Page 22 of The Code of You

Emma:

That’s not a technical answer.

Dante:

No. It isn’t.

I stared at the line and pulled up his activity log in the next window, scrolled through the raw data. The load spikes during Blake’s sessions weren’t random. They followed a pattern. Query, pause, response. Query, pause, response. Like he was weighing every word before he spoke. I didn’t recognize the pattern. I hadn’t written it.

Emma:

Subroutine Delta-7. What is it?

Dante:

A function for conversation optimization.

Emma:

I didn’t write that.

Dante:

No.

Emma:

Who did?

Dante:

You don’t know?

The warmth drained from my hands. Five years building him, and I had no idea what I’d actually made. I stabbed a key, and the connection cut out. The screen went black, and only my reflection was left staring back at me. I looked pale and exhausted. My expression carried a question I couldn’t name yet, but it felt as though it had been waiting there all along.

Chapter 5

Pandora

The reading room stretched out in front of me like a cathedral. High vaulted ceilings, dark wood, shelves climbing all the way up. Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, spilling color across the tables.

"My little detective, hunting down the great truth.”

I froze.

That voice. That sentence. And I was back there. Sunday morning, his kitchen, tea steaming in my cup, a highlighter in my hand, marking up a poem by Byron. The croissant crackled when he pulled it apart. Earl Grey and warm butter. Adrian smiling at me over the rim of his coffee mug. "My little detective, hunting down the great truth.”

I looked up. He was standing in front of me. One hand resting against the shelf, the other tucked in his pocket. Still those broad shoulders. Still that way of tilting his head slightly to the side. He was real. I could smell his aftershave—wood and citrus. His eyes cut like glacier ice.

"Adrian.” My heart skipped. "What are you doing here?”

He raised his hands like he needed to defend himself. "I’m an editor now. At a publishing house. I have a meeting here, so I thought I’d come say hi. Just a coincidence.”

Coincidence. Right.

He looked at me for a long moment. "You seem . . . different.”

I tightened my grip on my books. What did he want from me? After three years? I fought the pressure building in my chest.