He pulled away as she blinked, returning from delirium. “Let’s go meet your father.”
CHAPTER 15
Ophelia duckedout of the shoe store, stuffing the paper bag into Sam’s arms. She dragged him around the corner to an empty alleyway that vaguely reeked of liquor and piss.
Sam frowned. “Someone has urinated here.”
“Someone’s urinated on every corner of the city. Be quiet and put these on.”
He gave her a haughty look but bent at the waist and carefully swapped out his starkly white uniform shoes for the soft leather boots she’d bought him.
He was passably human when wearing Logan’s clothes, but the shoes were a dead giveaway. No one wore white slip-ons anymore, not since they’d become part of the required uniform for androids.
Gustav had eyed her as they’d left the apartment, but she trusted the doorman to keep things to himself. He wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had in his position if he were the type to narc.
To narc?What was she thinking? By her very nature, she was a born narc. Now, she was helping an android impersonate a human, courting an eye-watering fine from the government if they got caught.
When he was done, he tucked his shoes into the bag and straightened, testing the thick-soled boots.
“I like them,” he told her, looking up.
She couldn’t help the smile that stole over her face. “Good. Now come on.”
It only took ten minutes to walk to her father’s office building.
If she wanted to, she could have come to have lunch with the man any day of the week without hopping on the metro—that’s how close he worked to her apartment. Even so, she’d only visited a handful of times over the years. The last time had been when she graduated. He’d ensured that she got through college without any debt, and his only request had been that she come and have dinner with him to celebrate. It had been an awkward occasion filled with stilted conversation. At the end, he’d clapped her on the shoulder like a colleague, told her she’d done well, and they hadn’t spoken for… well, years.
In front of Optima headquarters, people in business attire poured in and out of the building, dodging one another, mingling, arguing over projects and budgets.
She grabbed Sam by his elbow and slipped through the small side-door, unwilling to deal with the chaotic revolving door.
The damp soles of her shoes slid a little over the polished marble tile as she stepped off the welcome mat. Shoe squeaks and snippets of conversation echoed off the walls of the cavernous lobby, compounding the sensory overload. She stood still, reeling, trying to reorient herself in the space.
“Ophelia?” Sam murmured in her ear, his hand finding the small of her back.
She blinked, shaking herself. “Sorry. It’s just so… chaotic.”
“Yes. I dislike it.”
“Are you sure?” She stepped out of the way with him as someone burst through the door behind him. “Do androids really dislike things? Why would they program you like that?”
His lush mouth thinned, suggesting he very much could dislike things—things like being second-guessed.
“Who knows why you humans do anything?” he said evasively, eyes casting around the room as though he couldn’t decide what to look at. “Where is your father?”
She straightened, remembering why she’d come. “Stay behind me and let me do the talking.”
He gave her an amused look, promising nothing, though he did trail a step behind her as she approached the front desk. The woman standing behind the counter ignored her, typing busily away at a holographic keyboard.
Ophelia cleared her throat.
The woman frowned, but she didn’t look up.
“I’m here to see Sebastian Sinclair,” she said loudly, leaning over the counter.
The woman’s frown quirked into a smirk. She stopped typing to eye Ophelia up and down. “Of course you are. And do you have an appointment?”
“No.” Ophelia rubbed the back of her neck as it heated. “But usually he’ll still see me.”
