Page 132 of The Beekeeper

I turned to my brother, the biggest smile spreading over my face. “He did it for me.”

“Put your pictures all over his room?”

“Just like I had posters of him, of his movies, covering my bedroom walls at Dad’s.” And everyone had given me crap about it, even Blaze. But now, he’d turned that embarrassment on its head. Now, he’d just told the world that I wasn’t just his crush, I was his everything.

My cheeks hurt with how wide my smile was.

Nox tipped his head, understanding slowly settling in his mind. “Shit,” he muttered under his breath like he hadn’t seen this coming; and to be fair, he probably hadn’t. He’d been so…consumed lately, it was like he was trying to escape from the world and everyone in it.

Kate took her phone and winked at me. Suddenly, it felt like there was something else I’d missed. The two women walked away from Nox’s booth and over to the man waiting for them: Marc. He met my stare, winked, and then nodded over his shoulder. Right then I knew: there was more.

My breath caught. My pulse dumped into my veins. And hope…hope buzzed through every nerve ending in my body.

And that was all before I saw him.

Blaze stepped out from where he’d been waiting behind one of the other booths. He was here the whole time. This whole thing was a setup. The women. The questions. It was all to get me to see the video—to see that he’d set the record straight and put it out there for the entire world that it was me he wanted.

Our eyes locked and even though I wanted to go to him, I couldn’t move. My feet felt tethered to the ground, waiting for the earth to fall out from underneath me.

“Harper,” Blaze said my name, and I knew then I couldn’t be imagining this, him here. For me.

Uncertainty creased his brow, something that seemed foreign on his handsome face. When had he never been uncertain about something—about a woman before? Or ever? Never, by the looks of it.

As he walked closer, I saw all the signs of strain stitched into every one of his gorgeous features. The worry. The fatigue. The fact that I could see any sign of it on a man who excelled at faking…everything for a living told me just how bad it was. As bad as the pain I’d felt this last week, too.

“Harper,” he rasped when he reached me, and this time, my name was an exhale of relief—like he’d been holding his breath for far too long.

“You did all of this,” I murmured, needing to get the truth straight in my mind. “The show. The photos. Them…” I looked behind him for the two women but they’d disappeared along with Marc.

“Jenny and Kate model for Marc from time to time. I asked…if he could call in some reinforcements.”

“And the show?”

Blaze smiled, one corner of his mouth lifting just a little higher than the other. “Oh, that was real,” he assured me and then his smile started to slip into sincerity. “Harper, I fucked up.”

Blaze

I’d confessed those words more times than I could count in my life. It was almost to the point where they’d started to become meaningless. I’d fuck up, my brother would fix it, and then the cycle would repeat. Until I’d learned about Paisley. That was when I realized I couldn’t keep fucking up like it was an Olympic sport, and that when I fucked up, I had to fix it. But then I’d gone to the extreme. I’d been so afraid of fucking up again in a way that could hurt my daughter, that I’d tried to prevent calamity at all costs.

And it still hadn’t worked. Instead, it had almost cost me the second woman to change my life.

I stared at Harper, memorizing every curve of her face, the blush on her cheeks, and the hope-hurt cocktail tainting her eyes. I hated myself for that. For fighting how I felt about her rather than fighting for her, and now that I was, I wondered if it was too late.

What if my plan was a mistake? What if putting on public blast how stupidly in love I was with her was wrong?

The photos had been my idea, but as soon as Frankie asked me about the articles—about Aria, I couldn’t see straight. I wanted to think Harper would never believe the tabloids, but I was so fucking tired of hoping those who knew me well enough wouldn’t believe them. I was tired of pretending like that was enough for me. I wanted privacy for a lot of things, and I would pay or fight for it whatever the situation required, but in that moment, I didn’t want privacy for this. For the way I felt about her.

“I’ve always been good at making mistakes,” I said, admitting to the understatement of the century. “And I never really cared about making them until I learned about Paisley. I wanted to be better. To do better. But when mostly all I’ve done is bad, it’s hard not to overcorrect. To not second-guess every choice because I’m so skilled at making the wrong ones.”

Harper’s lashes fluttered, trying to brush away the wetness that layered into her eyes.

“And when I realized just how much a part of my and Paisley’s life you’d become, how much you meant to the both of us, I second-guessed everything again. That staying was wrong because it was only supposed to be temporary. That being with you was wrong because I didn’t have space in my life or heart for someone other than Pais. And that being a part of your life would lead to anything but complications. To speculation and rumors and all the bullshit you’d been trying to shake off before I stumbled into your life.”

Harper’s nostrils flared and I could tell she wanted to argue with me, I could see it all over her face that she wanted to disagree, and I loved her even more for it.

“But I couldn’t have been more wrong,” I said, all the words that played like a reel on repeat while I’d waited for Nox’s event to be done now rushed up and collided in my throat, wanting to come out. “I shouldn’t have left, Harper. Not you. Not the house. None of it. I was so afraid of making the wrong choice that I walked away from the best one.”

She bit into her lip to stop it from quivering, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I couldn’t not touch her, hold her. Swallowing hard, I reached out and took her hand in mine, my soul instantly settling like a ship that had just pulled into harbor.