Bend (A Stepbrother Romance) (11 page)

It dawned on me. I'd upset the natural order. Tall, slim, perfectly groomed woman that she was, Wendi simply couldn't understand why a hot item like Keir would be interested in a relatively plain girl like me. It wasn't jealousy exactly but it was something close to it.

Despite all that, I liked this woman anyway. She wasn’t like Kelly at all in that this woman
worked.
I knew a little about her history in the company—she’d started out as a research assistant, just like me. It wasn’t a blog back then—it was a print magazine called Spark and was more about celebrity fashion than gossip. When the blog was born, she was put in charge of it more because nobody thought it would be a success than because they thought she was qualified.

Now the blog was massively popular and the print department was long dead.

With my short stature, sheepish demeanor, and vague dream of being a “photographer,” I could only fantasize about being as successful and respected as her. But if she decided that she liked me, well, it could open some doors.

“Anyway,” she said, moving on, “I’m sure you can guess why I called you in here.”

“You’re hoping I can schedule an interview for one of the writers?” I asked. “I… Keir’s away on tour right now.” I didn’t want to let her down, but I didn’t see how I could hope to get Keir to cooperate with anything I might ask.

She scoffed at my suggestion, anyway. “We don’t care about interviews around here, in case you hadn’t noticed. This is gossip, not reporting.”

“I know,” I said, my cheeks burning. Did she need to be so mean?

Her face softened at my expression. “Listen, if I’m being brash, it’s because I need you to toughen up. We’re actually all friends here, Cadence, when you get down to it. But you need a thick skin in this business. You especially, after your little… indiscretion. People are going to be saying some weird and crazy shit to you.”

“Don’t I know it,” I mumbled, “I already made the mistake of reading some comments online.”

“Good.” She nodded in approval. “Dive into it. Swim in enough shit, you’ll become immune to it.”

I released a breath. “What is it you want me to do?”

“I want dirt, Cadence.” She leaned in close. “I want you to dig.”

CHAPTER TEN

Keir

I was quiet for once. Sloane was eying me suspiciously from across the small fold-down table on my father’s private jet. Sure, it had “Jackal’s Reign” scrawled on the outside, but we weren’t a big enough name for such a luxury. Not without his backing.

Ian had his headphones on and was watching something on his laptop from the row of seats ahead of us, and my guitarist and my bassist, Javier and Adam, were keeping their voices respectably low while they played video games in the back.

All the rest of my crew flew commercial. This was a relatively small private plane, after all. There was only enough room for a couple more people—girls, usually. Women that we would take with us to drink and party on the jet, only to send them home coach.

Not this trip. I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t want to drink, or to party, or to collect any girls.

I was too busy strumming out tunes on my acoustic guitar and scribbling down notes in my leather-bound music book.

“Should we expect a new album soon?” Sloane asked, gesturing at my writing.

I shrugged. It would be nice to put out something new. I was certainly overdue for it. But I couldn’t get Cadence’s song out of my fucking head—that stupid little tune I’d conjured up the night that I’d met her. The tune I kept searching for the perfect words to go along with.

Worlds turn to the tune and the cadence of our heartbeats

There was no point to throwing away a perfectly good song, no matter how I felt about her now. At least, that’s what I told myself. I couldn’t let myself believe that maybe the words still had meaning, that maybe she was still under my skin, that maybe I still cared…

My fury was waning with each passing mile.
Because I’m a sucker. Stupid. Stupid!
But I couldn’t rekindle the same rage.

Instead, where a smarter man would hold a grudge, I just kind of missed her smile.
I’m worse than my father
.

I hadn’t spoken to him since storming out of his house four days ago, aside from brief business-related texts. I didn’t dare ask how his doomed relationship was going, or whether he’d spoken to Cadence since then himself.

“Oh!” Sloane said, derailing the next line that I felt so close to getting right.

“Quit interrupting,” I barked, but she only raised an eyebrow.

“Aren’t you interested in how you and your stepsis were found out?”

I cringed.
Stepsis. Seriously?
“No.”

“No? Even if it’s…” She paused and waited for me to ask.

I sighed and put my guitar down across my legs. “No.”

“It was Kelly,” she said, only stating what I already knew.

“Are we shocked?”

“More like outraged,” she said, scrolling down whatever message it was that she was reading on her phone. “Apparently, she stalked you all night. Followed you out of the dinner, over to the hotel, had some intern wait to spot you in the lobby in the morning…”

“There weren’t any morning-after pictures,” I said. That would have been an awful follow-up to the story—Cadence crying as she fled the hotel. Who knew what speculation would have happened then? Nothing that would have made me look very good.

“Well, the intern fell asleep,” she said, “Kelly fired her, prevented her from getting another job, so the girl’s tattling to one of my sources.”

“I guess this’ll hit the rags soon?” I asked, and Sloane nodded.
It’s a shame Cadence couldn’t break the story herself. Maybe she could have found some positive spin.

As if she’d peered inside my brain, Sloane said, “We ought to give Cadence that story, after all.”

I ran my hand over my jaw. “What story?” Fuck, I was tired of this. I wanted to write, not plot and plan and play these games.

“The one that you were going to leak to her about Kelly, before you decided that fucking her was a better idea.”

I grunted. That didn’t deserve a response at all.

“If you don’t want to talk to her, I could do it.”

I rolled my eyes. “The story’s not even good.” In fact, it was nothing—there was no proof, no nothing to back it up, unless someone tracked down Kelly’s therapist and somehow convinced him to break confidentiality.

It was Kelly’s “the third time I went to rehab” story. Apparently, blowjobs were the currency that bought her an early release. It was a drunken admission that I wasn’t thrilled to hear, and wouldn’t have even necessarily believed if one of her girlfriends didn’t back it up. While laughing. As if the whole thing was some great fun joke instead of incredibly sad and trashy.

Sloane pulled out her phone and waggled it at me. “You have her number?” I asked, my lip curling.

“Of course. It’s my job to stick my nose in your business.” Sometimes Sloane was more of a manager than a publicist—probably because my father was too busy to do a lot of the work himself. It was an image thing for him, really. He was far beyond managing people, anymore. He managed huge teams and huger budgets, now. But he hung onto me, at least in name.

I was sure he was how Sloane got her hands on Cadence’s number.

“Well?” she asked, as if this were a game of chicken.

“Go ahead,” I shrugged, turning my attention back to my notes. I wasn’t supposed to care anymore. Cadence Ryan was no longer my concern—she was just another leech on my father’s life. One day I’d convince him to finally pluck her and her mother off, but that would have to wait until one or both of them revealed their true natures to him.
“Can we star in a movie? Can we have a reality show?”
It was inevitable.

I pretended not to pay attention as Sloane brought the phone to her ear. She relayed the story with her voice one octave higher, overly sweet and friendly, even calling her “honey.” I couldn’t hear Cadence’s end of the conversation, though I found myself straining my ears for the sound of her voice.

When Sloane hung up less than a minute later, I hadn’t written another single note or word.

I had to change the subject before Sloane started taunting me about their conversation. Maybe I wanted to know what she’d said and how she’d sounded but I sure as hell wasn’t admitting it.“What I want to know,” I said, “Is how Kelly found out about our parents before either of us heard a damn thing.”

“Oh, some computer nerd she called ‘boyfriend’ for a day to get him to do a little research for her,” Sloane said with a dismissive wave of her hand and a disdainful snort. “You know how idiots fall over girls like her. I doubt it took her a hot minute to find someone to do her that favor.”

“Idiots like me,” I snorted.

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “It was all good publicity, either way.”

“No such thing as bad.”

She pointed. “You’ve got it.”

I tuned her out after that. I really was fed up with it all. Why did it feel like I spent more time juggling bullshit than working on my music, all the meanwhile billing myself as a fucking musician? It was fucked up.

At least we had a show that night. We’d be landing in less than an hour and driving straight to the venue for the sound check. We had a second show in Denver the next night, too, which mean two nights in same room. A real luxury while touring as expansively as we were.
Maybe I’ll actually finish this song sometime in between shows
. Assuming I didn’t party too hard.

With the mood I was in, the way I was had Cadence stuck on the brain, odds weren’t in the song’s favor.

═ ♪ ♫ ♪ ═

We wrecked it at the show that night. Ian must have been on something. He played with more energy than I’d known he contained, and he unleashed hell on the stage.

We were only too glad to keep up. My calluses were bleeding before we were through, and the audience was drenched in their own sweat after the solid two-hour show.

“The hell you on?” Adam demanded backstage, jumping on Ian and rubbing his shiny head. “Gonna share or what?”

Ian laughed. He accepted a water bottle from one of the crew guys and bopped Adam on the head with it.

I went straight for the makeshift mini-bar and threw back a shot of whiskey, then poured myself another.

“I’m not on anything, you asshole,” Ian laughed, “I’m just that good!”

“Motherfucker’s getting dick on the regular,” Javier cut in, elbowing Adam. “Dude’s too happy. That’s his problem.”

“My non-problem, you mean,” Ian smirked.

I drank down my shot and walked off with the rest of the bottle in hand. If we were going to party then I would need the liquid enthusiasm. “Is that what it is?” I asked him, gesturing with the booze, “Is it love?” I placed a mocking hand over my heart but I meant the question.

Ian grinned broadly in response.

“Who’s the lucky dude?” Adam asked. “That youngin’ from back in LA?”

“Naw,” Ian said, “It’s that guy, Nick, that I dated for a while last year.” He shook his head. “Nothing felt right after we broke up. Now?” He shrugged.

“Now you’re playing better,” I said. Not as if he was playing badly before—he was a professional.

“Everything’s better.”

Javier whistled between his teeth. “You like being tied down like that?”

“Tied down.” Ian winked. “Tied up.”

Javier spluttered, his drink running down his shirt.

“You guys won’t believe me, but it’s not so bad,” he went on. “Not when you’ve got the right one.”

Adam and Javier both rolled their eyes.

I raised my bottle. “Well, I say congrats to Ian. You cynical motherfuckers.”

We drank in his boyfriend’s honor. Then we drank in honor of all the groupies who would be flooding whatever club or bar we decided to grace with our presence. It was a night worthy of celebration.

But all I saw was green.

Jealousy wasn’t a familiar emotion. I was someone used to getting what he wanted, totally accustomed to always getting my way.

But not everything could just be ordered or demanded or “gotten.” Ian had found one of those things. Love. Part of me thought I’d felt it for every damn woman I’d ever been with, no matter how briefly. Another part of me wondered if I’d ever truly felt it at all.

Either way, it wasn’t something I was counting on finding in any long-term sense. I’d been burned too many times in that search.

In the short-term, though? That was easy. I took a long swallow of the whiskey and announced, “Where are we going? Gather up the groupies!”

═ ♪ ♫ ♪ ═

Her name was Lacey and she was an aspiring actress, working as a hostess as some downtown restaurant.

And
her
name was Chrissy, and she was a wannabe news anchor working at some clothing boutique.

They circled my hotel room together, running their hands over the furniture and casting furtive glances at each other for my benefit.