“Baby?” Logan called, stepping over the threshold with a smile on his face. He set his bag down inside the door and toed his shoes off. “There you are.”
He crossed the room to meet her.
She smiled tightly, turning her face to the side as he dipped to kiss her. His lips met her cheek, and she noticed for the first time how all his kisses were just a little wet—unpleasantly so.
He held her at arm’s length, smile faltering as uncertainty flickered in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, forcing herself to smile wider. “Just… tired.”
Of you. Of the bullshit.
All the things she wanted to say were gummed up in her throat, suffocating her.
I know what you’ve been doing, she wanted to blurt.I hate you. You’re a monster. You’ve ruined everything. How could you do this to me? Did you ever love me? Do you have any idea how much I put up with to be with you? Do you think you’re God’s gift?
He ruffled her hair, looking relieved. She smoothed the strands back down with tightly leashed irritation.
“I know the feeling. They’re running us ragged at work.” His gaze shifted to Sam standing behind her. “I’ll have to take him back soon. He’s part of the demo next week.”
She didn’t say anything to that, though the notion made her grind her teeth, and Logan caught her unhappiness.
He gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s grown on you, huh?”
“Yes,” she replied honestly. “He’s… remarkable.”
“Oh, that he is. Decades of work went into him,” Logan said, hands on his hips as he studied Sam with the air of a scientist. “He’s the future of AI.” He chewed his bottom lip for a moment, looking back down at her. “So… you’re really sure? About… using him?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes darting around the room. “Yeah…”
“If you don’t want to…”
“No,” he said quickly, sucking in a breath. “I-I do. We should do it.”
Sam rested a hand on her shoulder, and Logan’s eyes were glued to it for a long, awkward moment.
“Have you… already…?”
“We have not had intercourse,” Sam answered for her.
Logan looked up at him, nodding, not considering for a moment that he might be lying. And why would he? Logan had programmed him. As far as he was concerned, Sam was just a machine.
Machines didn’t lie to their creators. They couldn’t.
“I’ve prepared dinner,” Sam said, stepping back with a sweeping gesture toward the table he’d set. “Have a seat.”
Logan didn’t notice the edge to the command or the wolfish look Sam gave him as he made his way to the table. He winked at her behind Logan’s back, flashing a grin. She gave him a long-suffering glare that didn’t seem to move him at all. He pulled out a chair for her with a flourish.
She sat down stiffly, allowing him to push her in so she was sitting across from Logan as he loaded his plate. He hadn’t even waited for her to sit down. Sam set her plate as she stared at her fiancé. Had everything she’d ever admired in him been a projection of what she wanted to find behind his pretty face?
Sam poured the pricey wine like a sommelier at a nice restaurant before taking a seat.
She pushed her food around the plate as Logan ate. Sam sat between them, his hands folded on the table in that rigid I’m-a-robot-nothing-to-see-here way. His foot found hers under the table, nudging playfully in an annoying way that made her glareat him for not reading the room. Her relationship was about to implode, and he was delighting in it a little too much.
She set her fork down with a heavy sigh, pulling her foot out of Sam’s reach.
Logan finally looked up at her. “Are you alright? You’ve hardly touched your food.”
