Page 23 of The Beekeeper

Not once had Max complained or even hinted that he regretted offering the apartment to us, but I regretted it enough for the both of us. The paps were relentless. Harassing customers. Injuring them. They were more than relentless, they were dangerous.

Yesterday, on my way to Harper’s, they’d been following my SUV. I went through a yellow light, thinking I would lose at least some of them, but no. A string of cars flew through the red light after me. This wasn’t LA where traffic was always at a crawl. If another car had decided to go or someone stepped into the crosswalk…

“No, I don’t think she thinks that,” Wade replied, the calm to my storm.

“Then why the hell would she say that? I picked this place because it was close to family and untraceable to us, or so I thought. Why the fuck would she think I did it on purpose to make the paps’ job easier?” I battered him with questions and emotion that he didn’t have the answers to.

“Blaze,” Wade warned. My brother had a very long fuse, but I’d always done a good job at expeditiously reaching its limit.

“Can we sue her? I want to sue her. For slander. And stupidity and—” I stopped short as a bee zoomed right in front of my damn face, halting me in my tracks: both my furious prowl that took me so far from the house I could barely see it and my ranting that had taken me even farther from the bounds of reality.

“You done?” Wade probed, his voice rough.

Shaking my head, I looked around me at the field of wildflowers, and then a little farther to Harper’s row of hives.

“Yeah, I’m done,” I said and took a deep breath, finding it surprisingly easy for my anger to deflate out here and for my breaths to feel like they filled my chest a little bit more than in town or in the city or anywhere else I’d lived before.

“Okay, well first, we’re not going to sue the guardian ad litem for stupidity,” Wade drawled.

“Fine.” I chuffed out a breath. “So what she’s really saying is that she wants me to move again and to somewhere that fits her perception of secure.”

I wasn’t sure there was any other assumption.

“I think that given her notes, it wouldn’t look good for your case if you deliberately chose to keep Paisley in a high-risk location after being cautioned.”

“Fucking hell…” I dragged my hand along my jaw to the back of my neck, the whole while watching the tiny buzzing dots that zoomed through the flowers and then collected around the white hives. “So, if I don’t move us—again—I’m screwed,” I croaked.

And I didn’t want to fucking move. Not when my daughter was happy here.

“God…can she—is that even fucking legal to make me do this?”

“She can’t make you; she’s giving you a head’s up that if you don’t, Angela will add this to her arsenal for why you’re an unfit parent; that not only were you living in an unsecured, easily accessible apartment, but even once the paparazzi found you and doggedly hunted you, you still chose to keep Pais in the middle of that chaos.”

“Shit.” I drove my fingers through my hair. She was right. Angela would use this against me. She’d set the damn trap and now wanted to catch me in it. A heavy groan escaped from my chest like another boulder had just found its way to my shoulders. “What am I going to do?”

My feet found the angry path I’d stomped out here and let it lead me back to the farmhouse. Meanwhile, my mind turned over option after option after option—none of them good.

A secure place? Wade’s apartment in Boston had been secure. Twenty-four-hour security. Cameras. Doorman. But even all that didn’t help once we’d stepped outside their protection. My gaze dragged around me, seeing nothing—hearing nothing but nature. This was what I needed. What my daughter needed. Space.

My stride stopped a few yards from the house. Through the morning room window, I watched Pais and Harper together. My daughter, laughing when she got some honey on Harper’s fingers by accident. Harper, licking the honey off her fingers one by one.

Fuck.

She dragged the rosy tip of her tongue along the side of her finger, and my jaw ratcheted tighter. I could practically feel its velvety warmth on my skin. On my cock. My breathing shallowed and then stopped altogether when she drew her finger through her lips and sucked it clean. Fucking fuck. I kicked my legs wider and reached down to adjust myself, but it made no difference to the painful strain of my dick against my jeans. It was like this every goddamn time we came out here. Every goddamn time I was around her.

Yeah, I needed to move—we needed to move. It would be better for Paisley. Better for our case. Better for my goddamn cock.

“Blaze.”

“Shit, sorry,” I rasped. “What did you say?”

“I said your best bet is to move somewhere that ticks all the security boxes and is still close to family. You want the court to see that having safety and a support system for you and Paisley are both priorities.”

So moving away from here and perpetual, infernal temptation was off the table.

“Right,” I said hoarsely. “Any suggestions? Because my alerts from Zillow are about as non-existent as my Tinder profile.”

I’d scrolled that damn app every night like it was some kind of social media, drawing me into an addictive search for somewhere to move. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I could afford to buy just about anything, but I couldn’t buy what wasn’t for sale.