TEASE ( A Stepbrother Romance ) By Caitlin Daire

26

Chapter Twenty-Six

Charlotte

The next two weeks seemed to flash by in an instant. Everything happened so quickly that it almost felt like nothing was going on at all, and yet, everything had changed.

The video we made had gone viral within hours of Nicki streaming it, and within two days, Keith's offices in Denver and DC were being swarmed by the media as well as put under investigation by the respective District Attorneys. Keith, Greg, and two other political consultants had been remanded without bail for the time being, and two of the security guards who'd been paid off had come forward and admitted their guilt. Soon, a case would be built against the whole lot of them.

They'd be going away for a long time.

For the time being, we could hardly leave the house-there were journalists camped outside it twenty-four hours a day, hoping to secure interviews with either myself or Cade, seeing as we'd been the ones to expose Keith to the world. We weren't giving interviews, though, at least not anytime soon, for a number of reasons. Firstly, we didn't think we were particularly genius-level smart for catching him out, which was how the media was currently painting us. We simply had access to more information as family members, which had allowed us to figure out what Keith was up to. After all, a non-family member would've been far less likely to overhear Keith's calls, or sit down at lunch and chat about guns with him.

Secondly, we didn't want the attention right now. All we wanted to do was spend time with my Mom and Evan, to offer them the comfort they needed in a time like this.

The worst part about all of this had been seeing their faces when we told them.

Mom had been inconsolable for three straight days when she'd found out what her new husband had done, and Evan was devastated to learn that his own father had done something so awful to him, all in the name of building his already-successful political career even further. We'd spent hours talking it over with the two of them, and we'd finally agreed on one simple fact-we were all much better off without him.

The marriage couldn't be annulled, but Mom was actually grateful for that, because legally being Keith's wife made it much easier for her to begin the process of getting sole custody of Evan while they began the divorce process. Evan didn't have any other parents, seeing as his father would soon be rotting in jail, and his mother hadn't been around since he was very young, so it made sense for my mother to take care of him. I was over the moon when she told me what she was planning, because in the few months that I'd known Evan, I'd really come to see him as a little brother to me as well as Cade.

Right now I was on the third floor with him, playing around with my telescope. It was a Tuesday evening, and while we couldn't go outside and use it, we could easily open a window-one which faced well away from all the journalists and their vans-and observe the sky through the window. I knew this was one of Evan's favorite things to do, and he did seem much cheerier than usual as he pointed out different constellations through it.

"I think I can see Taurus," he said, squinting. "Hey, you can take photos with this thing, right?"

"Yep, there's a camera add-on. Just click the blue button on the right side... yep, that's the one."

"That's so cool. Where did you buy it?" he said as he took a couple of photos of the constellation he'd spotted.

"I didn't buy it," I said. "My father did, and he added the camera fixture himself. He was really interested in stargazing too."

"Oh. I wish my father had been interested in the same stuff as me," Evan replied softly. "Maybe things would've been different."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I simply placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. He pulled away from the telescope and looked at me.