Mistaken For His Perfect Synthetic

Summary

My brain was a scorched wasteland. After three consecutive sixteen-hour shifts at the Chronicle, my IQ had plummeted into the negatives. I was a ghost in a trench coat, haunted by deadlines and caffeine jitters.

When I reached my floor, I didn't even look at the door number. I just punched the code into the keypad—my own birthday, a habit I’d never changed. The lock clicked. The door swung open.

But as I stepped inside, the air felt wrong. My apartment usually smelled like overpriced lavender candles and neglected laundry; this place smelled of cedarwood, expensive scotch, and the sterile…