A New Chapter (Queen Bees Book Club #1)

Prologue

P aige Wheeler knew what people in the community called her. The name she’d been given. She didn’t mind too much. It wasn’t that bad. And it certainly could have been worse.

Queen Bee.

The community where she lived, the Colony, had a bee in its logo, so if they were suggesting she was the most popular woman here, that was lovely. Not true, but a nice sentiment.

Now, if that Bee was supposed to represent the first letter in a distinctly unkind word also used for a female dog—well, that she didn’t care for.

She’d never done anything to earn that. She was kind to everyone. Polite as she could be. Sweet when sweet made sense, but she wasn’t fake either.

She didn’t suffer fools, which meant that sometimes she maybe said things that, while truthful, hit too close to home. Was that mean? She didn’t think so. She genuinely felt like there wasn’t enough truth in this world.

The lack of truth had caused all kinds of problems. And don’t get her started on participation trophies. No wonder kids today were being raised by parents who thought it was just fine if their offspring identified as cats.

Mercy. In her day, if you didn’t succeed at something, you tried again or tried something else. You didn’t get a pat on the back and a blue ribbon for losing.

She sighed. She was getting off track. But truth was important to her. Especially after what she’d been through. Her nightmare of a divorce. That deep, dark abyss of personal destruction that she’d clawed her way out of.

Even thinking about it made her temperature rise.

Half-truths on top of lies spread with subterfuge and deceit, wrapped up in fabrications and sprinkled with duplicity. All served up with a big, steaming cup of betrayal and a heaping helping of infidelity.

Anyone who had a problem with her could just stuff it because they had no idea what she’d dealt with.

Even if her neighbors watched her videos on TikTok they wouldn’t really know what she’d survived. She suspected a lot of them did check out her posts, but with nearly forty thousand followers, she wasn’t about to go searching through the names to see if any of them were her neighbors.

Her followers knew she’d survived a terrible divorce, but she’d never shared the darkest detail. The one she still found humiliating on a soul-deep level.

She took a breath and exhaled, releasing all of that negativity. For the second time in her life, she was about to change things for the better. At least she hoped that was what she was about to do. She’d worked on this plan for a while, carefully selecting the women she thought would be best.

It had taken time, research, and good listening.

With a steady hand, she addressed the invitations on the personal stationery she’d had designed. The royal bee logo in gold foil on the front of the ivory card made her smile.

They could call her Queen Bee all they wanted. She was embracing it. Making it her own.

She finished the first invitation, slipped it into the matching envelope, sealed it, and stamped it. She touched the gold and diamond bee suspended from a thin gold chain around her neck, another recent purchase.

This was going to be the start of something big. Something good.

Something bee -utiful.