Page 69 of Hale Yes (Highway to Hale #1)
Phoenix Hale
ABOUT TEN MONTHS PRIOR
I’m sitting at my desk in the executive offices of Hale Cosmetics, thinking about the woman I want but can’t have. She’s so much younger than me, though to be honest, she doesn’t seem like it when we spend time together.
As they often do, my thoughts turn dirty, and I reach beneath my desk to cup my hardening cock through my pants.
I shouldn’t think about Jordie McNamara like this.
And I sure as hell shouldn’t stroke myself off to thoughts of her every fucking morning in the shower like a teenager with a crush. I’m a grown man with a child.
Okay, tomorrow is the day. I won’t think about her at all while I’m naked. But today, maybe just once more won’t hurt.
I stand, intent on heading to the bathroom to think about my forbidden fruit and jerk out a quick one, when my office door flies open. Quickly sitting to hide the evidence in my pants, I relax a little when I see my twin. Then my heart rate picks up when I see the panicked look on his face.
“Helix, what’s wrong?”
“She didn’t do it,” he says, his breaths heaving out of his chest. “Nicolette didn’t steal the formula.”
We’ve talked this subject to death the past couple days. “I know. I thought we already established you don’t believe she did all that shit.”
“Yeah, but now I have proof.” He waves his laptop around. “I have a video of the thief.”
“The security company dug it out already? I thought they said it would take a while.”
“It’s… well, it doesn’t matter how I got it. I’ve watched it about fifty times, and the woman looks familiar to me somehow. Not her face, but there’s something niggling in the back of my mind.” He places the device on my desk and opens it. “Will you watch it with me and give me your thoughts?”
“Of course,” I say soothingly as he takes a seat on the edge of my desk. I can feel his anxiety as if it were my own. “Have you heard from Nicolette?”
“She’s not answering me,” he says tersely, “but I have a plan. I’m going to show up at her sister’s wedding. The rehearsal dinner is Friday night.”
I try not to visibly wince at this plan. “Are you sure that’s the best idea, bro? Didn’t you tell me her sister treats her like shit?”
He nods, his focus intent on the screen as he locates and clicks on an MP4 file. “That’s why I have to show up.”
“You don’t think you being there would only add to her stress?”
He glances at me and shakes his head solemnly. “She needs me.” Directing his attention back to the screen, he orders, “Watch.”
The screen is filled with a view of the hallway outside Helix’s office in the laboratory building.
We’re both silent as a woman in all black approaches the camera with her head tilted down.
Helix is right; there’s something familiar about the way she moves.
She’s short, and despite her bulky clothing, I can see she’s quite thin.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, though I can’t quite place why.
The woman enters the office, and I stay silent as Helix fast forwards through seven minutes of nothing. When the figure emerges, she’s holding a thick manila envelope, which she stuffs beneath her sweatshirt. A sliver of skin is revealed, and my blood cells all seem to pause mid-flow.
When a bit of platinum hair slips from her hood, she quickly hides it and jogs off toward the exit as I sit there trying to get my circulatory system to come back to life.
“Back it up,” I say around a dry tongue. “To where she puts the envelope under her shirt.”
Helix looks at me curiously and slides the little bar back a bit. “Here?”
I nod dumbly and point. “Can you zoom in right there?”
“Whoa, I didn’t even notice the tattoo,” he murmurs when the patch of skin fills the screen. “Let me see if I can clear it up a bit.”
It seems like it takes him forever, but in actuality, it’s probably only a few seconds before the ink comes into focus and I see my own name in a cursive script. I recognize it instantly because I had a similar one once, though I had it removed years ago.
“Phoenix?” my brother calls, and it sounds like his voice is coming from the bottom of a well. Or maybe I’m the one in the well and he’s trying to save me.
I manage to drag myself to the surface and look at the face that matches my own. Helix looks concerned, and I can only imagine the expression on my face right now.
“Phoenix,” he says again, “are you all right? What’s happening here?”
“I know who it is,” I tell him, my eyes going back and forth from the image to my twin.
His hand is warm on my shoulder, and I close my eyes to absorb the comfort. Because inside, my organs are hosting a rave.
“Can you tell me who it is?”
I can, but I don’t want to, though I open my mouth to say it anyway as my gaze once again focuses on the tattoo.
“That’s the woman I was going to marry,” I tell Helix, bringing my eyes back to his widening ones. “That’s Beatrice fucking Bettencourt.”