Page 131 of The Beekeeper

Blaze Stevens. A New Life and A New Love.

My stomach twisted tighter as I scanned down to the paused video. It was a room I didn’t recognize, so it must be at Blaze’s new house. He really had brought the show there…Why?

I tapped on the play button, needing to understand, but I was wholly unprepared for what happened next. The video cued and then started to play from the beginning. I listened as McAllister stood next to Blaze outside his front door, prefacing that this was an exclusive interview given only to Star Pads.

“After months and months of speculation and rumors after his concussion and subsequent retreat from Hollywood, Blaze Stevens is opening his doors to a behind-the-scenes look at his new life on the quiet coast of Maine.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing—seeing; Blaze, leading the podcaster inside his new home. Nothing about this felt right, and it only got worse when they walked inside. The house was decorated like…someone had ripped the rooms right out of a Pottery Barn magazine; everything was staged right down to the fake foliage in the corner of the living room.

Something was very wrong about this. Paisley wasn’t there, but that was about the only thing that made sense. No matter what Blaze was thinking, he’d never put his daughter in front of a camera even if he entered its sights willingly. But even though she wasn’t there, there was also no sign of her existence either. No photos. No toys. No crayons spilled everywhere and a million papers strewn about. No bee stuffy.

Okay, maybe he didn’t want them to have any image of her. That made sense, I assured myself.

“Here.” Kate reached over and tapped the fast-forward fifteen seconds button a few times, the men skipping through the first floor. Part of me wanted to stop her and drag the slider back.

I hadn’t seen Blaze’s new home. Even though I’d offered my help while they were moving, I was glad when he turned me down. Glad he didn’t seem to want me there anymore than I wanted to be there. But now that I could see it, I was tempted.

I wanted to know about the house he chose and what it looked like. What their life looked like without me in it. But even skipping through the footage, I was able to get a pretty good idea: it looked picture perfect.

Kate stopped scrubbing forward when Blaze and the reporter went upstairs, my heart instantly climbing into my throat.

“So this is where you’ve settled in,” the reporter said as Blaze led him down the hall, past a bathroom and a closed door I assumed was Paisley’s bedroom. “I’m sure our audiences are dying to know, is this house—your choice to stay in Maine—because of a certain someone you’ve been photographed with recently?”

My heart slowed to a sluggish thud, like the weight of my pulse was too much to carry. Maybe this was what they were talking about—maybe they’d missed all the articles that ran about him and Aria at the coffee shop and they thought the reporter was asking about me.

“There are a lot of reasons I’m settling here. Almost all of them are because of my daughter and everything she’s been through. We have support here. Family. Privacy. And a place to build a life.”

My heart swelled, ironically, cracking it open even further.

“So, there’s no special someone in your life right now?”

Blaze paused, his hand on the door to his bedroom. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”

The door opened, the camera sweeping in first ahead of everyone to get the full view of Blaze’s bedroom and…me.

“What…” I breathed out the word, unable to believe what I was seeing. All the walls, they were covered with photographs of⁠—

“What the…” Nox growled, cupping his hand under mine and angling the screen. “Why the hell does Blaze have photographs of you all over his bedroom?”

“Because he’s obsessed with her,” Kate said with a duh tone to her voice.

Meanwhile, my eyes greedily drank in every panned and zoomed shot the camera provided of Blaze’s bedroom, the walls absolutely covered with collages of different photographs of me, almost all of them from the promo photos that Marc took for my business.

I covered my mouth with my hand, disbelief morphing into shock and then metabolizing into…laughter. It started as a giggle, and then it swelled bigger and louder until tears streamed from my eyes.

“Harper?” Nox gaped at me, too confused to be mad. “Are you okay?”

I could only nod as I wiped my eyes clear so I could keep watching the video.

“Wow, this is…she is…”

“The reason we’re staying,” Blaze finished for him, and my heart stumbled as he looked directly into the camera like he knew I was watching. “I know everyone says to find your tribe, but in my world…in my world, I found my hive. My home. And my queen. And I’m obsessed with her.”

Blaze was obsessed with me. Me.

“Well, I think that’s pretty clear.” The reporter chuckled.

“Harper…”