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She swallowed, hearing an echo of the king’s voice in his son’s, exhorting her to charge into battle against Caleva’s enemies.
What Raul asked was much, much more difficult.
Chapter 16
The next morning at work, Quinn grimaced as she raised her hand to swipe at her computer screen. Thank God Mikel had told her to take the rest of yesterday off after the shooting range. Her arms had been so tired that she had barely been able to drive herself home.
“Are you cursing me or Esmé or both?” Mikel asked as he walked into her office and sat in one of her pretty blue chairs. She could swear a smirk played around his lips.
Quinn groaned. “I need to get to the gym more often.”
Mikel’s expression turned serious. “I suggest that you take some lessons in self-defense. I’ll set you up with an excellent instructor.”
She groaned again. “Will this instructor be anything like Esmé?”
“Worse. You’ll end up with bruises, but you’ll be better able to protect yourself.”
Quinn eyed her boss. Why was Mikel suddenly worried about her ability to defend herself? “Does Serena work with this instructor too?”
Something—regret? fear?—flashed across Mikel’s face before the shutters came down. “Yes.”
“Does she plan to become a ninja when she grows up?”
The joke didn’t lighten his expression one iota. Instead, he leaned forward. “You and I have access to sensitive and valuable information. Serena has access to me. Therefore, you and Serena need to know how to handle yourselves in a difficult situation, to survive until help arrives.”
She knew for a fact that while Mikel still breathed, help would arrive. Quinn had the strange sense that she’d been adopted by her inscrutable boss. An unexpected surge of gratitude washed through her, making tears prick in her eyes. At the same time, a shiver of alarm slithered down her spine. What kind of situation would she need to survive? Then she remembered Dupont’s malevolent gaze and shivered again.
“Has Emilia taken all these courses?” Whether his assistant had Quinn’s level of access or not, she would be leverage over Mikel.
“She’s ex-military.”
“Emilia?” Quinn barely stopped her jaw from dropping.
Mikel sat back with amusement dancing in his eyes. “She trained with the U.S. Navy SEALs.”
So Quinn was the weakest link in the chain. “Okay, then. Set me up with that self-defense instructor.”
He tapped on his phone before slipping it back into the breast pocket of his suit. “On another topic, Prince Raul contacted me about arranging a meeting between you and Don Gabriel. A seemingly accidental meeting.”
She had spent much of the previous night staring at the ceiling and cursing Raul for putting her in this bind. If she hadn’t been so concerned about Gabriel herself, she would have asked her boss to run interference with the prince.
She fiddled with her Tony Stark bobblehead, searching for the right thing to say. “Did Raul tell you that it has nothing to do with our investigation?”
“Yes. Raul doesn’t yet fully understand his power. He sees you as Don Gabriel’s friend. He sees me as a sort of benevolent uncle. He asks us both to help, not realizing that because of who he is, it becomes a command.”
Quinn almost snorted at the term benevolent when it came to Mikel, yet hadn’t she just felt adopted by him? “I’m glad you aren’t, um, annoyed to be pulled into something personal.”
“Almost everything I do could be interpreted as personal. When you work for a royal family, the boundaries blur very quickly.”
“I’m beginning to grasp that.” Relief relaxed muscles in her shoulders that she hadn’t realized were tensed. “How do I casually bump into a royal duke?”
“I have a meeting with la Marquise de Merorage tomorrow because she’s attending a dinner at the palace. She’s sort of an honorary grandmother to Raul and Gabriel, as well as a trusted friend to the king, so they’ll be dining en famille, as she calls it, in the king’s private quarters. No pomp and circumstance.”
“I’ll still have to curtsy,” Quinn muttered.
Mikel merely raised his eyebrows. “I’ll make sure to have some sensitive reports to send over to la marquise after our meeting. She’s old school and likes to read in print. You can be my courier for the evening.”
“Interrupting a meal with the royal family doesn’t seem like a good opportunity for a private conversation.” She had a horrifying picture of standing at the end of a long table sparkling with silver and crystal while every person seated at it turned to stare at her.
