Read Dare: A Stepbrother Romance for Free Online Page A

finished my degree when I married him, and I had no real qualifications outside of the job I was working at the time, which was an entry-level reception job. When he left and I had to work again to support us, it was very hard for me to get back into the workforce after taking so much time off. I’m lucky I’ve already made it this far in just seven years, but it wasn’t easy having to spend time away from you to do it.”
    I looked down at my coffee cup, and she squeezed my hand. “I never want you to go through that. That’s why I’ve been so tough on you when it comes to your studies. But you know I wouldn’t do it without a good reason.”
    “I know, Mom,” I replied. I took a deep breath before continuing. “I think…I think I will accept the place Caltech offered me. I know it’s your dream school for me.”
    She smiled widely. “So you’ve finally decided? That’s great, honey. I’m so proud.”
    Truth be told, I still wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to go to Caltech, or even study engineering at all. I’d always been pretty good at math and physics, but that didn’t mean I particularly enjoyed it or wanted to spend the rest of my life doing it. My real passion lay in writing, and what my Mom didn’t know was that I spent countless hours creating all sorts of different worlds and scenarios for the characters I invented on paper. But that was a pipe dream. For every five hundred people that dreamed of being an author, only one or two ever made that dream a reality. Mom was right. I needed to focus on studying something sustainable; something that would support me if I ever needed it. Writing could just be a hobby for me.
    Speaking of that hobby, with all the turmoil in my life at the moment, I was feeling quite inspired. I drained the remainder of my coffee, kissed my Mom on the cheek and then headed back upstairs to my room. I managed to get down a whole three thousand words on my laptop before my cell phone buzzed next to me at around lunchtime. It was Lana.
    “Hey!” she said after I answered. “Are you still coming tonight?”
    “Tonight?”
    She made an impatient clucking sound with her tongue. “Cerie’s cousin is having a party, remember? You’re coming, right?”
    Crap. With everything that was going on, it had totally slipped my mind.
    “Oh, right. Of course I’m still coming. Can you pick me up?”
    “Sure. I’ll be there at about eight. See ya then!”
    I spent the rest of the afternoon writing more. When giving writing advice, a lot of authors said that it was best to write what you know, and I was really taking that advice to heart judging by the story that was coming to life on the pages of my word processing program. It was about a teenage girl who’d been thrust into a world of denial and mental gymnastics when she was forced to live with a sexy new stepbrother. Hmm, I wonder where the inspiration for that came from?
    All jokes aside, there was one major difference between this story and my real life. In the story, her stepbrother was actually a nice guy deep down, and they were going to have a nice happy ending. There was no way anything like that was going to happen between me and Drew. I was going to keep my head down when he was around and try to avoid interacting with him as much as possible, and when college came around, he’d be out of my hair for good. I’d probably have to see him occasionally at events like Christmas and Thanksgiving, but I could manage that.
    At seven, I closed my laptop and rummaged through my closet, looking for something to wear. It was quite cold tonight, so I settled on a pair of jeans, a cream-colored top and a black cardigan with a camel-colored scarf. Modest but stylish, and definitely warm.
    My cell phone buzzed again just after eight with a text from Lana. At ur house. Come downstairs. Xx
    I swiped on some tinted lip gloss before grabbing my favorite handbag and heading downstairs, and my heart sank as I saw Drew in the front yard,