Page 13 of Nora
So yes, he knew that Nora was an accomplished veterinarian and that she worked for the Jordanian General Intelligence Directorate. But just because shecouldtake care of herself didn’t mean she had to.
“Get your stuff, Nora. It’s been a long day,” he all but ordered.
She gave him a look but turned and unlocked the door to her room. “I have work, so won’t be good company. Not that you’ve proven to be good company either, so we’ll be well-matched.” She mumbled that last sentence under her breath. He didn’t deign to respond.
She grabbed a down coat, hat, and jacket then rejoined him in the hall with her computer bag slung over her shoulder. He reached for her veterinary bag to take it, but she ignored him. Shutting her door, she started down to the ground floor.
Stepping out into the cold December air, Lucian sucked in a breath. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and a North Face quilted vest, but he wasn’t dressed for temperatures that hovered in the twenties. Unlike Nora, who was bundling up as she walked. How she managed to carry two bags while simultaneously pulling her jacket on, he didn’t know.
“You know you could hand me your bags while you put your jacket on,” he pointed out.
“Yet another reason I didn’t want an escort. You’ve been so pleasant all night. If I’d wanted help, I would have asked for it.”
He scowled at her backside as she marched down the dimly lit path, clearly confident in where she was going. Following her, he decided to keep silent. He didn’t remember Nora being so forthright, and he wasn’t interested in experiencing any more of her ire. Then again, it wasn’t as though he didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t exactly been welcoming.
At that thought, his mind turned dark at the question she’d never answered.
“Is there a reason you couldn’t just tell me if my family sent you?” he asked. It would be like them to do something like that. Despite Nora’s belief otherwise, the Salvittos had the money and influence to do a great number of things. And if his cousin was involved, well, pulling NATO strings wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Nora let out a huff of air. He could hear it, but mostly he could see it in the burst of fog that one of the few path lights illuminated. “You’re confusing me not telling you with you not believing I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t help you with the latter.”
She might have told him her version of how she ended up on the program, but he was certain she hadn’t told him everything. In all fairness, it was also possible she didn’t know everything.
“Why are you so paranoid about that?” she asked, rounding on him as they reached the steps to the clinic.
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not paranoid.”
Again, she arched a brow at him. They stood like that, in the frigid temperatures, for a long moment. Long enough that Lucian started to wonder if maybe Nora was trying to freeze him to death. Not that he’d cave that easily.
Then she shook her head and rolled her eyes, no doubt a trait she’d picked up from his cousin. “I don’t have time for this,” she muttered, then she spun, walked up the steps, and unlocked the clinic door.
A few seconds later, he followed her in. Well, he might have pushed her in. It was fucking freezing out. The portable wasn’t much warmer, but the bite of fresh air wasn’t as sharp. Once the door was closed, his muscles started unlocking, and his body begin to relax.
“Where’s the heater?” he asked.
She waved in the general direction of the far corner, and he walked over to examine it. Nora set her computer bag down on a table, then disappeared into a room with her vet bag and the samples. He set the temperature to something reasonable, then took a seat at the end of the table and pulled his phone out.
He answered a few emails that had come in during the day and checked the cameras on his dogs back in Umbria. He had good caretakers, and his two assistant trainers lived on-site. Even so, he liked to make sure the animals were all tucked in and safe for the night. Especially Mia and her newest litter of seven puppies.
Very little made him smile these days, but the sight of Mia and the six-week-old puppies curled all around her did. Mia was nine years old. The only female from the last litter Alessandra bred. She’d been born after Alessandra died, and Lucian hadn’t been able to let her go. For many reasons, he was glad he’d held on to her.
A chair scraped at the other end of the table, and Nora rose from where she’d been seated. He hadn’t even noticed her reenter the room, let alone that she’d set up her computer and had been working. Glancing at the clock, he realized she must be changing the samples out as the machine could only handle six at a time.
If she was already on the second set, that meant only an hour left before he could return to the residence hall. To be fair, he could return now. Nora had made it clear she neither needed nor wanted him. But staring at the back of her laptop, he wondered what she was working on. He also noticed the computer had a camera. Had she filmed him at all? Maybe sent pictures to his family?
He frowned. The questions he’d posed about whether his family had sent her were, to his mind, reasonable. But even he recognized that thinking she might be filming him bordered on the paranoia she’d mentioned.
His thoughts brought another scowl to his face and when Nora reentered, she paused in the doorway. “I’d ask if everything is all right, but we both know how you’d answer that,” she said. Then with that, she retook her seat and started working on her computer again.
Picking up his phone that he’d set on the table, he brought up a familiar, but not often used, number.
“Did you send Nora?”he texted his cousin, Violetta.
“Did I what?”she responded a few seconds later.
“Did you send Nora?”he repeated.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
