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I wasn’t upset with her, but hearing her answer was like a reality check straight to my gut. Harper and I had gone from fling to a full-blown relationship without realizing it. Or maybe, just without wanting to admit to it. But now, we didn’t have a choice.

“I wasn’t ready to fall for my fake boyfriend’s older brother, but sometimes, life doesn’t give you a choice.”

I didn’t get a chance to reply before Gigi meandered over and joined us.

“Happy Father’s Day, Blaze,” she told me for the second time this afternoon and then proceeded to reach into her bag and produce a jar of jam. A gift, I realized when she held it out to me.

“Thank you.”

“Oh, don’t thank me,” she said with a wink and then wandered off.

I looked over and caught Lou fighting not to laugh.

“What is it?” I stared at the jar of jam. It looked harmless…

“Your future.” She smiled like her answer made any kind of sense and walked off to join my brother.

I looked back down at the jar, spinning it in my hand. Maybe Harper’s family was really big into condiments. It made sense. I read the label twice once I saw it, now thoroughly confused because it didn’t sound like any flavor I’d ever heard of. Royal⁠—

“Daddy! Come look at this butterfly!”

Looked like the mystery jam was going to have to wait.

“I love you,” I whispered and pressed a kiss to my daughter’s head, the swell of emotion in my chest almost too much to contain as I stared at her sleeping face.

Tonight was the first time I realized just how little she needed me compared to when we first moved in. Yeah, I took Pais up to bed every night, but she didn’t cling to me like she used to. She didn’t ask me to read her story after story. She didn’t wake up when my foot stepped on one of the creaky floorboards on the way out of her room. Her independence had formed slow and steady, each piece like one honeycomb on top of another until tonight, when I watched how easily she hugged and kissed me and then lay in her bed. I read her a story but noted how she hadn’t asked, how I only continued to do it out of habit. And then I watched her fall asleep almost immediately, and now, she didn’t even flinch when I tested my foot on the creaky floorboard as I walked out.

My daughter had changed here—had grown, and I wondered if maybe I had, too.

I closed the door to her room and felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. What the hell…

My brows knotted when I saw Wade had messaged me; it was pretty late for him to be reaching out. I swiped open the text to see it was just a photo—a paparazzi photo.

Fuck.

My stomach bottomed out when I opened it. The image was of Harper and me kissing in the private alley behind the Mainestems flower shop. One kiss because I couldn’t resist her. One kiss while my daughter was distracted inside the shop with Harper’s brother. One kiss that was caught on camera.

Blaze Stevens In It For The Honey.

I skimmed over the article, hoping it was going to say anything but what it did: that this was the reason I was promoting a no-name small business. And the number of innuendo-laden phrases involving the words honey, pollen, and pollination made me want to punch something.

“Fuck,” I swore and then fired a text back to him.

Blaze

Can you get them to remove it?

Wade

Probably, but I think it will be too late.

He didn’t have to say anything—didn’t have to ask now about what was really going on between Harper and me. It was all in that photo.

Make sure she’s not doing it for nothing.

His warning was like a hammer to the chest. What was she doing it for? Me? Because I’d tried to help her—tried to help her business, and now, all that association had done was ruin it. I checked my socials, and sure enough, the photo was blasted everywhere with even more ridiculous hooks like Her Honey Brings All the Movie Stars to the Yard.

I flattened my hand on the wall to steady myself, rage unmooring me. They’d twisted everything. Of course. They made it sound like my advertisement of her business was paid for with sex.