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Mikel was an unhappy man for many reasons right now. The king was understandably upset about Gabriel’s brush with death in New York—and Mikel felt responsible for not being there to stop it—so all family travel out of Caleva had been canceled. Luis had also canceled the ruse of the false lily sap decrease. He would take no chances of another attack on a royal family member. They would have to connect Odette with the kidnapping some other way.
The only good news was that Dupont was in custody in France, thanks to Mikel passing along the information Brendan had given him. That had been set in motion before news of the sniper attack had been received in Caleva. Mikel’s request that there be a splash of publicity about the supercriminal’s capture had been met with delight by French law enforcement. The noose was tightening around the necks of Gabriel’s tormentors, and Mikel had made sure Odette would know that.
Quinn’s phone vibrated with a text from Gabriel.
I will meet you out front when you arrive. We will get past any difficulty away from Odette’s view.
Her nerves screamed with dread. She had no idea what to say to him. Every greeting she came up with sounded wrong.
Would he kiss her? Or do the European air-kiss thing?
Go left first. Because it would be beyond awful to collide with him when they used to be perfectly in sync.
She slipped her phone back into the pocket on the outside of her purse. As she did, she felt the hard outline of the Glock that was inside. She had put it there to remind herself that tonight was about work, rather than because she thought she would need a gun. She needed to focus on Odette Fontaine, not her own disastrous love life.
The car turned off the road and came to a stop in front of a tall iron gate set between two massive basalt pillars. On top of each pillar, a carved stone Calevan dragon clutched a coat of arms. Mikel would be pleased that the gate guard asked her to roll down her window so he could check her face against the photo on his tablet.
The car rolled forward along a drive bordered on each side by tall conifers with straight gray trunks and fluffy-looking needles. It took a good ten minutes before a grand stone house loomed in front of them.
She had time for no more than a quick impression of a tall many-windowed central structure of dark gray basalt with white limestone accents and lower wings sprawling to the left and right.
Then Gabriel jogged down the stone steps of the front portico.
For a moment, she just drank him in, taking in the glint of his hair in the fading light, the strong line of his jaw, the confident set of his shoulders under the pale gray button-down shirt. Heat and sorrow braided themselves together in her chest, making it hard to breathe.
She braced herself as he opened the car door and offered his hand. For show. It was just for show. When his fingers closed around hers, their warmth and strength evoked memories of other times he had touched her with genuine feeling.
“Buenas tardes, car—” He stopped himself from using his favorite endearment, but he didn’t try to cover it up.
She glanced up to find his gaze locked on her face, his gray eyes blazing with his feelings for her. A strange whimper tried to wrench itself out of her throat as she stood.
When she glanced at him again, he had closed the shutters into his soul, leaving his face tight but bearable to look at. “Odette seems no different to me, even when I try to observe her with suspicion,” he said.
“It must be hard to imagine someone you have known and trusted for so long could do something so horrible.” Maybe two horrible things, if Odette was responsible for the sniper.
“I can’t decide if I hope you and Mikel are wrong or not.” Gabriel’s voice was heavy. “I would like to be free of the fear that someone I care about could be a target at any moment. However, I don’t want the villain to be Tante Odette.”
He couldn’t even relax in his childhood home, because right now it might harbor a viper.
“Does your family know we’re…no longer together?” Quinn forced herself to ask.
“My father does. Not my mother. I haven’t had the strength to tell her.”
That made her feel like crap.
He offered her his arm, and she fell into step beside him as he led her up the steps. The faint fragrance of bergamot and vetiver wafting around him was so achingly familiar that it set off bursts of desire inside her.
“We have to appear to be a couple for Odette’s sake,” Gabriel reminded her, “so I may put my arm around you or give you a kiss. I do not mean to encroach on the boundaries you have set, but it seems necessary.”
“Understood,” Quinn said, a shudder of anticipation running through her at the thought of his lips on hers. Bad. Very bad.
She grimaced as she found herself remembering various pieces of advice her father had discussed for running a convincing scam. “My father always said to get in character before you need to. You have to believe it yourself before you can sell it.” She looked up at Gabriel with a dazzling smile.
Something flared in his eyes before he nodded. “Ah, I see.” He lifted her hand to brush a kiss over the back of it.
Then he pulled open the heavy oak door and ushered her through it with his hand resting on the small of her back. The heat from his palm rippled across her skin.
“We are having drinks and tapas in the sala,” he said, as they walked across a two-story entrance hall. A wide staircase soared up to a gallery that ran around three sides. Tapestries and a suit of armor adorned the imposing space.
