Page 85 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“I’ve re­gret­ted that ev­ery mo­ment since.” His voice broke. “If I could go back…”

It was ter­ri­ble how much she wanted to be­lieve in his con­tri­tion, but her fa­ther was a con­sum­mate ac­tor. She’d learned never to trust his words.

“You still haven’t said the word ‘jail,’” she pointed out. Maybe that meant he was gen­uinely sorry, but it could as eas­ily have meant that he didn’t want to take re­spon­si­bil­ity for do­ing some­thing so shame­ful to his own child.

A wave of fu­til­ity broke over her, suck­ing away her breath. Her fa­ther was never go­ing to change.

She hit the but­ton to dis­con­nect the call.

Her phone vi­brated again with her fa­ther’s caller ID. She de­clined the call and put her phone back in her pocket.

Then she swiped the key chain off her desk and hurled it across the room. It smacked against the wall and fell to the floor with a rat­tle of plas­tic on wood.

She left it there.

Chap­ter 23

Gabriel was still reel­ing from the im­pli­ca­tions of Quinn’s meet­ing with Dupont when the king sent a re­quest for an in­for­mal pri­vate con­cert on the Ter­razzo de la Luz. Gabriel car­ried his scuffed brown gui­tar case up to the rooftop ter­race where his un­cle sat, cradling a glass of red wine. The rays of the sink­ing sun slanted across the paving stones and urns of cas­cad­ing flow­ers and painted the king’s sil­ver hair and open-necked white shirt a soft gold. Gabriel hoped his un­cle’s mood was as mel­low as the light since he had del­i­cate sub­jects to dis­cuss with his tío.

“So­brino.” His un­cle lifted his glass in greet­ing. “Thank you for in­dulging my de­sire for mu­sic.”

“It is al­ways a priv­i­lege to play for you.” Gabriel set the case down be­side a cast-iron chair dec­o­rated with twin­ing lilies.

Luis waved a dis­mis­sive hand. “Cut the priv­i­lege crap. Pour your­self a glass of wine.”

Gabriel walked to the ta­ble be­side his un­cle that held an open bot­tle of wine, more glasses, and a tray of tapas. Fill­ing a glass, he re­turned his un­cle’s salute. “Long live el rey.”

Luis shook his head. “You and Raul. No re­spect.”

“I thought it was too much re­spect.” Gabriel quirked a smile and sat in the metal chair, shift­ing on the seat. Now was as good a time as any. “Be­fore I play, I want to in­form you of a mat­ter of pro­to­col.”

“Oh? You aren’t given to fol­low­ing pro­to­col.” The king’s tone was both sar­donic and amused, a good sign.

This was one of those times when Gabriel dis­liked be­ing a royal duke. His love life should be his own busi­ness, but it was a mat­ter of se­cu­rity and of the palace be­ing pre­pared in case the me­dia found out. “I have be­gun a se­ri­ous re­la­tion­ship with Quinn Pier­son.”

Gabriel was sure that his un­cle was aware of Quinn’s back­ground, what­ever it was. Mikel would not have hired her with­out the king’s ap­proval. He braced him­self for the bar­rage of ob­jec­tions.

In­stead, Luis took a sip of wine, swal­lowed, and waited.

“Since she is in­volved in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the kid­nap­ping, we are keep­ing it pri­vate,” Gabriel said. “I do not wish her to be com­pro­mised in any way.” Ex­cept now she was in dan­ger from Dupont.

The king nod­ded but asked, “You do not fore­see any prob­lems with the com­bi­na­tion of your re­la­tion­ship and her job?”

“There are al­ready prob­lems.” Such as, he was fran­tic with worry about her safety. “How­ever, we can han­dle them.” He fixed his gaze on Luis. “I know she has some­thing un­for­tu­nate in her past as well.”

“You don’t know what it is?” Luis looked sur­prised. “I can tell you.”

“Thank you, but I pre­fer to hear it from her. I must earn her trust.”

“Ad­mirable,” the king said. “As it hap­pens, I have in­vited her to fam­ily din­ner on Sun­day. She seems like a young woman I should know bet­ter.”

Re­lief poured through Gabriel. He only wished he had seen Quinn’s face when she’d re­ceived his un­cle’s in­vi­ta­tion. “Gra­cias, Tío. She is a woman of in­cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence and courage. You will like her.”

“She has cer­tainly made im­pres­sive progress on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Mikel speaks highly of her.”

Gabriel was still fu­ri­ous at Mikel for putting Quinn in Dupont’s crosshairs.

Luis leaned for­ward to set his glass on the mar­ble-topped ta­ble. “Have you told your par­ents about your per­sonal in­volve­ment with her?”

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