Page 44 of Titus

I sat back in my chair and watched as Wyatt sat down in a chair across from my desk. “And yet, after staring at numbers all morning, I still look better than you.”

I smiled confidently at his scrutinizing expression.

“Nah,” he shook his head. “Numbers are as thrilling as sex for you,” he said, leaning back and crossing an ankle over his knee. “Something is up. Are you still concerned about that joker, Jameston?”

“Perhaps,” I said, knowing it was a lie, too. “I need to get inside that man’s world.”

“And that planner is the only way in?”

“It’s not as if I can get the fucking janitor to figure out what the hell that bastard is up to?”

“I think you’re overreacting,” Wyatt said. “Seriously. You’re giving the man way too much credit because he was stupid enough to call you out to your face.”

I leaned my arm against the armrest of my chair, rested my chin on my fist, and studied my brother’s relaxed expression.

“Are we auditing all new hires from the past five years?” I asked him.

“I can go all the way back to when we took over after Dad died, if you’d like,” he said with a smile.

I exhaled, rose from my desk, and walked over to the windows. Of course, my view of the sea was partially blocked by Jameston’s fucking building, but I looked beyond it to the calm body of water shimmering under the rays of the afternoon sun.

“I’ve always compared our mother’s strength to the sea,” I said. “Her resilience in the face of our father’s abuse. The way she could become unpredictable in an instant whenever it came to defending her worth or protecting her sons. Just as the ocean can shift without warning, so could our mother.”

“I’m not following,” Wyatt answered me.

“A woman like our mother isn’t something you control. She’s something you learn to navigate,” I answered.

“Seriously, I’m lost. How does this have anything to do with Jameston or audits of new hires?”

I turned back to Wyatt and smiled. “Our father lived a miserable life because he didn’t respect the nature of the strong woman he was married to. She stopped loving our father soon after you were born,” I said to my youngest brother. “And that’s when his control over us and her became severe.”

“Did you see a fucking ghost in New York or something three days ago? Seriously, why are you talking about Mom and Dad suddenly?”

“Perhaps I did see a ghost,” I smiled at him. “I’m just trying to say that I know what I’m doing here. I know how to do this… how to get to Catalina Veléz,” I said.

His eyes widened. “Ah,” he said with a smile. “I take it the dinner you serenaded her with at your place didn’t go as planned, which is why you’ve started sharing your deep thoughts?”

“She’s demanded that I go through her channels to hire her for any future events,” I said, feeling defeated by this before but now challenged.

“Let me guess,” Wyatt grinned. “You made demands of her?”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Because it’s who you are,” he said. “If any of us is the living embodiment of our father, it’s you, hermano.”

“I’m going to forget you said that, fucker,” I said before continuing my thoughts about Catalina. “I’m going to respect her wishes and hire her to plan an event on Eterna…” I paused and looked at him. “I need to contact her crew and have her relocated to the Aegean Sea. Ms. Veléz will be hired to plan this event. But she won’t realize it’s been designed for her.”

“Greece?” Wyatt smirked. “You plan to go through all that just to hire her and get her into your bed?”

“I need to understand what she responds to, what she values, and what holds her attention,” I said evenly.

“You’ve lost your damn mind. I don’t even think this is about Jameston anymore,” Wyatt said.

“If it wasn’t about protecting our company from that weasel, I wouldn’t be going through all of this just to get that woman hooked on me and working for me.”

“I truly don’t think this will impress her. I think you’re wasting both your time and money to prove some strange point to yourself.”

“And what point is that?” I snapped.