what it means?”
“Yeah, I know what it means.” Kit looked sad then, it was the first time she had had any emotion other than contempt for the whole dating website thing.
“Come on, then, spill.”
Kit sat forward with a heavy sigh and looked right into Paloma’s eyes. “You aren’t going to like it.” Her friend didn’t say anything. She didn’t move, just waited for Kit to tell her what was going on. “Okay,” she sighed again, “when a phone goes to voicemail like that, it usually mean that either service has been cut, but given the fact that dude is probably a billionaire, I doubt it’s that. The other option is that you’ve been blocked.”
“Blocked?” Her eyes widened in surprise before starting to tear up. “But why would he block me? Something isn’t right.”
“Look, P. I know it’s hard, but some guys are just assholes like that. It’s a fact of life. Some women are uber bitches and some guys are dicks.”
“Not Reid.”
“Current evidence points to the contrary.” Kit leaned back in her chair again and put her ear buds in her ears, finished with the conversation. She was officially done with the Paloma pity party.
Frustrated, Paloma retreated to her room and sat down on the bed. Her mind was racing, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Though she had replayed every second of their time together, she couldn’t pinpoint the moment it went awry. She grabbed her jacket and headed out the door, passing a distracted Kit as she went.
The offices of Lovers.com were quiet when she arrived. Her watch told her that she had managed to arrive during the typical lunch hour. “Fantastic, can’t manage to do anything right,” she muttered to herself as she walked through the hallway, peeking into the offices, looking for somebody, anybody, who could help her. In one of the small offices, she found a woman hunched over her computer, clearly busy at work.
Paloma cleared her throat to get the woman’s attention. When she lifted her head, Paloma realized it was the same assistant who had led her into Vivi’s office the first time. The small sign on her desk said her name was Miranda.
“Yes, can I help you?”
“I hope so. You see, I went on a date with a man, and I thought we really hit it off, but now I haven’t heard from him and his phone goes to voicemail and I can’t seem to get ahold of him. I know it’s not really what you do here, but I was just hoping I could get some kind of an answer as to why he has so completely cut me out of his life.”
“Certainly. Have a seat. You’re Paloma, am I right?”
“That’s right, yes.” She was a little taken aback by the fact that the assistant had remembered her name, but tried not to let it show.
Miranda started clicking away at her computer working through files. Her face creased into a frown as she turned back to Paloma. “I think I see the problem.”
“And that would be?”
“Your billionaire match has been reassigned to another woman. He must have had a particularly terrible time. I’m sorry for the trouble, but that’s how it goes sometimes.”
“What? We had a great time. It was so great it extended into the next day.” Miranda gave her a look. “Don’t you dare imply that he dated me just to get laid. I’m not that easy.”
“I’m sure. Perhaps that’s not the issue. At any rate, that’s all I can tell you. He has been reassigned. I can’t tell you to whom, nor would I if I could. We take our high profile clients very seriously.”
Paloma stood, still completely in disbelief about what she had just heard. Was it true that Reid had just wanted to sleep with someone? Was she that desperate that she had fallen for the whole ruse? It couldn’t be. She drove back to Kit’s in a daze, her mind trying to focus on the date again, looking for any sign of arrogance and finding none.
Kit hadn’t moved from her spot on the
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