Page 94 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Who lives in Paris at least part-time. That city just keeps com­ing up.”

“Agreed.”

“I just wish—” She shook her head. “Never mind. What’s done is done.”

“Tell me.”

“When Ricci talked about the en­ve­lope and the cell phone mes­sages, I had to re­mind my­self that it all hap­pened over a year ago, so I can’t try to track the sources. The trail is so cold, and that gets frus­trat­ing.”

“Yes, it does.” The fa­tigue in her boss’s voice re­minded her that he hadn’t been al­lowed to go full out on chas­ing the kid­nap­pers right af­ter it had hap­pened.

“Why did the king rein you in for so long?” Quinn asked.

“You saw the videos of Gabriel when I ques­tioned him about the ab­duc­tion.”

She had not yet met Gabriel when she’d viewed the videos, but they had made her cry. His mu­ti­lated ear had been wrapped in a white ban­dage that had wound around his head, a stark con­trast with his dark hair and olive skin. The se­ries of in­ter­views had taken place in a com­fort­able, open room in the palace that had been filled with light, a de­lib­er­ate con­trast to the tent within a stor­age space where he’d been held cap­tive.

Mikel’s ques­tions had been gen­tle, but he had needed to col­lect ev­ery de­tail in or­der to com­mence the hunt for the kid­nap­pers. Gabriel had be­gun ev­ery ses­sion with tight com­po­sure. He had an­swered Mikel’s queries with a bru­tal thor­ough­ness, spar­ing him­self none of the trauma of re­liv­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence. How­ever, there had al­ways come a point where tears had be­gun to run down his cheeks, and he hadn’t been able to stop them. Mikel would halt in­stantly and wrap his arms around Gabriel while he had sobbed out the ter­ror.

Even now, it socked her in the gut.

“The king watched those videos too. He couldn’t bear to sub­ject Gabriel to any fur­ther ques­tion­ing.” Mikel drummed his in­dex fin­ger on the seat cush­ion for a mo­ment be­fore he turned to her. “You know that Gabriel went through two surg­eries to have his ear re­con­structed. He didn’t touch his gui­tars for about six months. When he fi­nally be­gan to play again, that prick de la Cueva told him that he couldn’t hear right any­more.”

Mikel’s gaze went past her as he stared out the car win­dow. “The king thought Gabriel might com­mit sui­cide, so he didn’t want any pres­sure put on him. Luis was also afraid that if I pur­sued the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, it might pro­voke the kid­nap­pers to re­tal­i­ate against Gabriel in some way. He was afraid even the me­dia cov­er­age of an ar­rest could push Gabriel over the edge. How could I ar­gue with that?”

“Did you think Gabriel was sui­ci­dal?” Quinn had seen how deeply the loss of his mu­sic dis­tressed him, but she’d never wor­ried that he would in­jure him­self. He was too aware of his obli­ga­tions to those around him.

“He was a ghost of him­self for those first months,” Mikel said. “He with­drew to his es­tate and spent a lot of time work­ing in the lily fields nearby. He be­gan to take a more ac­tive hand in man­ag­ing his es­tate and his par­ents’ much big­ger hold­ings, but it was busy­work for him. I think there might have been a time when he lost all hope.”

“And that’s when peo­ple com­mit sui­cide. When they think life will never feel bet­ter.” Quinn wanted to go back in time so she could hold Gabriel and tell him he would be more than fine. “But he didn’t.”

“Luis does not un­der­stand that he sets an ex­am­ple that makes those around him stronger. He does what is right, not what is easy. Gabriel grew up watch­ing his un­cle make the hard choices.” Mikel shook his head. “I be­lieved Gabriel could have sur­vived an im­me­di­ate in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Per­haps he even would have found a pur­pose in it. But one can­not go against the king.”

“What changed that Luis al­lowed you to hire me?” She had al­ways won­dered about the tim­ing.

“Your pro­fes­sor sent your ré­sumé to me. You have a unique skill set that I needed. I didn’t want to let you slip through my fin­gers.”

“I wasn’t that in de­mand.” Af­ter her re­lease from prison, Quinn had de­spaired about find­ing a job in her field of ex­per­tise. Her crim­i­nal record had ei­ther elim­i­nated or scared away most po­ten­tial em­ploy­ers. Mikel’s of­fer to work in her field on an is­land par­adise had seemed like a mir­a­cle. She’d jumped at it with­out hes­i­ta­tion.

“It took some con­vinc­ing to per­suade the king to over­look your back­ground,” Mikel said in a dry tone. “I also promised him I would con­trol Gabriel’s ac­cess to your dis­cov­er­ies.”

Guilt pinged at Quinn. “I guess I messed that up big-time.”

“No, you have done ex­actly what I had hoped…and more.”

When Quinn walked into her house late that night, Gabriel was sit­ting at her din­ing room ta­ble, crouched over his lap­top. His dark hair caught blue high­lights from the com­puter screen while his long, ten­sile fin­gers flew over the key­board as though it were his gui­tar. She braced her­self for the bar­rage of ques­tions about her trip.

In­stead, a smile of wel­come lit his face as he stood and came to­ward her. “Quinn! Car­iño mío!”

She watched the sexy flow of his long-legged stride in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the mo­ment his arms would come around her and pull her against the hard, warm length of his body.

“I could get used to this,” she said, melt­ing against him as she lifted her face to feel his lips slant over hers.

Af­ter a kiss that left her pant­ing, he lifted his head and gave her a sexy smile. “You had bet­ter get used to it. I’m here to stay.” He slid his hands down to cup her butt. “Ex­cept for my trip to Granada to meet my new gui­tar in­struc­tor. Will you come with me?”

“If Mikel will give me the day off,” Quinn said.

“I was think­ing four days off. I want to show you the Al­ham­bra, one of the most beau­ti­ful places in Spain. There’s a restau­rant on the side of the hill there with a ter­race that looks out over the city. I want to watch the moon­light play in your hair while I feed you Jamón de Trevélez from my fin­gers.” His voice had dropped low and thrummed with se­duc­tion.

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