“I trusted you. I encouraged her to trust you. How the hell could you do this to Cecily?”
“Do what? Norah, what the hell are you talking about?”
“You cheated on her, you slimy bastard. I’m ashamed to have to call you family. And you’d better believe that by the time I get through with you, the wrath of God is gonna look like a church picnic.”
“I knew it.” From the entryway to the next section, Brenda stood, a look of disgust on her face.
Reed shoved away from the door and met Norah toe-to-toe. “What the hell are y’all talking about? I didn’t cheat.”
“Then who the hell is Selina Kyle and why did she say she’s been dating you since August?”
Oh fuck me. He didn’t know how it’d come out. Now was absolutely not the time to ask.
Reed inhaled a long, deep breath and decided he really didn’t give a good damn about Brenda’s feelings at the moment. “She said it because it’s what she was paid to say as part of an invisible girlfriend service I signed up for before Cecily and I got together.”
Whatever Norah had been expecting, that wasn’t it. Pure bafflement cut through a few levels of her anger. “Invisible girlfriend?”
“Virtual Match is a service that provides an invisible significant other—texts, emails, that kind of thing. People use it to prove they’re in a relationship when they’re not. It was Zach’s idea.”
He pulled out his phone and sent Selina a text. Cat is out of the bag. Please reply back with true details about VM service. It’s urgent.
Her reply came almost at once. If you’re sure…
Reed: I’m sure.
Selina: I work for Virtual Match as an invisible girlfriend. Reed and I have never met. This is not my real name, not my picture. There was never any real relationship.
Reed handed the phone to Norah.
“Anybody could say that as a planned cover story,” she retorted.
Yanking the phone back, he pulled up his account, handing it over so Norah could see the profile they’d built that night at Los Pantalones.
“How utterly moronic. Why would you need such a thing?”
“It seemed like a way to put a stop to Brenda’s inappropriate come-ons without embarrassing us both by actually bringing it up as an issue.”
Brenda made a strangled noise and flushed the color of a beet.
“That,” Reed said, gesturing toward her. “I was trying to avoid that.”
Norah squeezed her temples. “Okay, leaving aside the fact that you’re an idiot man, why wouldn’t you have canceled the service when you and Cecily got together? Or told her about it and had a good laugh over it?”
“We got to be friends, so I felt bad for firing Selina when she hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Norah snorted with disgust. “God, that’s so you.”
“I didn’t mention it to Cecily because, frankly, I was a little embarrassed. It was never anything inappropriate and sure as hell never a real relationship. I’d never do that to anyone. How did you even find out about it?”
“Cecily came to me in tears, gave her notice, and withdrew her offer on the train station property.”
Reed felt the blood drain out of his head. “Where is she?”
The last of Norah’s anger faded away, leaving sympathy in its wake. “Gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?” He’d go after her, explain that he was a dumbass and—
“I don’t know. She said she was leaving town.”