Chapter 4

The ride home was a blur of confusion and disbelief. I sat silently in the passenger seat, my mind racing, trying to process the impossible. Alex-the real Alex-was driving me home. He was alive.

He didn't press me for conversation, just occasionally glanced over with a look of deep concern. When we pulled up to my house, Ethan was standing on the porch, illuminated by the front light. His posture was rigid, a sentinel waiting for my return.

As Alex walked me to the door, Ethan stepped forward, his expressionless face turning into a programmed scowl.

"Who is this?" Ethan asked, his voice flat, but with an underlying current of something that felt like synthetic jealousy. "Where have you been?"

"My car broke down," I said, my voice still shaky. "He helped me."

Alex gave Ethan a long, unreadable look, a look that held a history I didn't yet understand. "Make sure she gets inside safely," he said, his voice polite but firm. Then he looked at me, his eyes full of a meaning I couldn' t decipher. "I' ll be in touch, Sarah."

He turned and walked back to his car, leaving me on the porch with the AI who wore his face.

The next morning, the first thing I did was call Laura.

"Alex is alive," I said, the words still feeling unreal.

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. "What? Sarah, what are you talking about? Are you okay?"

I quickly recounted the events of the previous night. Laura was as shocked as I was. We agreed to meet immediately. While I waited for her, I started my real work. I logged into the Carter-Miller AI corporate network. I was still the majority owner, but I had been a ghost for seven years. It was time for the ghost to come back.

I started by quietly freezing Ethan' s access. Not just to our joint bank account, which was already drained, but to the perks that came with being my companion. The unlimited credit line linked to the company, the access to exclusive clubs and services, the car registered in the company' s name. One by one, I severed the threads of the luxurious life he had taken for granted. He wouldn' t notice it all at once, but the effects would be cumulative, a slow constriction of the world he thought he controlled.

Later that day, I met Laura at a small cafe downtown.

"A coma," Laura said, after I told her everything. "It' s the only thing that makes sense. The hospital must have made a mistake, a mix-up of identities. He was in a coma all this time, and someone else was identified as him."

It was horrifying, but it was the only logical explanation. "But why wouldn' t he contact me the moment he woke up?" I asked, the question tearing at me.

"Maybe he needed time to recover, Sarah," Laura suggested gently. "Maybe he found out about Ethan, and it... complicated things. He probably didn't know how to approach you."

Her words made a painful kind of sense. He wakes up from a seven-year coma to find the love of his life has replaced him with a robot replica.

A few days later, I ran into Brittany. I was at a charity gala, an event I had been forced to attend as part of my quiet re-entry into the corporate world. She was there with a new man, a wealthy-looking, older man who was clearly funding her 'struggling single mother' lifestyle.

She saw me across the crowded room and made a beeline for me, her new benefactor in tow.

"Well, well, look what we have here," Brittany said, her voice loud enough for everyone nearby to hear. "If it isn' t the ice queen herself, Sarah Miller. Finally decided to show your face in public?"

I simply looked at her, my expression calm. "Brittany. I see you' ve found a new sponsor for your drama."

Her face flushed with anger. "This is Mr. Albright," she said, gesturing to the man beside her. "He' s a real man. Unlike that broken toy you keep at home."

"I' m sure he is," I said, my voice cool. "You always did have a talent for finding men to take care of you."

Mr. Albright looked uncomfortable, clearly not expecting a public confrontation.

"Now, now, ladies," he said, trying to diffuse the situation.

Brittany ignored him. She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Ethan will come back to me. You' ll see. He loves me. He' s just confused. He told me last night on the phone."

I felt a chill. Ethan had been calling her. Using the phone I paid for, in the house I owned, to conspire with the woman who had tried to ruin my life.

"You know, Brittany," I said, a slow, cold smile spreading across my face. "For someone who claims to be so in love, you seem to spend an awful lot of time with other men."

I glanced meaningfully at Mr. Albright, who was now looking at Brittany with a new, suspicious glint in his eye.

She recoiled as if I' d slapped her. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing," I said lightly. I took a sip of my champagne. "Enjoy the party."

I turned and walked away, leaving her sputtering in my wake. I could feel her eyes on my back, full of hatred. But I could also feel the eyes of the other guests, their expressions a mixture of curiosity and dawning respect. The narrative was beginning to shift.

Later that evening, as I was leaving, a waiter handed me a small, folded note.

"A gentleman asked me to give this to you, Ms. Miller."

I opened it. The handwriting was neat and familiar.

I need to talk to you. Properly. Meet me tomorrow, 10 a.m., at the old boathouse by the lake.

-Alex

My heart leaped. The boathouse. That was our place, the place he had proposed to me.

I went home to find Ethan waiting up for me, his face a mask of programmed anxiety.

"Where were you?" he demanded. "You didn' t answer my calls."

"I was at a charity gala," I said, walking past him.

"You need to stop this, Sarah," he said, his voice rising. "You need to stop trying to punish me. Reinstate my credit line. I have expenses. Brittany needs things for the baby."

I turned to face him, my patience gone. "Your expenses are no longer my concern, Ethan. And neither is Brittany. Or her baby."

"You can' t do this!" he said, his voice taking on a desperate edge. "We have a life together!"

"No, Ethan," I said, my voice cold and final. "We had a contract. And you have breached it."

I walked up the stairs, leaving him standing alone in the grand foyer of a house that was no longer his home. He was a machine, and his obsolescence was rapidly approaching.