My Fake-Rich Desk Mate Is a Billionaire, And I'm His Robot Muse

§PROLOGUE

The man on stage, the one whose keynote was being live-streamed to millions, was supposed to be a ghost.

A phantom from my high school years, a walking punchline I hadn't thought about in nearly a decade.

Yet here he was, projected onto a screen the size of a small house, looking sharper, wealthier, and impossibly more handsome than I remembered.

“The ‘Simone’ android isn't just a machine,” Emrys Covington said, his voice a smooth, cultured baritone that still carried a faint, infuriating trace of a British accent.

“She is the culmination of a dream. A tribute to a muse I once knew.”

The camera zoomed in on the android beside him.

It—she—had my face.

My exact face.

Every freckle, every curve of my lips, the way my left eyebrow arched slightly higher when I was skeptical.

It was me, rendered in silicone and circuits, staring back at myself with an unnerving placidity.

A collective gasp rippled through the auditorium.

My phone buzzed violently in my hand, a frantic chorus of texts from my old high school group chat.

*DUDE. IS THAT YOU?!*

*He made you into a freaking Fembot!*

*OMG SIMONE HE WAS IN LOVE WITH YOU!!!*

My blood ran cold.

I sank lower in my seat, pulling the hood of my complimentary tech-conference sweatshirt over my head.

Emrys Covington.

My high school desk mate. The King of Posers.

He'd designed a robot girlfriend.

And it had my face.

When the reporters finally tracked me down, all I could manage was a tight, brittle laugh.

“Him? Crushing on me? He should have said something sooner. Guess I missed my chance, huh?”

Lies. All lies.

I didn't reject him because I thought he was a poser.

I rejected him because I knew, with the bone-deep certainty of a scholarship kid in a sea of privilege, that we were from different planets.

I just never realized his planet was the one that owned the galaxy.

§01

The first time I met Emrys Covington, he was trying to pay for a ninety-nine-cent soda with a sleek, menacing piece of black metal.

He had just transferred to Bridgewater High, appearing mid-semester with a whisper of old money and a wardrobe that screamed “my father is a senator.”

“No, it’s just… tap to pay,” he was explaining patiently to the vending machine, as if it were a slightly dim-witted butler.

The machine, unimpressed, remained stubbornly silent.

I sighed, fishing a crumpled dollar bill from my pocket.

“Here,” I said, shoving it into the slot. “It takes cash.”

A can of Coke clattered into the tray.

Emrys turned to me, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion.

He was handsome in a way that felt unfair, like a character from a period drama had wandered into our mundane suburban reality.

“Thank you,” he said, his words clipped and precise. “I seem to have misplaced my… smaller currency.”

“You mean cash?” I asked, grabbing my own soda.

“Indeed.”

That was how it started.

Me, Simone Parrish, the girl who calculated the cost-per-ounce of everything, and him, Emrys Covington, the boy who seemed to think the world ran on invisible transactions and silent approval.

He became my desk mate the next day, a fate orchestrated by our chemistry teacher who believed in the educational power of “opposites attract.”

It was more like “opposites barely tolerate each other.”

His side of the desk was an embassy of a foreign nation.

A gleaming fountain pen. A leather-bound notebook.

And a glass bottle of water.

I stared at it. “Are you drinking vodka in class?”

“No,” he said, looking down at the bottle as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s just… water.” He considered it for a moment, then added, “Oh, my grandfather insists. Something about plastic leaching chemicals.”

My brain short-circuited.

I leaned closer. “Look, buddy,” I whispered conspiratorially. “If you’re trying to look fancy, you’re doing it all wrong. For top-shelf stuff, you should really try a Dasani. Costs a whole two bucks.”

The look of utter bewilderment on his face became my new favorite thing.

My friends found it hilarious.

“You’re like his natural predator,” Dustin Bell said at lunch, snorting milk through his nose. “The BKing-Slayer.”

BKing. Short for Bullshit King.

It stuck.

§02

Living with Emrys as a desk mate was a constant exercise in cultural translation.

“Simone,” he’d say, his voice low and serious. “Regarding yesterday’s misunderstanding, I feel I owe you an apology…”

I’d get goosebumps. “Dude, just say ‘sorry’.”

He looked pained. “It’s difficult. My primary language at home is English. With family, with friends… we all communicate in English.”

This was a fascinating claim, so I asked, with genuine curiosity, “Then why’d you get a C- on the English Lit pop quiz yesterday?”

Silence.

The kids in the rows around us started choking on suppressed laughter.

“It’s okay, I get it,” I said, trying to be helpful and patting his arm. “It’s like Dustin. His native language is English, and he still fails English class all the time.”

Dustin, sitting in front of me, let out a wounded yelp. “Hey! Why am I catching strays here?!”

Emrys claimed he often couldn't find the right words in American English, which was why he defaulted to his more formal, British-inflected phrasing.

“Impossible,” I declared. “American English is the most adaptable language on the planet. It can describe anything.”

He looked genuinely intrigued. “Alright. How would you replace the phrase ‘to check in’ at a hotel?”

“Easy,” I said. “You lean on the counter, slide your ID forward, and say, ‘Hey’.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He processed this for a long moment.

I leaned in. “See? Way more efficient than whatever you were gonna say, right?”

§03

After a few weeks of my… tutelage, Emrys’s American slang saw a marked improvement.

He said his grandfather had recently reinstated his allowance.

To express his gratitude, he wanted to treat me.

My eyes lit up. “Can we go to Frosty’s? For a swirl cone?”

A Frosty’s had opened near the school six months ago.

I hadn’t been yet.

My sheer excitement seemed to convince Emrys that “Frosty’s” was the name of some exclusive, high-end dessert boutique.

“It must be a very luxurious brand,” he mused.

“Oh, it’s the height of luxury,” I assured him. “Not everyone can afford such a delicacy.”

When we walked in, he was so formal he’d buttoned the top button of his polo shirt.

He stood there, taking in the sticky floors and the cheerful, slightly chaotic ambiance, as the cashier yelled, “Next! What’ll it be?”

“One ninety-nine-cent swirl cone, please,” I said.

Emrys watched, fascinated, as the girl behind the counter expertly dispensed a perfect spiral of soft-serve into a wafer cone.

Then he stepped forward, pulling out his black card.

“I’ll be settling the bill,” he announced, holding the card between two long, elegant fingers. “Swipe, please.”

The cashier gave him a withering look. “Got Apple Pay? Card tap? Cash?”

Emrys had none of those.

I ended up paying.

He transferred the ninety-nine cents to me the moment he got home.

I shouldn't have, but I asked him what his plans were for the weekend.

“I’m heading back to the ancestral home to dine with my grandfather,” he said. “Then I have to fly to New York for an auction.”

“Oh, right, auctions,” I said, nodding seriously. “Almost forgot, I have something I need to bid on, too.”

He looked surprised. “Christie’s, by any chance?”

I had no idea what that was. “Amazon,” I said. “There’s a flash deal. A twenty-seven-pack of Hello Kitty themed toilet paper for one cent.”

The silence that followed was a masterpiece.

§04

I was a scholarship kid.

I knew what it was like to feel out of place, to not have the right clothes or the right background.

My whole life was a masterclass in faking it till you make it.

I figured that was Emrys’s deal, too.

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