There was no turning back.
Now that he had let her in, no one was going to tell him to let her go.
“No,” he said finally. He gave a solemn shake of his head. “I don’t think I can do that.”
Martin Gates studied him in a searching, scrutinizing glare. Resignation bled into his face and he huffed out a brittle sigh. “Very well. How much will it take for you to comply?”
“A bribe?” Nathan’s voice was cold and level, even while his outrage spiked. “You can’t be serious.”
But Gates was unswayed. “Name your price and it’s yours. She need never know.”
Nathan’s answering curse was ripe with outrage. Dark with fury. “There isn’t enough goddamn money in the world. If you really love Jordana as much as I do, you’d know that.”
Gates reeled back, his head snapping up as if he’d taken a physical blow.
Only then did Nathan realize what he’d said.
He loved her.
He couldn’t bite the words back, not because he’d already let them out, but because they were the truth.
Holy hell … he meant it. He was in love with Jordana.
Gates said nothing, not for a long time. Then, face blanched, hands visibly shaking at his sides, he lowered his voice to a savage whisper. “Stay away from Jordana. Or you will leave me no choice but to make deadly certain that you do.”
A threat? Nathan saw the menace—and the abject alarm—in the Breed male’s dark eyes.
Martin Gates would have Nathan’s head before he allowed him to continue with Jordana. Or, rather, he would try.
Nathan didn’t want to think about a confrontation between the elder vampire and himself. And Gates had to know that taking on one of the Order, particularly a Gen One Hunter like Nathan, would be tantamount to suicide.
Yet that was his intent. Gates would risk anything, including his own life, to keep his daughter away from Nathan.
“Leave my daughter alone,” Gates ground out. Then, as quickly as the threat had been thrown down, he flashed away, vanishing into the thick crowd.
Nathan understood why in that next instant. Jordana was approaching from behind.
Nathan sensed her like a current in his blood. The air stirred with her bright energy. Her voice drifted to him, vibrant and rich, as she accepted praise and offered thanks to the patrons and museum guests who vied for her attention as she made her way through the throng.
He turned toward her, prepared to explain what had happened with her father. But Jordana’s beaming expression stopped him short.
She didn’t know. She must not have seen them talking while she was at the dais.
And Nathan wasn’t going to be the one to ruin her night. Not when she was looking at him with such exuberance and satisfaction. Despite all the eyes on her, she looked at him as though he were the only other person in the room.
“Still want to make good on that promise?” She reached up and touched his face, just the briefest contact.
Old, battered instincts clenched inside him, but newer ones—the ones she’d awakened in him—responded to her fleeting caress with heat and hunger for more.
Mischief danced in Jordana’s ice blue eyes. Her smile broke slowly, seductively. “Come with me.”
She breezed past him, the sight of her bare back in that red dress, her hips swaying with each fluid stride of her long legs, leaving him no choice but to obey. Nathan stalked after her, out of the exhibit hall and into a gallery outside. She kept going, leading him farther away from the buzz and activity of the party.
He was enjoying the view so much he hardly realized what she was doing until she disappeared into the gloom of a nearby office. When he reached the open doorway, she yanked him inside by the lapel of his suit coat and shut the door behind him.
Her mouth came down hard on his as she pushed him backward against a desk.
No warning.