Page 75 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

His lips curved with sat­is­fac­tion, but he didn’t re­lease her gaze. “Why is it a bad idea?”

“Be­cause I’m go­ing to get hurt.” Pos­si­bly even worse than hurt. De­stroyed.

“You think very poorly of me, then.” His eye­brows drew down.

“I think things are ex­pected of you.”

“I fol­lowed my heart when it came to my mu­sic.” His voice vi­brated with con­vic­tion. “I will fol­low my heart when it comes to you.”

Quinn still needed to go to New York with Gabriel, by royal com­mand. Now was not the time to kick over the ap­ple cart. She stood on her tip­toes to press a quick kiss on his tight lips. “Let’s hope your heart doesn’t lead you astray.”

Chap­ter 21

Quinn stared at her com­puter screen with bleary eyes and thought about tak­ing a lunch break. For the past day and a half, she had spent long hours dig­ging into the back­ground and move­ments of each mem­ber of the crew from the Lake Como rob­bery, build­ing a web of con­nec­tions around Jean-Pierre Dupont. Mikel had used the in­for­ma­tion to tip off the French po­lice na­tionale so they could pick up a cou­ple of the thieves. He hoped to get a re­ac­tion of some kind from Dupont.

What nei­ther one of them could fig­ure out was why Dupont had tar­geted a high-pro­file fig­ure like Raul and upped the stakes by cut­ting off Gabriel’s ear be­fore send­ing the ran­som de­mand. Even for a nasty char­ac­ter like Dupont, it didn’t make sense. They were miss­ing some­thing sig­nif­i­cant. Quinn had to keep try­ing new an­gles.

Gabriel had spent that same time at the palace prac­tic­ing un­til his fin­gers bled. He came to her place late, ate din­ner, and made love with a fierce des­per­a­tion. When she tried to bring up the topic of the kid­nap­pers, he shut her down. She hoped like hell he was work­ing out his emo­tions in his mu­sic.

“Quinn, would you join me in my of­fice?” Mikel’s voice came through the in­ter­com.

Re­lieved to rest her eyes, she trot­ted into her boss’s of­fice and perched on the usual an­tique chair.

“What’s up, jefe?” she asked, swal­low­ing a yawn. The sex with Gabriel was great, but she wasn’t get­ting enough sleep.

Mikel’s an­gu­lar face lit up with an evil glee that Quinn rec­og­nized as an­tic­i­pa­tion. She loved that look be­cause it meant that they had got­ten a step closer to catch­ing Gabriel’s kid­nap­pers.

“Last night, Jean-Pierre Dupont ar­rived in Cal­eva un­der his best-known alias. He just con­tacted me about a face-to-face meet­ing.”

“Holy shit! It worked!” She didn’t apol­o­gize for her lan­guage. Mikel would un­der­stand. “Why would he use an alias that’s easy to rec­og­nize, though?”

“He wants me to know he’s here,” Mikel said. “Re­mem­ber when you in­sisted that I tell the po­lice about the stolen ar­ti­facts from the Lake Como rob­bery?” Mikel leaned back in the chair, sat­is­fac­tion in ev­ery line of his body. “I de­cided to use it to our ad­van­tage. When I told the Ital­ian cara­binieri where to find the stolen art­work, I might have sug­gested that they men­tion my name as their source. Dupont has to be very an­noyed with me right now.”

Quinn shiv­ered. Dupont was a crime boss who con­trolled an em­pire that in­cluded a cadre of stone-cold killers. Her boss’s lack of fear spoke to the dark­ness in his own past.

The light in Mikel’s eyes changed to worry. “He wants to meet with me, but there’s a wrin­kle. He in­sists that you come too. He asked for you by name. I, of course, re­fused his de­mand.”

“Me?” Quinn squeaked. “Why would he want me? I’ve never had any con­tact with the man be­fore Lis­bon. Could he have con­nected me with that some­how?” The thought of the crime boss track­ing her down all the way to Cal­eva made her throat tighten.

“I don’t know how he would have, es­pe­cially since he did not men­tion Lis­bon. Per­haps through your fa­ther? They do not op­er­ate in the same cir­cles, but they are both part of the crim­i­nal un­der­world. I am more con­cerned that he has dis­cov­ered you are part of the kid­nap­ping in­ves­ti­ga­tion, in­for­ma­tion he should not have ac­cess to.” Mikel looked un­set­tled. “You don’t have to do this. I will go with­out you. He will have to ac­cept that.”

Her cu­rios­ity was more pow­er­ful than her sense of self-preser­va­tion. “I’ll go as long as you’re there.”

“Quinn, if he didn’t make the con­nec­tion be­fore, he will rec­og­nize you from Lis­bon,” Mikel said. “He will be an­gry.”

“Since he asked for me, I’m on his radar al­ready.” She would rather find out why Dupont wanted her there than sit in the of­fice like a cow­ard.

“I knew that would be your an­swer.” The covert ap­proval in his eyes sent a glow through her chest. “You’ll wear a bul­let­proof vest, even though the agree­ment is no weapons.”

She was pretty sure her boss could kill some­one with his bare hands, so that wasn’t re­ally a draw­back. “Where are we meet­ing?”

Mikel blew out a breath of frus­tra­tion. “We’re meet­ing out­doors well away from any build­ings or other cover. I’m sure he’s al­ready got some­one watch­ing the site, so I can’t plant any elec­tron­ics there. He also didn’t give us time.” He glanced at his watch. “We must be there in thirty min­utes. Emilia will help you with the vest.”

When Quinn walked into the re­cep­tion area, Emilia al­most smiled as she stood up with a black vest in her hands. “You’re to wear this over your cloth­ing so Dupont knows you’re pro­tected by Señor Silva. I will help you put it on prop­erly.”

Emilia looked ev­ery inch the prim re­cep­tion­ist, from her neat bun to her sen­si­ble black pumps. How­ever, she knew how to strap on a bul­let­proof vest be­cause she had trained with the U.S. Navy SEALs. That still blew Quinn’s mind, but she didn’t squirm while Emilia yanked the straps tight.

Mikel strode into the re­cep­tion area, dressed in his tai­lored char­coal suit, white shirt, and yel­low tie.

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