Page 87 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Some­times. It helped that Señor de la Cueva moved here.” Gabriel saw now that his teacher had been at the end of his ca­reer. The gui­tarist had been will­ing to move out of the main­stream of fla­menco in or­der to re­tire. As­sign­ing a young man like Gabriel to a stodgy older teacher hadn’t been the best choice. How­ever, it had given him a solid foun­da­tion to study with some­one of de la Cueva’s stature.

“Bring­ing him here was your fa­ther’s do­ing,” Luis said.

Shock made Gabriel bang an el­bow against his gui­tar. “My fa­ther hates my gui­tar play­ing.”

“No, he doesn’t un­der­stand it. But he wanted you to have the best pos­si­ble in­struc­tor.”

That made sense. Lorenzo would want his son to be taught by some­one prom­i­nent, whether he was the best match for Gabriel’s style or not. “I will re­mem­ber to thank him for that,” Gabriel said grudg­ingly.

“So, back to your pro­posal. When will you have it ready for a for­mal pre­sen­ta­tion?”

Gabriel had no idea what it would cost or how quickly it could be done. How­ever, he had the king’s in­ter­est now. “One week,” he said with a firm­ness he did not feel.

“Ex­cel­lent.” Luis picked up his wine and leaned back on the sofa. “I want to be very clear about this. As the King of Cal­eva, I am en­thu­si­as­tic about the con­cept. In fact, I have long wanted to en­hance our coun­try’s cul­tural pro­file, but”—he waved his hand in a ges­ture of re­signed frus­tra­tion—“other mat­ters were al­ways more press­ing. Fires had to be put out.”

Like the Lily Ca­bal. Gabriel winced.

“I also needed the right per­son for the job,” Luis con­tin­ued. “Some­one with both the pas­sion and the artis­tic chops to con­vince the best of the best to take a chance on Cal­eva.” He tilted his glass to­ward Gabriel. “You are that per­son.”

Ex­cite­ment sparked through Gabriel. His un­cle thought he could do this. “I am hon­ored by your faith in me.”

“That is how I feel as your king. As your un­cle, it brings me great hap­pi­ness to see the joy in your eyes. This is what you were meant to do for Cal­eva. You have found the per­fect way to help me.”

“How do you al­ways say the right thing?” Gabriel asked as his chest went tight with a roil of grat­i­tude, pride, and an­tic­i­pa­tion.

“The truth speaks it­self,” Luis said.

Gabriel struck a chord on his gui­tar to punc­tu­ate his un­cle’s state­ment. “Not to men­tion that you have a flair for the dra­matic.”

“When you’re king, you’re ex­pected to in­ject some flair into your pro­nounce­ments.” Luis’s lips curled in a self-mock­ing smile. “It makes them ap­pear weight­ier. And now that you’ve be­gun, I would like to hear you play.” His mouth soft­ened into a smile of gen­uine af­fec­tion. “I re­joice in your re­turn to mu­sic. Tal­ent like yours should not be with­held from the world.”

Gabriel did not bother to ar­gue with his un­cle. He had a long way to go, even to re­turn to his level of pro­fi­ciency be­fore the ab­duc­tion. How­ever, per­fec­tion was no longer his goal. Quinn had shown him how cold and empty that was.

Now he opened the gates of his heart and let the emo­tions flow out through his fin­gers.

Gabriel tapped in the com­bi­na­tion to open the tall gate into Quinn’s back gar­den. Mikel had given him in­struc­tions on how to sneak in and out to avoid any pos­si­bil­ity of be­ing fol­lowed by pa­parazzi. He also left his Spano at the palace and drove a bland, bor­ing sedan. He did all this with­out com­plaint. To pro­tect Quinn.

He swung the gate closed, re­leas­ing a shower of pink flower petals from the vine grow­ing over it.

“Hola, Gabriel!”

His pulse sped up when he saw Quinn on the stone pa­tio, lift­ing a beer bot­tle in greet­ing. The wel­com­ing curve of her lips made him stride over to brace his hands on the arms of her chair and lean down to kiss her. Her mouth tasted of beer and Quinn, send­ing an ar­row of pure de­sire down to his groin. “Car­iño mío,” he mur­mured as he kissed the fra­grant skin at the side of her neck. “Te adoro.”

“That sounds so much less cheesy in Span­ish,” she said, tilt­ing her head to give him bet­ter ac­cess.

He nipped at her ear­lobe. “I lay my heart at your feet, and you call it cheesy.” He pulled away so he could see her face with its slim eye­brows, huge brown eyes be­hind black-rimmed glasses and skin like the rich­est cream.

She wove her fin­gers into his hair, send­ing a rip­ple of de­light over his scalp. “I said it wasn’t cheesy when it’s in Span­ish.” Then she de­stroyed him by say­ing, “I adore you too.”

“For that, you must be kissed prop­erly,” he said, tak­ing the beer out of her hand and putting it on a side ta­ble. Then he cupped her el­bows and lifted her out of her chair to hold her against him. The crush of her breasts against his chest and the push of her thigh be­tween his had him de­vour­ing her mouth like a starv­ing man who had found a feast. When she ran her hands down his back to squeeze his butt, he moaned against her lips.

She leaned away from him, her skin pink with arousal. “I’ll have to say that more of­ten.”

“Yes, you will. Many times a day,” he agreed. “And I will kiss you twice as of­ten as you say it.”

“Now you’re get­ting flow­ery.” She looked at him over the top of her glasses. “I like it.”

“I knew there was a ro­man­tic soul hid­den deep in­side you,” he said.

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