Jordana shrugged. “I don’t spend much time at the club normally. The only reason I went tonight was because I knew Carys was there with Rune.”
“Looked to me like you were having a pretty good time up there in the front row outside the fighting cages.”
She frowned, hating that she’d let herself get caught up in the seedy entertainments of the club. Elliott would be upset if he found out, but her father would likely go apoplectic if he found out she knew the place even existed, let alone that she’d been inside.
“Of course, I don’t condone the violence of the matches,” she murmured, “nor the fact that profits are being made off spilled blood. It’s an appalling business.”
He grunted. “The fights aren’t the only way La Notte’s owner fills his purse.”
Jordana knew he wasn’t talking about the bar and dancing at street level, nor the sim lounge where people could slip into their choice of several virtual reality landscapes at a hefty hourly rate. “You mean the BDSM dens downstairs.”
Nathan swung a dark look on her. “You know about the sex rooms?”
“I haven’t actually seen them,” she hedged. “Carys told me about them.”
He cursed, low under his breath. “Don’t tell me Rune has taken her in there. For fuck’s sake, tell me he doesn’t do that with her—”
“No.” Jordana gave a dismissive shake of her head. “No, of course not. He might make his living in the cages, but Rune’s nothing but gentle with Carys. He’s protective of her, always. He wouldn’t even want her near that part of the club.”
Another grunt from Nathan, this time with a mix of relief and something else that Jordana couldn’t discern. He seemed to grow more tense now, staring back at the road ahead, a muscle ticking hard in his jaw. “If Rune truly cared about Carys, he’d make sure she never stepped foot in La Notte at all. It’s no place for you either.”
Jordana arched a brow. “Now you’re starting to sound like Elliott. He’s all but forbidden me from the place.”
Nathan gave her a sidelong look. “And yet you went there tonight.”
“Elliott Bentley-Squire doesn’t own me. I’m perfectly capable of handling myself.” She scoffed lightly, realizing how perfectly incapable she must appear to Nathan right now. “Well, I can usually handle myself. Tonight was an exception. I’m embarrassed that you feel you have to see me home.”
“It’s nothing,” he replied.
But it was something to Jordana. It was a chivalrous gesture from a man who hadn’t exactly struck her as the noble type. She would not have imagined he’d had it in him, considering he was more accustomed to combat and brutality and death.
There was probably a lot she had to learn about Nathan, and as she studied his grave profile, she found herself hoping she might have the chance to understand everything about the remote, unreadable man.
“Before we left the club,” Nathan said, “you told me you didn’t want to go home alone. What was that about?”
Jordana tried to wave off the question. “It was silly. Something happened at work tonight as I was leaving, and I got spooked. I’m sure it was nothing.”
“What happened?” Nathan was all warrior now, no longer posing a light inquiry but demanding an answer.
“I thought I saw someone outside the museum tonight, as I was heading for my car. I thought he was watching me.” It sounded foolish to her now, even though at the time she’d been more than a little rattled.
“He,” Nathan said, his deep voice edged with suspicion and a protectiveness that surprised her, warmed her. “Did you see this man? Did he threaten you in any way?”
“No,” she replied. “No, nothing like that. I saw someone standing outside the museum as I was leaving, that’s all. As I said, I’m sure it wasn’t anything but my imagination running away with me.”
Nathan made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded less than convinced, but he didn’t press any further. “We’re here,” he announced, slowing down as they approached her building. He drove around to the underground parking, then found Jordana’s assigned space without her telling him where it was.
She stared at him from the other side of the vehicle as he killed the engine and handed her the remote starter. “I can’t decide if I’m impressed or unnerved that the Order not only knows where I live but where I park my car.”
“Not the Order,” he said, slanting her a look that made her nerve endings tingle in response. “Just me.”
Nathan didn’t give her much chance to process that information. Before she could stammer a reply, he was already out of the car and coming around to the passenger side. He opened the door and took her wrist to help her to her feet. His strong fingers clamped around her in a grasp that was equal parts command and comfort.
Heat sizzled through their connection, and Jordana struggled to appear unaffected as she came to stand in front of him with hardly two inches of space between their bodies. “Well,” she said, forcing a lamely polite smile. “Thanks again for seeing me home, Nathan.”
“You’re not there yet.”
When she would have demurred, he released his grasp on her and gestured toward the elevator leading to the lobby of her building. He strode alongside her to the waiting lift and rode up with her.