Page 167 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

She nod­ded over and over again. Her throat was clogged with tears and ado­ra­tion for this in­cred­i­ble man who shouldn’t love her but did. She swal­lowed hard and man­aged to croak, “Yes!”

“Eres mi cielo. You are my heaven.” His voice sounded as choked as hers. He dropped his head so his fore­head rested on their in­ter­twined hands.

When he lifted it, his face blazed with ex­ul­ta­tion. He re­leased one of her hands to pull a green vel­vet pouch from his jeans pocket. Shak­ing a ring into his palm, he held it up for her. “This be­longed to my great-great-grand­mother, the seago­ing queen whom you ad­mire so much. I thought it suited you bet­ter than the lilies that dec­o­rate so much of our fam­ily jew­elry.”

The ring was a gold Cal­e­van dragon with frill flared and mouth wide open to hold a large sap­phire that matched the color of the ocean sur­round­ing the is­land coun­try.

“It’s mag­nif­i­cent!” Quinn breathed.

Gabriel took her left hand and slid the ring onto it. “Leg­end says that the gem was part of the trea­sure from a pi­rate ship that the queen cap­tured.” He smiled. “You would not hes­i­tate to take on Black­beard him­self, so I felt she would ap­prove of you hav­ing it.”

“I don’t think Black­beard left a lot of data trails,” Quinn said, hold­ing up her hand so the sap­phire glit­tered in the can­dle glow. “It even fits me.”

“I might have ar­ranged that,” Gabriel said.

“Be­cause you think of ev­ery­thing.” She put her hands on his shoul­ders and leaned for­ward. “Ex­cept that there’s not a sin­gle soft sur­face in here where we could make love.”

De­sire flared in his eyes. “I will be your soft sur­face, car­iño mío.” He wrapped his fin­gers around her up­per arms and eased her down onto her knees. Then he sank side­ways, pulling her with him un­til he lay un­der her, his back on the stone floor.

“You’re go­ing to get bruised,” she said.

“I prom­ise you that I will feel no pain,” he said, cup­ping his hand around the back of her head to bring her lips to his.

Be­fore she lost her­self in his warm, pow­er­ful em­brace, she whis­pered, “Te amo. I love you.”

Gabriel hit the last note, and the crowd ex­ploded into ap­plause. He lifted his head to squint against the spot­lights aimed at his stool on the stage. Sweat mat­ted his hair to his fore­head, and he swiped at it with the back of his hand.

“Así se toca!” came the roar.

Hap­pi­ness bloomed in ev­ery cell of his body. He had played well, pour­ing all the emo­tion he no longer feared into the mu­sic. And his au­di­ence re­sponded.

The old the­ater was not as big as the soc­cer sta­dium where he’d played the song he’d cowrit­ten with Kyran Redda, but fla­menco was meant to be more in­ti­mate. It also had a royal box where the king and his par­ents sat, ap­plaud­ing with en­thu­si­asm. He had gone through the for­mal­ity of ask­ing his un­cle for per­mis­sion to marry and told his par­ents of his in­ten­tions, but none of them knew the pro­posal had hap­pened to­day.

As they were driv­ing to the the­ater, Quinn had asked him if he was ner­vous. Strangely, he had been more ner­vous about propos­ing to her. Now that the dragon ring was on her fin­ger, he had felt noth­ing but ex­cited an­tic­i­pa­tion.

He had looked for­ward to shar­ing his mu­sic with the world. But he had some­thing even more im­por­tant he wanted to share.

Pulling up the mi­cro­phone, he said, “I have a new song to play for you. One that I wrote for the woman I love.”

A few “awws” rose from the au­di­ence. He smiled be­fore he turned side­ways, seek­ing Quinn in the wings of the stage. There she was, in her jeans and T-shirt with the VIP pass hang­ing around her neck. She blew him a kiss as he looked at her.

She was go­ing to be pissed at him for this. He put the gui­tar down, stood, and held out his hand. “Quinn Pier­son, will you please join me on­stage?”

She shook her head in a vi­o­lent no, but he kept his hand out and waited. She glared at him be­fore com­pos­ing her face and walk­ing onto the stage. She had learned to smile and wave when in the pub­lic eye, and she did it now as she stepped into the dra­matic light­ing.

When their re­la­tion­ship had been for­mally an­nounced, the me­dia had gone dig­ging, as ex­pected. But true to his word, the king had al­ready set his pow­er­ful PR ma­chine in mo­tion. With its in­flu­ence, Quinn’s past had been trans­formed into a heart­warm­ing story of re­demp­tion and sec­ond chances. Even her fa­ther’s his­tory had been spun into a sin­gle fa­ther do­ing his best for his child. Quinn had snorted at that, al­though she’d ac­knowl­edged there was some ker­nel of truth in it, a ker­nel that had helped her be­gin to re­build her re­la­tion­ship with Bren­dan.

All this had made her a pro at deal­ing with pub­lic at­ten­tion. She just didn’t like it.

As she grasped his hand, he pulled her in for a brief kiss, and she whis­pered against his lips, “I’m go­ing to pun­ish you for this.”

He smiled and whis­pered back, “I can’t wait.”

Then he turned back to the au­di­ence. “You are the first to know of my joy­ful news. This amaz­ing woman has agreed to marry me. I wish to shout it from the rooftops, but I will con­tent my­self with an­nounc­ing it from this stage.”

The crowd leaped to their feet, cheer­ing and stomp­ing.

He twirled Quinn back into his arms, press­ing her small body hard against his as he dipped her for a pas­sion­ate kiss.

“Do you still love me?” he teased as he brought her up­right again.

“I love you so much that I’m go­ing to do this in front of ev­ery­one.” She shocked him by reach­ing up to pull his head down for a kiss that sent his blood sear­ing through his veins. She tilted her head back to gaze up at him with a hap­pi­ness in her eyes that matched his. “My duke in shin­ing ar­mor.”

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