Page 29 of Override

No camera. Even thinking about installing one makes something in my chest recoil sharply.

Thirty seconds later the microphone sits hidden beneath the sink hardware, nearly impossible to detect unless someone physically dismantles the pipes beneath the vanity.

Perfect placement. I reconnect the panel while my mind runs through the logic anyway.

Audio gives me: conversations, emotional state, escalation, patterns. Enough to know if things get worse.

Not enough to steal the tiny scraps of privacy she still has left.

Because despite everything currently wrong with my brain—some part of me still understands certain lines matter.

I’m reconnecting the secondary hallway panel when the estate gates open unexpectedly.

My attention flicks toward the security feed running silently across the tablet balanced beside my knee. SUV approaching. Earlier than scheduled based on the movement logs I intercepted this morning.

Interesting.

Murphy notices it too. “Mrs. Gallagher’s back already.”

Something strange pulls tight behind my sternum at the words. Not anticipation exactly. More like…awareness. Like my brain suddenly shifts priorities without asking permission first.

I tell myself it’s because I’ve spent over a week watching surveillance footage of this woman and finally seeing someone in person after that long would naturally feel disorienting.

That explanation seems reasonable enough. Still, my fingers stop moving over the wiring entirely as the front door opens.

And then there she is. For one brief second my brain genuinely fails to process what it’s looking at. Not because she’s beautiful. I already knew she was beautiful.

I’ve seen her through dozens of camera angles at this point. Charity galas. Hallways. Grainy nighttime footage from the upstairs landing while she wandered the estate unable to sleep. I know exactly what Maeve Gallagher looks like.

But cameras flatten people. Real life doesn’t. Real life has movement and warmth and presence. Real life has rain catching in dark auburn hair while she steps from the SUV looking distracted and elegant and tired in a way most people would never notice unless they were specifically looking for it.

Unfortunately for both of us—I am specifically looking for it.

The security guard says something beside me that I don’t hear. Because the second Maeve looks up and our eyes meet, something in my chest shifts hard enough to physically throw me off balance for half a second. Not lust. Not obsession. Not anything clean enough to label immediately.

Just…recognition.

The kind that feels deeply inconvenient. My pulse stumbles once against my ribs while she freezes near the entrance beneath the rain-darkened light spilling through the open doorway. And Christ. The surveillance footage did not prepare me for her eyes.

They’re sharper in person. More expressive. You can actually see the intelligence moving behind them in real time, hidden beneath all that careful composure she wears around everyone else.

For one impossible second, it genuinely feels like she looks directly into me instead of at me.

Which makes absolutely no sense. She doesn’t know me. Technically, we’ve never met. Still, something about the moment lands strangely deep beneath my skin anyway.

I become abruptly and painfully aware of the fact that I know things about this woman. Not invasive things. Not private things. Patterns. The way she smooths her expression before answering Ronan. The way she exhales when entering unwatched rooms. The difference between her real smile and the polite public versions. The fact that she touches the ring on her right hand whenever she’s anxious.

And standing here now, seeing her in person for the first time while all those observations sit in my head, feels unexpectedly intimate in a way I absolutely did not prepare for.

That’s…probably unhealthy.

Mental note: ask Rachel later if this is what emotional attachment feels like or if I’m developing some kind of neurological condition.

Honestly could go either way.

Maeve’s gaze catches on me fully now, and I watch the exact second she realizes I’m not part of the regular staff. Tiny pause. Tiny shift. Her breathing changes almost imperceptibly.

Interesting.