“How?” Gabriel asked. “By marrying me? That plan only works if I’m on board with it.”
Hector shrugged. “That’s one way to do it.” He moved out onto the veranda with them, but instead of taking a chair, he started pacing back and forth across the terra-cotta tiles of the patio. “Another way is to remove the Montoros entirely. If the Montoros and the Salazars were scandalized or discredited, Senorita Espina’s family would be the next in line.”
Gabriel had no idea that was the case, and judging by the surprised drop of Serafia’s jaw, she didn’t know it, either. “But there are several of us in line. They’d have to discredit us all, not just me.”
“There are fewer of you than you think. Your father and brother have already been put aside. That just leaves you, Bella and Juan Carlos. Don’t think it can’t be done.”
“There is no way that Juan Carlos can be discredited by scandal,” Gabriel insisted. “He’s annoyingly perfect.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Hector said. “That article insinuates that Serafia was deliberately planted within the royal family to undermine you from the inside.”
“She’s here to help me!” Gabriel shouted. He was irritated that this stupidity had ruined a perfectly beautiful morning.
“Is she?” Hector stopped moving just long enough to look over Serafia with suspicion.
“Of course I am. How dare you suggest otherwise?” Serafia flushed bright red beneath her tanned glow.
Hector raised his hands in defeat. “Fine. Fine. But the accusations are out there. We have to figure out how we’re going to address them.”
“They’re ridiculous,” Gabriel said. “I don’t even want to address the rumors. At least not yet. It could all blow over if we treat it like the unfounded gossip it is.”
Hector nodded and stopped pacing long enough to take notes in the small notebook he had tucked into his breast pocket.
“I just don’t understand,” Serafia said. “The press was so positive toward our relationship just a day ago. What changed so quickly?”
Hector put his notebook away and turned to look out at the sea, his fingers tapping anxiously on the railing. “My guess would be that someone leaked the story to discredit Serafia.”
“Why?” Gabriel asked. “What could she have done to anger someone so quickly?”
Hector’s gaze ran over Serafia with his lips pressed together tightly. “She didn’t do anything. My guess is that it was your doing. You rejected the daughters of all the wealthiest families at the Rowling party.”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Even if I hadn’t left that night with Serafia—which really means nothing, since she’s staying here with me for work—only one woman can be chosen as queen. There were easily twenty or thirty girls there that night. How could I possibly choose without offending someone?”
“It bet it was Felicia Gomez,” Serafia said, speaking up. “Yesterday’s incident just compounded their irritation over the party. The Gomez family doesn’t like to lose and as I recall, you didn’t even dance with Dita that night. I imagine Felicia would see that as a major snub. Combine that with yesterday after the parade... I’m sure they ran right to the press after we left. She can’t take it out on you, as king, so she focused her ire on their main competition—me.”
Gabriel muffled a snort and shook his head. “They wouldn’t go to this much trouble if they knew the truth.”
“What’s the truth?” Serafia asked.
Gabriel looked into her dark eyes with a serious expression. “They’re hardly your competition.”
Nine
“How, exactly, did you come up with a boat?” Serafia asked as she turned to Gabriel.
Gabriel looked up from the wheel of the yacht and grinned. After a morning of unpleasantness with Hector, he’d had Luca arrange for the boat to go out. He needed to escape, to think, and there was nothing better than the sea for that.
Marta had packed them a picnic basket so they could dine on the water. The sea was calm and the breeze was just strong enough to fill the sails and keep them from getting too hot. “Turns out it’s mine,” he said. “Or at least it is now. I thought it was a good day to be out on the water.”
“To escape the press?” she asked.
He chuckled and shook his head. “That’s just a bonus. Mainly I wanted to see you in a bikini.”
Serafia smiled and held out her arms to display her mostly bare curves. She was wearing a bright blue-and-pink paisley bikini top with a pair of tiny denim shorts that made her legs look as if they went on for miles. He ached to touch them, but he needed to steer the boat.