“I can get it for you.”
“No. That’s for me to do.”
Greg just nods, translating my directions into text message form.
“And Fluff and Fizz, my assistants. Everyone else can just … wait. Or reach me through F&F.”
Greg’s thumbs are flying across the screen, texting someone not in my contacts list. The tech, I assume.
“And Eli has that note document thing he keeps updating,” I say, gazing back out the window and already feeling lighter. “I can’t outright block him this early in our relationship. Oh, and my fucking law firm. I suppose I can’t block them either. They’re seriously freaking out. Like, in glee, ever since I had them make that lump-sum investment in Christoph’s vineyard. Plus I’m buying all this shit that Eli thinks I need to own now. We need to own. For the bond group.”
“And your socials?” Greg asks, clearly reading the question off the text chain he’s now got going on my phone.
“Fluff and Fizz run them. Mostly. So they’ll still need access. Why the fuck doesn’t the archduke of Austria have a security detail?” I ask, fairly caustically. “Christoph is, like, fifth in line for the fucking throne, isn’t he?”
“He’s monitored, but refused a personal detail,” Greg says. “That wasn’t an option for you.”
The cat shifter sounds just a little smug about that. But if Mirth needs to know I’m as safe as I can be, then I don’t give a shit if the royal guard thinks I’m a pushover for her. Christoph will fold just as fast if given the chance.
Silence stretches between us until a cloud-shrouded university campus comes into view, then we start winding through the narrow streets that stretch between buildings. Unlike the city center of Dublin, the campus of the University College Dublin is mostly mid-twentieth-century architecture.
“You know exactly where he is?” I ask, meaning Rian— and knowing I shouldn’t be surprised at the response.
“We do.”
“Since I asked you to take me to him?”
Greg smirks, just a little. “Since he stepped off the property.”
Left Lake Thun Castle, he means. “So you track all of us?”
Greg hands my phone back to me. “Anyone important to Her Royal Highness always has some kind of overwatch.”
“The kids? You got Tommy that phone Mirth wanted him to have?”
“I did. Had to practically blackmail him to get him to take it from me.”
I bark out an involuntary laugh, already liking the little asshole way too much for someone I haven’t even met yet. But then, I’d probably love anyone Mirth picked. My soul is aligned with hers, after all.
“So you’re tracking the kids too?”
Greg grimaces. “The phone is rigged with all the same security, plus tracking hardware and software, but … they’re minors. And we don’t really have any jurisdiction. Not legally.”
“But Mirth feels like she has some connection to them.”
“She does.” He hesitates for a moment. Again, we don’t know each other very well. “I haven’t been on Mirth’s detail for long, and she’s been … deep in mourning for most of our time together. But I … I already know to trust her, to trust her instincts. She’s not just …”
“Some pampered princess,” I say, just a little mockingly. “Or some wildcard. Not like Armin.”
Greg checks his own phone, swiping through a few notifications, so I let the topic drop until the SUV pulls to a stop at the back entrance to one of the university buildings. A smooth, near-white concrete block speckled with perfectly matching square windows, which are barred on the lowest level. Three or so storeys tall.
Greg reaches for the handle of his door.
“I don’t want to be dragging you with me into every conversation,” I say.
He nods curtly. “I’ll see you to where you need to go, then give you as much space as the situation allows.”
So ‘always within sight,’ he means. And definitely within hearing— for a cat shifter, at least. I doubt that any of it is negotiable. Being around Armin and Mirth since we were kids has made me accustomed to that type of oversight when in public spaces, but having my movements curtailed, and the lack of privacy, is already chafing me.
