Page 146 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“It means that we will have to make plans to pre­vent trou­ble. Mikel will help.”

“It means we can­not stay to­gether. We can­not go pub­lic. I will not drag you into my mess. You are too im­por­tant to be smeared by the dirty brush of my fam­ily’s his­tory.”

“You be­lieve I would let you go be­cause of your fa­ther’s sins?” Dis­tress laced his voice. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

She met his gaze. “A man who be­lieves in his duty to some­thing greater than him­self. I am not go­ing to sully that. I would hate my­self for it. You would even­tu­ally hate me too.”

“Never.” He rose to look down into her face. “I need you, car­iño mío. You do not shy away from the dark places I have been. Maybe it’s be­cause you have been there too. Those places change you. You can­not live en­tirely in the light be­cause you have met the fear that dwells in the shad­ows.”

She waved a hand in de­nial, even as his words bur­rowed into her heart, ham­mer­ing at her re­solve.

“You made me un­der­stand that I could em­brace the dark­ness, to trans­form it in my mu­sic.” His voice vi­brated with in­ten­sity. “No one else could do that.”

Oh, the se­duc­tion of hear­ing she was the only one who could help this amaz­ing man. “You have moved be­yond what I can give you. What you’re feel­ing is grat­i­tude.”

He smacked his hand on the bed­side ta­ble. “Do not tell me what I feel. I know that I love you. I know that you are the woman I want to go through life with.”

Even as ev­ery mol­e­cule in her body cried out to throw her­self back into his arms, she shook her head. “You al­ways say that I have no re­spect for the fact that you’re a duke. But you’re wrong.” She locked her gaze on his. “I am in awe of you. You em­body so many things that were miss­ing from my world. Duty, honor, in­tegrity, self­less­ness. I fell in love with you be­cause I longed for all those qual­i­ties.” She twisted her fin­gers to­gether. “But some dreams should re­main out of our reach. If we try to grasp them, they crum­ble into ashes in our hands. The shad­ows of my past and my fam­ily would tar­nish all those shin­ing qual­i­ties un­til they lost their sparkle. I won’t do it to you. I won’t do it to my­self.”

She stopped to take a breath.

“I am not this no­ble knight that you imag­ine me to be,” Gabriel said, his voice low. “I am as hu­man and flawed as you are. I have been a cow­ard and weak and self­ish.” He held out his hand, palm up, an in­vi­ta­tion and a plea. “Do not for­get that my un­cle is the king. He has con­nec­tions in high places in the U.S. We will find a way to pro­tect you and your fa­ther, I swear it.”

She kept her hands twined to­gether. “It’s bet­ter to end this now. Be­fore it gets worse.”

“How can it get any worse than not be­ing to­gether for­ever?” His voice was an­guished as he dropped his hand. “I love you with ev­ery­thing in me.”

Lift­ing her eyes to his face briefly, she flinched. His eyes were wild with de­spair. But that gave her strength again. She was right to break off the re­la­tion­ship be­fore she be­came more en­tan­gled in his life.

“You have so much to do now. Your mu­sic. The fes­ti­val. You’ll be fine with­out me.”

He would re­mem­ber her less and less as he threw him­self into those projects. And he would find some­one else.

No! She couldn’t think about see­ing him with an­other woman.

She ran from the bed­room to col­lapse into an empty seat near the back of the plane, buck­ling her­self in and star­ing out the win­dow. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she let them.

The door from the plane’s gal­ley opened with a sub­dued bang, mak­ing Quinn jump. The clink of china and cut­lery sig­naled that the stew­ard was clear­ing away the food. They must be ap­proach­ing Cal­eva.

Her stom­ach pitched un­hap­pily in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the roller-coaster ride of de­scent onto the is­land. She’d thought she couldn’t be any more mis­er­able than she al­ready was.

As the plane tilted, she felt the weight of a body drop into the seat be­side hers. She turned to see Gabriel buck­ling his seat belt. “At least I can sit here to re­as­sure you that we aren’t go­ing to crash.”

All she could do was nod be­fore she turned to­ward the win­dow again. That didn’t stop her aware­ness of his ev­ery shift and move­ment, nor could it block out her view of his long, denim-clad legs stretched out and crossed at the an­kles of his black boots.

Tor­ture.

She closed her eyes and clenched her fists in her lap.

“I’m here if you need me.” The deep, smooth rum­ble of his voice vi­brated through her like a chord from his gui­tar.

She nod­ded with­out chang­ing her po­si­tion.

The plane pointed its nose down. Quinn swal­lowed hard and dug her fin­ger­nails into her palms. Af­ter a few mo­ments, Gabriel’s hand set­tled over her fists in a touch so gen­tle and pro­tec­tive that she nearly whim­pered at the sweet­ness of it.

Mikel would have to send some­one else in her place to the din­ner with Odette now. But Quinn would work her butt off be­hind the scenes to track down the sniper and Gabriel’s ab­duc­tors.

And then what?

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