Chapter 4

Vivian had booked me a flight for early the next morning, so I went back to Austin's place to pack.

The moment I stepped through the door, a white porcelain vase shattered at my feet, shards flying everywhere.

I looked up and saw Austin on the stairs, shaking with rage, and Zara tucked prettily behind him.

"Louise! Where did you go? Who gave you permission to leave? Haven't I told you that without my order, you are never to leave my sight?"

I hid the hand the shards had cut.

"Mrs. Abbott asked me to the lab to calibrate some parameters."

My calm seemed to set him off. He came at me in long strides, seized my wrist hard, his face dark.

"Louise, are you asking to be scrapped? Aren't you supposed to receive and simulate human emotion at a hundred percent? Don't you know you're supposed to apologize when I'm angry? Or is your program broken and you need me to reinput it for you?"

I watched him, worked up like this, and on instinct I wanted to hold him, to soothe him.

My hand had barely lifted when Zara stepped over.

She reached out and gave a light tug at the hem of Austin's shirt, carelessly baring a row of suggestive kiss marks along her neck.

"Austin, she's just a robot. I've said it before, the programming in these bionic androids is very unstable. Give her a lesson, force her to remember the order, that's all it takes."

The grip on my wrist loosened. He stared at me and gave a mocking little laugh.

"Right. Just a robot. Doesn't even have a heart."

His eyes held something I couldn't read, and before I could catch it, he flung me down onto the couch.

"Today is my hundred-day anniversary with Zara. You have a bartending function, don't you? Then mix Zara nine hundred and ninety-nine Eternal Heartbeats. Not one short."

I froze.

In my second year as Austin's robot, his illness had turned erratic.

To ease his suffering, I'd spent a week working out the Eternal Heartbeat, whiskey and maple, set alight so it looked like a beating heart.

Austin had been overjoyed, spinning me around in his arms, then dragging me to Dr. Whitney, saying he wanted my program changed, a new command added:

the bartending function could only be started for Austin.

By now he had surely long forgotten that command.

I forced down the ache in my chest, stood, and looked him in the eye.

"Fine, Austin. Nine hundred and ninety-nine. Call it the last gift I'll give you."

He sneered, unmoved.

"Last? Louise, is your brain really that broken? As long as you're by my side, whatever I want, you give me."

I laughed softly and didn't argue.

By tomorrow at the latest, Austin would get the news that his "robot" had been permanently scrapped and gone.

These last few hours by his side, all I wanted was a little dignity.

I stepped around the porcelain shards on the floor, meaning to head down to the villa's underground wine cellar.

I'd reached the door when Austin called out again.

"Wait!"

His emotions turned violent all at once. He slammed me against the wall, his cold eyes fixed on me.

He lifted his blood-smeared left hand in front of my eyes, the same hand that, moments ago, had gripped the wrist the porcelain had cut open.

"Louise, you're a robot. Why are you bleeding?"