Chapter 3

My outburst had the originally noisy atmosphere in the office swiftly turning tense.

Quinn walked through the crowd toward me, her expression dark. With a wave of her hand, she gestured for the others to scatter first.

Then, she came to a stop before me and stared at me with an oddly passionate look that made my skin crawl.

"Jackson, stop causing a fuss, will you?" She lowered her voice so that it was only loud enough for the two of us to hear. "I know that you're mad at me for what happened yesterday, but I was only thinking of our future together, alright?"

When she stepped closer to me, the distinct stench of low-quality perfume mixed with body odor reached my nose.

I took a step back in disgust. "Quinn Zote, are you delusional? Why would I have a future with you?"

"Jackson Whiman, stop pretending already!" Quinn abruptly raised her volume into a screech, her hand flying up to clutch her chest as a wounded expression crossed her face. "What is this? Have you forgotten all about me after pulling up your pants? Or could you be testing me?"

I was utterly dumbfounded. Just what sort of crazy nonsense was she spouting?

Quinn grew increasingly agitated as she spoke, eventually digging out a thick stack of photos from her cheap bag and tossing it onto my desk with a smacking sound.

"Take a look at these! And you still have the audacity to say that we're not in a relationship?"

I lowered my eyes to look, but just a glance was enough to freeze my blood in my veins. A layer of cold sweat instantly wet the back of my shirt.

Two figures appeared in the photos, one of whom was a man who looked almost identical to me.

He was wearing an expensive tailored suit of the sort that I had never worn before, and a limited edition Patek Philippe adorned his wrist. Under the dim lighting of a high-end club, he had his arm wrapped intimately around Quinn's waist.

A few of the photos even depicted a luxurious condominium, where the man had Quinn pinned to the couch as they kissed passionately!

"T-These are fake!" My heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears, and my first thought was that these had to have been made with AI. "Quinn Zote, how dare you fake these photos!"

"Fake?" Quinn let out a condescending laugh before pointing at a mole on the man's neck. "Jackson, you actually have that hidden under your collar, don't you? That's what you really look like underneath the clothes.

"Mr. Cardin already told me about how you're the heir to some wealthy family who's come to the branch company to experience life as one of us. At the same time, you're hoping to find a woman who genuinely likes you for you.

"At work, you treat me so coldly, but when in private or at the club, you practically throw yourself at me. However, now that the entire company knows, you're actually putting on airs?"

I clearly knew that something was fishy here, but as I stared at the face in the photo, even I was momentarily dazed and wondered if it actually was me.

AI technology was indeed quite advanced nowadays, but the lighting and details in the photos, even the look in the man's eyes as he gazed at Quinn, were just too realistic—terrifyingly so!

These were far more than simple AI‑generated photos. Someone was systematically stealing my life from me, even somehow managing to clone another me in real life!

"Just what do you want?" I asked.