Reeti showed her teeth in a little cat smile. “Says the man who works for his father.”
Ouch.
“By choice,” Tim said. “There’s always a choice.”
The door buzzer sounded.
I looked at Reeti, confused. “Did you call Fiadh already?”
“No.” She pressed the intercom. “Who is it?”
“It’s Vir. Let me up.”
“Vir? Here?” I asked. “I thought he was in London.”
Reeti pressed a hand to her heart. “No,” she said. To him? To me?
“We need to talk,” said Vir’s disembodied voice.
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” Reeti declared.
“Will you at least listen?”
She mashed the button to admit him, marched to the door, and flung it open before retreating across the room.
“Who’s Vir?” Tim asked.
“Her match,” I explained.
We listened to his footsteps on the stairs.
“Hello?” He appeared in the doorway: cute, slim, with curly dark hair and a short, neat beard. “Reeti, I—” He stopped when he saw us. “Hello,” he said again.
“Hi,” I said.
Tim nodded in acknowledgment.
“I’m Vir Singh Batra.”
“They know who you are.” Reeti gestured toward us. “My friends, Dee and Tim.”
He smiled politely before turning to Reeti. “Can we talk?”
“I can’t stop you.”
He glanced at us. “Somewhere we can be alone.”
“I’ll go,” Tim said.
I hugged Reeti. “I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
She gripped my arm. “Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of my friends.”
Vir shifted his weight. Cleared his throat. “I know you’re angry with me. But I don’t know why. I want to make this better.”
“How can I believe anything you say? You said you wanted tomove our relationship to the next level. To make it about us. And then you put our families right in the middle.”
“How did I do that?”
