Page 32 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Beauty

That isn’t so clear anymore.

But this house feels impersonal, like it’s just a place for him to lay his head, rather than a family home that’s belonged to generations of Barkers.

Did a young Weston sit by this fireplace, reading with his father, mother, and sister the way I did with Dad?

Were games played at that huge dining table that surely hadn’t been used in decades before I arrived?

It’s hard to imagine a family ever lived here. More museum than home, the place is almost too perfect.

I run my fingers along the bookcase that stands to one side of the massive fireplace in the living room, holding a set of old encyclopedias.

No dust.

As huge as this place is, it’s also immaculately maintained.

By whom?

The longer I’m here without seeing or hearing any evidence of staff, not even signs of a chef who might work in the kitchen preparing the meals I eat three times a day, the more likely it starts to look like The Beast does it all.

Cooking my food. Cleaning and maintaining this massive house and property. Buying and bringing me the luxury items that seem to show up in my room every time I drift off to sleep or step into the bathroom to shower.

It’s like magic, the way he seems to know—both what I might need or want and when I won’t be able to pepper him with questions. Almost as if the dead, marble eyes of the mounted heads are watching my every move, giving him the information he needs to keep me guessing and twisted up, wanting to know more.

Which is why I’m slowly hobbling to the door toward the back of the house, tucked behind the stairwell. Easily missed, it’s the only one that has been locked each time I’ve tried it and the only place I haven’t explored—save for the off-limits third floor.

What the hell could be up there?

Maybe his bedroom, since I have yet to find any evidence of where he actually sleeps. But something tells me it’s more important than that. That the answers I seek may lie at the top of that flight of stairs I’ve been warned to stay away from.

Definitely my next stop.

First, I try the handle on the room under the stairs. Unlike my other two tries, this time, it turns without resistance, and I hold my breath as I push it inward.

Holy shit…

A wall of monitors lights up the room in front of a long, low wooden desk and leather office chair that’s currently pushed back, as if it’s only recently been vacated.

I step in slowly, careful not to put my full weight on my right foot, my eyes bouncing over each screen, trying to take in all that I’m seeing.

The base of the mountain and the county highway that leads up to it.

The entrance to the gravel road I turned on to get up here.

The towering front of the house.

The porch where The Beast first confronted me.

My car still sitting in the same spot on the drive, almost like a taunt. It’s there, but I can’t really leave—my keys and phone suspiciously absent from the purse he returned to me that first morning.

Other screens hold miles and miles of endless forest.

A deer stands beside a river on one screen, while on the one right next to it, what looks to be a red fox scurries between thick bushes and disappears as quickly as it appeared.

The beauty and splendor of Barker Mountain spreads out in front of me, like watching a live movie about the Montana peak unfold before my very eyes.

He has cameras on the whole property.

He can see everything.

---