Page 104 of Soul Mates: Hercules Valentine and I
“I’m good, Barb.”
She throws out another suggestion, but I can barely make out what she’s saying. Barb enjoys feeding me and my brothers. I also know that she’s going to have a snack brought to me regardless. And I’m pretty sure I’ll eat whatever it is.
I lookup from the computer screen and rub my eyes. Seeing the time at the corner of my screen, I grimace. More than an hour and a half has passed since I sat down.
“Excuse me, Hercules.” Sarah, one of the servers Barbara pays to run food between my place and my brothers’, stands in the doorway. She’s young and shy. She just replaced Nicole, who was fired because she was caught having sex with Orion. Nicole had replaced a woman named Lily, who quit because Orion couldn’t keep his cock out of her either. Orion’s not attracted to women under thirty. Yeah, Nicole and Lily were not thirty yet, but they were full-fledged women. Sarah looks like she’s fresh out of high school. Lucky for her, Orion hadn’t given her a second look.
“Humph,” I say, looking at her face and then picturing Lark.
I know she’s Paisley. I just have to prove it.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah says.
I look at the cart she’s pushing. “What did Barb send?”
She stands taller. “Your snack for today is lemon chile verde roasted brussels-sprout chips with creamy carrot dip.”
“Thank you,” I say as she rolls the cart into my office and leaves it beside me.
“You’re welcome, Hercules. Is there anything else I can get you?”
Her voice sounds like it’s far away.
“No. Thank you.” I refocus on my computer screen.
I’m thinking hard. On Tuesday, I found the vacation picture of Paisley with her family, and then it was gone. It’s obvious that Paisley has been sanitized from the Internet but not Max or her parents. There is also her cousin Treasure, and thanks to my last inquiry, I now recall that Treasure’s brother’s name is Lynx. I’ve been doing my search all wrong.
I call up the security footage of Lark as she strode down the hallway on her way to my office.Look at her…I fight the urge to rub one out.Damn, why does she have this effect on me?
I stop the video and close in on Lark’s sexy face. I do a search on Paisley’s mother, Heartly Rose-Grove. I go to one page after the next, trying to find a photo of her, and come up with nothing.
“The hell…?” I've performed a search on Heartly Rose before, and the Internet had plenty of pictures of her. I switch gears. “Treasure Grove.” But my fingers stop as soon as I type theT.
High school.I bought the electronic copy of the yearbook just so that I could see her. She never took class pictures. But since she’s a Grove, I thought there'd be pictures of her anyway. My classmates played their parts well. They ignored her and shunned her, but they admired her too. She had the wealthiest family in our school and the most famous. She was the smartest girl in the entire school district. On top of those advantages, she favored her mother. And in many ways, she was prettier than the model Heartly Rose. Paisley’s mother was a classic beauty, but Paisley—she was a work of art.
“Her lips…”How could I forget those lips?
I bring up Lark’s photo again. She and Paisley have the same lips. That’s why I wanted to suck on them all night long. I want to suck on them now.
Damn it. It’s her…isn’t it?
Paisley’s eyes are brown, though—unless she’s wearing blue contact lenses. That would explain Lark’s unnaturally blue-green eyes. Mix blue and brown together, and you get green.
The atmosphere in my office turns duskier as a cloud travels past the late-afternoon sun. I tap the base of my desk lamp, and now I have light.
“It’s her.” I know it. I can’t prove it, but I know it.
I decide to research Max Grove. I’m certain he’s the one who’s screwing with my calendar and has been doing it for months.
I stare out the window, my eyes unfocused.What the hell are they looking for?
My gaze shifts to the brussels-sprout chips. They smell good, but they’re cold now, and I still don’t have an appetite. I close my eyes and let the torturous thought that I’m not willing to fire her sink in. I’m aching for her. Maybe after that, I’ll let her go.Maybe.
Or maybe Lark Davenport is Lark Davenport and not Paisley Grove. Max Grove is everywhere, but he’s mostly alone in shots—no girlfriend or wife. I perform a video search on Max Grove and his family and start watching. I go through many of the videos fairly quickly. My back feels tight, so I roll my shoulders in circles and stretch my neck from side to side to loosen up. I'm not ready to end my hunt for Paisley Grove just yet.
A video taggedMax Grove talks about the late Gregory Grove at the 2060 National Captains of Corporate Industry Conventionpiques my interest. He sits with his legs crossed, back tall, and chin high. Max Grove owns the stage. Even with Bentley Birch, a leading business journalist, asking the questions, Max controls the interview. And he’s as cocky as I remember him being. The jury is still out on whether I hate the guy or not. The best thing he’s got going for him is that he’s Paisley’s brother.
“In many ways, and not just in the realm of technology, my grandfather was adventurous. He used to say that if we let what’s possible guide us, we’ll never know what we’ll discover, but we will discover something. Basically, there’s no downside to trying to figure out how to make the impossible possible. That’s what he taught us.”
