Page 26 of Override

I frown slightly as the gates begin opening. “I thought the system repairs were supposed to take all afternoon.”

“They’re ahead of schedule,” the driver says simply.

Of course they are. Everything in Ronan’s world always runs exactly on time.

Rain taps softly against the SUV windows while the house rises from the gray afternoon like something carved from cold stone and expectation. By the time the vehicle rolls to a stop near the front entrance, one of the security men is already moving toward my door with an umbrella.

I barely notice him. Because the front door opens at the exact same moment. And suddenly there’s a man I’ve never seen before standing inside my house.

Not staff. Not security. Something else entirely.

He’s bent slightly over one of the hallway security panels near the entrance, dark hair falling messily across his forehead while tattooed fingers move quickly over exposed wires and glowing screens. Black long sleeve Henley pushed to his forearms. Glasses sliding slightly down his nose. Focused enough that he doesn’t immediately notice the SUV pulling into the drive.

Then he looks up. And my breath catches so sharply it almost hurts.

Not because he’s attractive. Although he is. Painfully so, honestly, in that dangerous kind of way certain intelligent men become when they look like they spend more time thinking than sleeping.

No. It’s his eyes. Dark. Sharp. Intense enough to feel invasive.

Like the second his gaze lands on me, he sees too much. Not my dress. Not my makeup. Me. The feeling is so immediate and unsettling that my pulse stumbles once against my ribs.

For one strange suspended moment, neither of us moves. Rain falls around me. Security radios crackle somewhere behind me. The estate door remains half open between us.

And he just…looks at me. Not appreciatively. Not politely. Knowingly.

As though we're already in the middle of a conversation I don’t remember starting..

The feeling lands low in my stomach, strange and sharp and deeply unsettling. Not attraction exactly. Something more instinctive than that.

Recognition without understanding. His expression shifts almost imperceptibly the moment he sees me. Tiny enough most people would miss it. I don’t.

Surprise. Like he wasn’t expecting me home yet. The thought sends a strange chill across my skin before I can stop it.

Rain hums softly behind me while security moves around us, but the entire entrance feels too still. Too quiet.

And the stranger just watches me. Not rudely. Not appreciatively. Intently.

The kind of look that makes heat crawl up your spine because it feels less like being admired and more like being studied. Like he'd skipped every polite introduction and gone looking for the parts of me no one else ever seemed to notice.

My pulse stumbles once against my ribs.

Then one of the estate guards steps between us carrying equipment, breaking the moment. The stranger looks away first, attention dropping back toward the exposed wires and blinking system panel like nothing happened at all.

I force myself to move again toward the staircase, but halfway up the foyer steps I glance back without thinking.

He’s watching me again.

Chapter 6

Keaton (Skee)

Getting inside the Gallagher estate turns out to be embarrassingly easy.

Honestly, it irritates me a little.

I expected resistance. Additional verification. Maybe at minimum someone competent enough to question why the emergency security contractor showing up to repair a catastrophic systems failure looked more like he hadn’t slept in three days than an actual corporate technician.

Instead, the second I step through the front doors carrying a black tool case and a tablet, everyone starts treating me like I belong there.