Chapter 1

I laid my phone face down on the desk.

Every single pair of eyes in the packed conference room remained pinned on me like needles.

"I've been single my entire life," I said, keeping my voice steady, "That photo is photoshopped."

Zoe’s eyes were still red with tears. However, her hands moved as fast as lightning as she whipped out her phone.

She marched over and thrust her screen right in front of Audrey.

"Look, Mrs. Mitchell," Zoe said, her voice shaking, "Look at what he posted on Instagram last Valentine's Day."

It was a picture of "Harper." Long dark hair, soft side profile, a tiny, subtle curve at the corner of her lips.

The caption read: [Year three with Harper.]

Zoe’s thumb flew across her screen, scrolling through post after post.

"Here's New Year's Eve," Zoe rattled off, "Here's her birthday last month. During the company retreat last fall, he insisted he had to hurry home because his girlfriend was waiting for him. Last year’s New Year’s Eve, he said he’d be counting down with his girlfriend."

She swiped through post after post.

Every single post had come from my account. Every single picture was the digital avatar I had built for Harper.

With every flick of Zoe's thumb, Audrey’s face turned another shade paler, her eyes grew colder.

She pushed the phone back toward Zoe and locked her gaze onto me.

She said coldly, "Dylan, you just said you've been single your whole life. So, who’s Harper? A ghost?"

My fingers clamped tight around the edge of my laptop keyboard.

"The girl in that photo isn't Harper," I said.

"If it's not Harper, then who is it?" Zoe cut in. Her voice quivered with dramatic restraint.

"Dylan, I heard you in the break room last month with my own ears. The director spot was open, and you said if your girlfriend could just get close to Mr. Mitchell, that promotion would be yours."

She bit her lower lip hard.

"I kept quiet for you back then," she continued, tears brimming, "I thought you were just having a temporary lapse in judgment."

"What day?" I asked bluntly, "What time?"

Zoe blinked, taken aback.

"You claimed you heard me in the break room," I said, staring straight into her eyes, "Tell me the exact day and time. There's a security camera right outside the break room, and my keycard logs every time I enter the server room. Name the time, and we can pull the footage right now."

Zoe's lips trembled. Her eyes filled with fresh tears that hovered right on the edge of her lashes, refusing to fall.

"Dylan, how can you do this?" Her voice cracked, sounding like she was choking back tears. "I respected you so much. You messed up, and I tried to protect you, but now you're turning this around and attacking me?"

She spun away from me, turning toward Audrey, her voice breaking between sobs.

"Mrs. Mitchell, I swear I'm telling the truth. He's my mentor, and I wanted so badly for this to be fake. But every single word I heard in that break room was real."

Audrey didn't even glance at Zoe. Instead, she tapped her phone screen and hit play on an audio recording.

A female voice echoed through the silent conference room. It was soft and smooth, with a faint slur of alcohol.

“Mr. Mitchell, thank you so much for driving me back tonight. Do you want to come up for a drink?”

Then came Benjamin's voice, solemn and righteous: “Harper, you've had too much to drink. I'll have the front desk send up some tea to sober you up.”

“What about your wife?”

“I’m a married man. From now on, let's keep things strictly professional.”

The recording cut off with a sharp snap.

Audrey slowly lifted her eyes to mine.

She asked, "Now, how do you explain this recording?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but the words froze halfway up my throat.

That voice was soft, with a subtle upward lilting inflection at the end of each sentence.

I knew that voice.

It wasn't Harper’s synthetic voice model. I had coded and tuned Harper's speech parameters line by line, octave by octave. I knew every single syllable of her generated tone like the back of my hand.

This voice on the recording wasn't generated by an algorithm. It was produced by real human vocal cords, carrying real human breath.

I had definitely heard it before.