Page 15 of Titus

“Wyatt should be here,” I added. “If he wasn’t closing that Madrid deal, I’d have dragged him out just to read this room.”

My attention shifted, locking briefly on a Saudi prince across the floor. Even that was telling.

“Titus.”

I turned slightly.

“Jim,” I acknowledged. “One would imagine we were at one of your events to fund⁠—”

“Bullshit,” Jim said after a sip of his bourbon. “Everyone knows the man seems to be putting on a show of wealth like you would, my good man.”

I grinned, taking a sip of the bourbon set in front of me. “This is true; however, I don’t host events to celebrate the grand opening of a building complex for my tenants.”

“Maybe he’s just appreciative,” Jim’s wife, Avery, said, sitting next to him.

I glanced up to see Natalia following closely behind—with a very familiar face at her side. One I was not expecting to see again.

She wore a strapless dress that didn’t compete with her beauty—it enhanced it. Not that I needed the reminder. I already knew exactly how stunning she was, considering my team—the one I’d nearly fired last week—had hired her for my event in Monaco.

That wasn’t what caught me off guard. It was seeing her here.

Her eyes locked with mine as I took in the way her hair fell in loose waves down her back, and then she moved with composed grace as she took the seat across from me.

I was well aware that my gaze affected people—men in business and women in general—especially when I didn’t bother to look away. Whether I was assessing a deal or deciding if I wanted someone in my bed that night, the intensity tended to do its job.

The interesting thing about her was that her chocolate eyes never wavered under it.

“So, are we just going to stare at each other all night and pretend we haven’t already met?” she asked with a smile, fully aware that our little stare-off had somehow drawn the attention of everyone at the table.

“Forgive me,” I said, highly irritated that I was somehow falling into a trance. I’d been caught between her beauty and her ability to challenge me in a way no one ever had the audacity to.

“Something wrong with my dress?” she continued, catching my gaze as it drifted down her delicate neck, to the curve of her cleavage, and the way the fabric was tailored to accentuate every flawless line beneath it.

In an attempt to recover from how foolish I must’ve looked to the grinning audience at the table, I took a slow sip of my bourbon and nodded toward Jim and Spencer, who were off to the side whispering something to my brother.

Probably some business I needed to be paying attention to—but at the moment, the only woman who had ever managed to disarm me had my full attention.

I had no idea what it was about her. Maybe it was the challenge or the fact that she didn’t flirt or cower to me. Most women were more than happy to have my attention, but this one seemed to meet it head-on in a way I had no business liking.

It made her just as dangerous as she’d been to me on my yacht. I needed to end this now.

So I would end it the only way I knew how—brutally.

“I find nothing wrong with the dress, hermosa,” I grinned, feeling myself return to normal, “I just presumed you were the type of event planner who dressed more…” I searched for the right words, “appropriately for the event you’re hosting.”

“Ah, you presumed that, did you?” she smiled back as I spied Avery and Nat, both to her right, covering their smiles.

I waved my hand out toward her, “Unless Jameston insisted you dress this way for an event that is entirely unwarranted.”

“I can assure you, Mr. Hawk,” she countered back, “no one tells me how to dress for any event I plan.”

“Well—”

“And,” she cut me off, after a sip of her champagne, “definitely not a man—any man—for that matter. And this event⁠—”

“Let me guess, you charged the bastard five hundred thousand dollars to orchestrate it for him?” I said, cutting her off.

She smiled, and the way her bright red lips sipped her champagne left me struggling to keep my composure. How the fuck was this woman daring to confront me?