Page 136 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Kyran held out his hand across the cof­fee ta­ble. “I’m there, man.”

“Ex­ce­len­tísimo!” Gabriel said as he gripped Kyran’s hand with a flash­ing smile. He turned to Aaron with raised eye­brows.

The man­ager nod­ded. “We’ll make it hap­pen.”

Gabriel had done it! Quinn wanted to leap into the air and cheer. In­stead, she set­tled for, “I hope you’ll per­form that song to­gether on­stage. It would be amaz­ing.”

“Yeah! Great idea!” Kyran said.

Gabriel just nod­ded and stood. “We won’t take up any more of your time. It was a plea­sure to meet you and an honor to play with you.”

Kyran rose and bowed with a flour­ish and a grin. “Like­wise, Your Duke-ness. Thanks for the as­sist on the new song.”

“The priv­i­lege was mine,” Gabriel said.

Kyran nod­ded to Quinn. “Nice to meet you too. See you at the con­cert.”

Then Aaron was ush­er­ing them out the door, where An­neliese took up sta­tion be­hind them. The man­ager and Gabriel ex­changed busi­ness cards and walked to the el­e­va­tor.

“I have to ad­mit you sur­prised me,” Aaron said. “You’re not just a duke.” Be­fore he could elab­o­rate on that, the el­e­va­tor doors opened. They stepped in while Aaron raised a hand in farewell.

Once the doors were closed, Quinn wrapped an arm around Gabriel’s waist and squeezed. “You did it! You got Kyran Redda for the fes­ti­val!”

He cir­cled his arm around her shoul­ders as the el­e­va­tor glided down­ward. “It’s a good start.”

He didn’t sound ex­cited by his suc­cess.

The el­e­va­tor doors opened to the lobby. Quinn had to hurry to keep up with Gabriel’s strides as he headed for the exit.

An­neliese must have sig­naled Vin­cent be­cause the limo was wait­ing at the end of the ho­tel’s side­walk car­pet.

Once she and Gabriel were alone in the back of the car, Quinn swiveled on the seat. “I don’t un­der­stand why you aren’t hap­pier about that meet­ing. You got one of the most fa­mous per­form­ers in the world to head­line your fes­ti­val. On top of that, you’re go­ing to be play­ing a duet with him on his next al­bum. That’s all great pub­lic­ity for Cal­eva.”

“I am happy.” Gabriel tilted his head back against the leather seat.

“You don’t seem like it.” Quinn took his hand in both of hers and tried to trans­mit her ju­bi­la­tion to him. “It was un­be­liev­able to watch the two of you work to­gether. And how cool that Kyran asked you to teach him some fla­menco stuff! He was re­ally im­pressed with your tal­ent.”

Gabriel huffed out a hu­mor­less laugh as he lifted his head to look at her, his gray eyes shad­owed. “That’s be­cause he wasn’t ex­pect­ing much. Be­cause I’m a duke.”

“Well, they got over that idea once you started play­ing.” Quinn frowned at him. “What’s wrong?”

Gabriel shrugged. “Kyran is com­ing to the fes­ti­val be­cause he’s go­ing to meet Tío Luis and stay at the cas­tle, not be­cause of any tal­ent of mine. I’m just a cu­rios­ity, like a talk­ing dog. A gui­tar-play­ing royal duke.”

Should she shake him or con­sole him?

“I re­ally want to knock some sense into you, but I’m re­strain­ing my­self.” She freed one hand to tap him on the cleft of his chin with her in­dex fin­ger. “You think your ti­tle in­flu­ences other peo­ple far more than it does. Kyran Redda didn’t give a shit about the Duke of Bencalor when he asked you to play those riffs. He needed a real fla­menco gui­tarist to add the right ac­cent to his song. He got a lot more, and he rec­og­nized his good luck.”

She tapped his chin again. “He wouldn’t have asked you to record with him if you had been medi­ocre.”

He caught her fin­ger and kissed it. “Está bien, I ac­cept your eval­u­a­tion. I held my own with Kyran mu­si­cally.”

“You said that you were happy to use your ti­tle to get stars for the fes­ti­val, so I’m not sure why Kyran’s re­ac­tion both­ers you so much.”

“Ay, Quinn, why are you push­ing me on this?”

“Be­cause you need to see your­self clearly.” She wanted to heal him of this wound. “Be­ing a duke opens doors, but only your tal­ent lets you walk through them.” She nar­rowed her eyes as a thought struck her. “You don’t be­lieve it when Kyran Redda thinks you’re a good mu­si­cian, but you’re will­ing to ac­cept Marisela Alejo’s ver­dict. What’s the dif­fer­ence be­tween them?”

He blew out a breath. “When I first met Marisela, she didn’t ac­knowl­edge in any way that I was a duke. She cared only about putting on a good per­for­mance. She pushed me with­out mercy. And I played bet­ter than I ever had be­fore.”

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