Bad Liar (The Reed Rivers Trilogy 1)

I repress the urge to flip him off and look out the passenger side window. Crap. If he didn’t give this girl the time of day, then how long will he listen to my sweet Alessandra pouring her heart out?

“Georgina, she’s a second-rate Laila Fitzgerald,” Reed says. “And I’ve already got the original.”

I bite my tongue, too pissed and flabbergasted to respond. I know it’s irrational, but I’m feeling vicariously crushed for this girl—which, in turn, makes me feel crushed for Alessandra.

“Are you familiar with Laila Fitzgerald?” Reed prompts.

I roll my eyes. “Of course.”

“And you didn’t hear the similarity? The way she copied Laila’s inflection? Georgina, she was literally copying Laila. She doesn’t have a sound of her own. Doesn’t know who she is. That makes her a hard pass for me. Next.”

And the hits just keep on coming. Alessandra doesn’t try to sound like Adele or Laila! She’s been singing the same way since she was little! Is Reed saying Alessandra wouldn’t be a legitimate prospect for him simply because she sounds like a combination of two fabulously successful artists?

“What’s wrong?” Reed says. And when I look at him, he’s doing that thing again. Staring at me like he can read my mind.

“Nothing,” I say, but even as I say it, I know my tone is less than convincing.

Reed sighs. “Look, I’m sorry if you feel sorry for this girl. But move on. She won the lottery that I listened to her at all. I have a team of people I pay a lot of money to scout bands and artists for me, and then present their findings to me at weekly meetings. And you know why? Because I’m too busy and impatient to get eyeballs deep in this shit myself. I’m sorry if the reality of the music business seems harsh and heartless to you, but I know my business. And not only that, I have only one life to live, and finite hours in each day, and I can’t waste valuable minutes on anything, let alone aspiring singer-songwriters who I know within seconds aren’t going to be a fit. I know within the first ten seconds of a song if someone has a glimmer of a chance to make it onto my roster. The minute I know they don’t, then I move on. Life is too fucking short to do otherwise. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I say softly, feeling like I’m being physically crushed by the weight of the music demo sitting in my purse. Why, oh why, did I have to have that damned thing in my purse tonight? This night would have been so much more fun, so carefree and sexy and glorious, if I had nothing on my mind but Reed’s smoking hot body right now.

Reed pulls onto a side street, where we twist and turn in silence for a bit, until finally coming to a stop in front of a large metal gate. Reed pushes a button and the gate begins sliding slowly open. Silently, he drives through the gate and down a driveway, until parking at the top of a circular drive in front of an extremely large house nestled into the slope of a hill.

Reed turns off his fancy car’s engine and turns to me, his brown eyes blazing. “For the love of fuck, just ask me already, Georgina. Let’s get it out of the way, whatever it is, so we can move past it and have a great time together.”

My heart stops. “Ask you what?”

“Whatever the fuck it is you’ve been scheming and plotting to ask me this entire car ride. Probably from the second you winked at me in the lecture hall, if I were a betting man.” His eyes harden. “Which I am.”

Words won’t form. I’m a deer in headlights. A thief caught with her hand on a combination lock. Shit.

“You want me to listen to a song, I assume?” he says, letting his hand drop from his steering wheel with exasperation. “‘Someone’ who doesn’t have a big social media following?”

He’s taken the air out of my lungs. Sent my heart rate galloping. I nod slowly, my cheeks burning. “I’m sorry.”

“Is this ‘someone’ you, Georgina?”

“No.”

He looks unconvinced.

“It’s my stepsister, Alessandra. Well, my former stepsister. Her mom married my dad when I was eleven and she was nine, but they divorced a year later.” I take a deep breath. “She’s so talented, Reed. A true artist. I’d be thrilled and grateful if you’d, please...” I swallow hard. Shit. “Take a quick listen to her music and tell me what you think.”

A small puff of air escapes Reed’s nose. He shakes his head and looks out his driver’s side window. “I knew it,” he mutters. “It never fails.”

I’m horrified. “Wait. No. You think Alessandra is the reason I came here with you tonight? She’s not.”