“You said you expected Australia to become your home,” he continued. “That suggests you’ve been evaluating ways to remain.”
My shoulders pulled in. “I mean… yeah,” I admitted. “I’ve been looking.”
“What have you found?”
I huffed a quiet breath.
“Not much,” I said honestly. “Most places want people with permanent status already. Or long-term sponsorship lined up. Or more experience than I’ve got.”
“All manageable variables,” Tobias said.
“I don’t really have a lot of leverage.”
“You do.”
I looked at him and saw that his expression hadn’t changed.
“You have specialized knowledge,” he said. “You’re observant, careful, consistent. You’re attentive to detail in a way most people are not. Not only that, you’re passionate about what you do.”
I stared at him because nobody had ever listed things about me like that before.
Not like they were assets; not like they mattered.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “I still want to see the aquarium first.”
“Of course.”
5
Cove
The car was already waiting at the curb when I stepped outside my apartment building, with an unfamiliar man standing beside the rear door.
Waiting.
For me.
“Mr. Sinclair?” the man asked as I approached, his gaze hidden behind black sunglasses. He looked to be in his late twenties to mid-thirties, but then again, I was pretty awful at guessing ages.
“Uh, yes, that’s me. But I really just go by Cove,” I answered, unable to see through the car windows from how tinted they were. Honestly, I’d just sort of assumed this was Tobias’s car since this neighborhood tended to lean more toward reasonably priced sedans or pickup trucks, and whatever kind of car thiswas, it looked like it cost more than I would go for on the black market. “Who are you…?”
“My name is Ben. I’m Mr. Kelly’s personal assistant.”
“Do personal assistants usually drive their bosses around?”
A genuine question.
Ben huffed out a laugh, the sunlight catching in his blonde hair, and the corner of his lip tilting up. “No, they usually do not. But it’s what I end up doing whenever Mr. Kelly doesn’t want to drive. Today, he said he wanted to be able to talk to you without any distractions during the ride.”
“Oh, okay.”
I wish I could make other people do things for me that I didn’t feel like doing.
Ben opened the back door, and with an incline of his head, ushered me in. I climbed in, automatically ready to pull the door shut myself, but nope, Ben had already closed it behind me.
“Hello, Cove.”
I startled, remembering that there was another person back here with me. I turned from the door to face him, my eyes going big at how fucking fancy the interior was. There were just two seats, but they looked more like first-class airline seats than car seats. The carpet looked plush beneath my feet, and each of our seats had a tablet mounted to the wall in front of us. And yes, I say “wall” because that’s literally what it was. I couldn’t see or even hear Ben.
