Read Bend (A Stepbrother Romance) for Free Online

of the piano pictures I took, though. You looked so… intense.”
    “Yeah?” Interesting.
    The limo pulled to a stop a moment later. Cameras flashed through the tinted windows. They wouldn’t be able to see us inside but they were so eager for a photo that they couldn’t stop their itchy trigger-fingers. “You ready for this?” I asked.
    “Nope!” she said brightly, “But let’s do it anyway.” She looked pale. I knew from the night before that the girl had stage fright or something, but she didn’t let it stop her, so I wasn’t going to call attention to it.
    I flung the door wide and stepped out first. I had to squint against the onslaught of flashes. People called my name to either side of the carpet, behind the ropes, but I ignored them. Reaching down, I helped Cadence step out of the limo.
    “Who’s the girl?” multiple voices demanded. She clutched her camera and smiled a tight smile up at me as we made our slow way to the front door. “Keir! Keir! Tell us who your date is!” I paused and posed out of habit, but I didn’t answer any questions. Sloane could fill them in later, if they really wanted to know. I just wanted to get her inside and keep Cadence to myself.
    I led her through the front doors and into the ballroom where the dinner was taking place. It looked like every other dull event I’d attended that year, with multicolored lights, linens draping from the ceiling, tall flowers everywhere, and I whisked us straight toward our assigned table. Cadence, though, was enthralled.
    “It’s fancier than any wedding I’ve been to,” she said. “Is everything always like this?”
    “I guess,” I said. I thought the whole thing was overdone to death. I could see how someone would be impressed by the sheer size of everything, though. The expense of it all.
    It felt more about showing off than collecting money for charity, if you asked me.
    But I kept my shitty opinions to myself. Cadence was snapping photos and positively beaming, lighting up the room without even realizing it. I rested a hand on her bare shoulder and asked, “Want a drink?”
    “Yeah,” she said, leaning into my touch.
    I turned to flag down a waiter.
    Instead, I came face to face with the last person I wanted to see that night. Or any night again, ever.
    Kelly.
     

CHAPTER FIVE
    Cadence
     
    I was in a state of absolute disbelief. It had started when Keir’s stylist appeared at my little apartment, shooed away my two roommates, and dressed me up in such a way that I barely recognized myself.
    I looked glamorous. I looked hot . “This is amazing,” I said, twirling in a circle in the bathroom mirror. My apartment didn’t have a full-length, but I’d be able to check the rest of myself out in the mirrors in the lobby of my building.
    Not only did he send his stylist, he sent his car. No negotiating car usage with the roommates—who were also car mates—and no calling a cab or trying to navigate the bus system. I got to ride in a comfortable town car and then in Keir’s limo. A limo! I’d never ridden in a limo, not even for my high school prom.
    It really was a different world that these celebrities lived in.
    Keir looked amazing when I finally joined him. Cleaner than the night before but still every bit a bad boy musician. The only thing he was missing was an instrument or a microphone.
    I floated through it all like I was on a cloud—the red carpet, the fancy venue, all the beautiful people we saw inside… I should have known that something would come along and burst the bubble.
    “Kelly.”
    Keir’s ex, as of the night before. I couldn’t imagine she’d be too thrilled to see me there with him, and wished that the floor would open up beneath me and let me drop out of view.
    Instead, I did what I always did to avoid facing reality. I took a picture.
    And why the heck not? The woman was gorgeous. Even as dressed up as I was, I felt like a troll next to her.
    “Keir,” she said, holding her nose in the air