the Dragon Jet.” His lips curved in a teas­ing smile. “There will be French toast.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

“Now I have to kiss you again.” He wrapped his arm around her shoul­ders and threw his leg over hers, lock­ing his calf be­hind her knees to lever her against him from an­kle to mouth. His body was so much harder than hers. The way her soft­ness pil­lowed against the un­yield­ing planes of his mus­cles fu­eled a hot, pow­er­ful sense of her own fe­male­ness. Her belly bloomed with the de­li­cious, prim­i­tive need to be filled.

She shut down her brain and slid into a world where only sen­sa­tion mat­tered.

Chap­ter 17

Since it was Sat­ur­day, Quinn had hoped Mikel wouldn’t come into work. Her boss would know what time she had left the palace, even though Gabriel had made sure her early-morn­ing de­par­ture had been pri­vate, as per her re­quest. She had been pet­ri­fied that she would run into Raul or, even worse, the king, as she and Gabriel had snuck down the cor­ri­dors of the royal fam­ily’s quar­ters.

Now it was her rot­ten luck that when she walked by Mikel’s of­fice en route to her own, the door was open, and he was on the phone.

He waved her in and pointed to one of the an­tique chairs, where she perched gin­gerly. She was still afraid she would chip a lily petal off the or­nate carv­ings and ruin the chair’s as­tro­nom­i­cal value. Maybe that was why Mikel had cho­sen the seat­ing—to keep his vis­i­tors in­tim­i­dated and off-bal­ance. She wouldn’t put it past her Machi­avel­lian boss.

She forced her­self not to fid­get while she waited for Mikel to end his call. Even though he would know she had spent the night at the palace, that didn’t mean ei­ther of them had to talk about it. She would re­port on the in­ter­est­ing piece of in­for­ma­tion she’d dis­cov­ered about Dr. Paul Ricci. That would keep the con­ver­sa­tion on busi­ness.

Af­ter Mikel dis­con­nected, he stared at the mu­ral of a crim­i­nal be­ing tossed off the cliffs—a scene she now rec­og­nized, thanks to Gabriel—while a scary lit­tle smile played around the cor­ners of his lips. Af­ter a few sec­onds, he shifted his at­ten­tion to Quinn. “Do you have some­thing new for me?”

“Ricci is pay­ing the rent on an apart­ment in the sub­urbs of Paris through a shell com­pany. He goes to Paris only a few times a year for work-re­lated events. So he’s not rent­ing the place in or­der to save on ho­tel bills. And he’s mak­ing an at­tempt to cover up the pay­ments. I was think­ing that we might set up some sur­veil­lance to see what’s up with it.”

Mikel shook his head in dis­be­lief. “You Amer­i­cans and your pu­ri­tanism. I guar­an­tee you Ricci has a mis­tress liv­ing in that apart­ment. How­ever, I’ll put sur­veil­lance on it be­cause that gives us an­other string to tug on. Good work,” he said as he typed a note into his com­puter.

She nod­ded in ac­knowl­edg­ment of the praise but added with a touch of frus­tra­tion, “I can’t find any con­nec­tion be­tween Dupont and Ricci so far. I feel like there’s a piece miss­ing from the puz­zle, an el­e­ment we haven’t fac­tored in yet.”

“We may find it soon.” Mikel folded his hands on his desk while that smile that sent shiv­ers up her spine re­turned. “Dupont has given Ko­dra a job.”

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