Free Kingston 691: Book Two of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined by Donna McDonald

logic-driven cyborg whose every memory of me got erased out of existence. I was dumb, dumb, and more dumb to think I could control who and what Norton did to King. First, I spent over a decade’s worth of savings to buy him. Then I spent the rest of my money, and some of yours , to keep Norton from updating him. Did it do me or him any good? No. All I did was postpone the inevitable, which eventually happened anyway. He wasn’t even harmed by it. He came right back, all programmed and ready to be my walking, talking man toy again. I should have been dating plain, old human males, instead of trying to convert the unconvertible. No sane woman falls in love with a cyborg’s damn picture and buys him because of it.”
    “Seetha…”
    “Sorry for the bad language—I picked up the habit of swearing at the guard bot.”
    “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Annalise sighed, lifted her daughter’s hand, and clutched it tightly to her chest. “Listen to me, Seetha Harrington. You were just following your heart every step you took with Kingston. And it may shock you to hear this, but after you left, I married a cyborg myself.”
    Seetha snorted. “I can’t believe you married a cyborg after seeing the hell I went through. Mother, you really are a die-hard optimist.”
    “Our relationship was just platonic. You bought a cyborg for love, but I bought one to save him from a worse fate. The man remains very special to me even though he’s no longer a real part of my life. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told him—I’m glad Dr. Winters liberated him. He deserves to be free to live as he pleases.”
    Seetha sighed heavily and hugged her mother. “I’m sorry you lost another big bunch of money reacting to my freak-out. I’m as sorry for you as I am for myself.”
    Annalise shook her head. She swallowed hard, accepting the time to confess was now.
    “Seetha, I purposely let your house go back to the mortgage company because I needed the money to buy Kingston back from Norton. I knew when you returned him that you were making the biggest mistake of your life. You were hurting so bad you couldn’t see his suffering or how unfair it was for him to just have his life taken away. I couldn’t stop you from sending him back, but I did manage to undo it.”
    Seetha pulled her hand from her mother’s and walked a short distance away. “Are you saying that you bought… King ? That he was with you the whole time I was gone?”
    Annalise bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. I couldn’t stand the idea of some strange woman making him do things to her. It seemed so wrong after seeing the two of you together. Plus, I simply couldn’t bear to lose both of you. While we waited for you to come home, he tended the tomatoes and cooked. I know it was a very boring life for him, but I sincerely believed one day you’d come back and wish you had kept him.”
    Seetha shook her head as she tried to come to terms with what she was hearing. Tears threatened. What her mother did…all the money—the millions—she must have spent to save King…it boggled the mind.
    “I am so sorry…so very, very sorry…that I put us both through what I did. I swear I just wanted to get away from my failed relationship for a while. I wasn’t planning the break to last more than a few weeks.”
    Annalise walked to put her arms around her child, refusing to be pushed away again.
    “You were just trying to survive the pain of losing someone you loved. I know well what that feels like, Seetha. I loved your father…and I loved Lane. I figured King was going to be a captive one way or the other, no matter who had him. At least with me, he was relatively safe…and not being taken advantage of sexually. I don’t know what he’s done with women since he’s been restored, but there was no one the whole time you were gone. He was being faithful to you, even though he didn’t know it.”
    Seetha let the tears leak out. “I have no words of gratitude big