Her fingers were cold, but her palms were surprisingly warm against his skin. He pressed one of his own hands over hers, drinking in more of her touch. It was more vivid than any touch he’d experienced.
A breeze stirred her hair, lashing little strands across her eyes, but she didn’t move to bat them away. She didn’t even flinch, her gray eyes full of concern and wholly focused on him. Like nothing else in this world warranted her attention. A strange, strangling feeling filled his chest.
He should tell her his software had been corrupted for reasons unknown. But Ophelia was dutiful—she would tell Logan, who would whisk him back to the lab to be either recoded or decommissioned for study. The thought, which he had been indifferent to the night before, filled him with dread.
“I am fine,” he lied.
He lied? Hecouldn’tlie. And yet…
He brushed the errant hair from Ophelia’s face as relief swept over it. He enjoyed her little sigh.
He lied again: “Everything is okay.”
CHAPTER 9
Ophelia watchedthe android out of the corner of her eye as they walked back to the apartment. He was startlingly considerate for a being who was invented to have wild sex with people who had lots of money.
“Effie? Is that you?”
Her blood ran cold at the voice calling out to her. She stopped dead in her tracks as dread cracked like an egg over her head, sliding down her scalp. Forcing herself to smile, she turned to face the music.
Laura jogged up to her with a huge pair of headphones hanging around her neck, her red hair pulled up in her signature space buns. A hot pink two-piece clung to her curves, and she carried a yoga mat under her arm.
“I knew it!” She laughed, throwing her arm around Ophelia’s shoulders. The earthy smell of sweat and baby-powder deodorant wafted over her. “It’s so good to see you! What are you doing out?”
“Oh, just… getting my groceries,” she said cheerfully, hoping the way her eyes crinkled looked natural.
She was terrible at this—shifting gears from introspection to conversation without warning.
Laura frowned a little, her eyes dancing over Ophelia. “Where’s your food, then?”
Laura’s gaze shifted as the android stepped closer, like a wall of muscle at Ophelia’s back.
“I am holding it,” he said.
Laura’s brows crumpled, outrage momentarily flickering in her gaze—for her colleague, who she now believed was being cheated on, no doubt—but recognition took root. She sucked in a sharp breath as her jaw dropped. “Thirty-One?”
“That is correct.”
Her blue eyes widened so far that Ophelia thought they might fall right out onto the sidewalk and roll into a gutter.
“What are you doing out of the lab?” she asked, gaze darting between the android and Ophelia.
“Logan took him home to work on him a bit,” Ophelia blurted out before the android could offer up the truth. “He’s trying to spend more time together, you know? Since the big crunch has kept him away so much.”
Suspicion darkened Laura’s gaze, but she allowed the lie to fly, nodding demurely as she studied the hulking android. She leaned in, lowering her voice as she darted looks at the people passing them on the sidewalk.
“You know he can get in so much trouble for this, right? Thirty-One is basically top of the line. He’s the sample bot, so his value is depreciated anyway, but the bidding still starts at a quarter mil.”
Now Ophelia’s eyes were popping out of her head. “H-How much?”
Laura nodded tightly. “If he gets a scratch, they’re going to make Logan cough it up. We’re paid good, but notthatgood, you know?”
She did know. Logan was up to his ears in student loans and other debt, so Ophelia took on the lion’s share of all the bills. Herfather had drawn on his connections to get her through school debt-free—one of the few times he deigned to acknowledge her existence outside of child support checks. She’d been happy to pick up the tab for Logan with her lesser expenses.
Warily, Ophelia looked over her shoulder at the towering sexbot, whose attention, as per usual, was singularly and intensely on her. She shuddered, quickly looking away.
“I have been instructed not to damage myself,” the android said. “You do not need to stress.”
