Page 88 of Titus

“And so, it’s easy to understand,” I searched for the right way to say this without offending him, “well, I’m just not surprised you’d be relaxing your wardrobe to…”

“Get you into my bed tonight?” he answered for me.

“And forget my name by morning,” I added.

He smiled as our food was set on the table next to where we stood. “Before, with any other woman, I would admit that your speculations would be true,” he acknowledged. “But you, Catalina Veléz? I could never forget you or your name, no matter how hard I tried.”

Everything about the way he said that made me suck in a breath of salty air.

What the hell is wrong with me?

“And,” he continued, “I’m merely adapting to my environment. I believe a suit jacket and tie are too formal for this place, so I adjusted my wardrobe as best I could to blend in.”

You couldn’t blend in if you wore board shorts and a T-shirt.

Titus clinked his beer bottle against mine. “Now, shall we eat? I’m starved and excited about how our loaded garlic fries will taste.”

His low laugh rumbled beside me as we sat casually at the picnic table. Try as I might, with every ounce of willpower I had, I worked to resist the man in more ways than I naturally should.

The scary part about bringing Titus here was that the entire night had the opposite effect from what I intended.

He was supposed to act like the entitled billionaire I’d convinced myself he was… not blend in. Not sit across from me at a weathered picnic table, looking genuinely excited over garlic fries and beer.

And he definitely wasn’t supposed to make me realize how easily he could exist in my world just as naturally as I existed in his.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

I hadn’t felt this relaxed and at ease in a long damn time. Hell, the last time I remembered feeling this calm was when I was a child, and my mother took us to our summer home in Marbella, away from my father’s constantly looming, demanding presence.

For the first time in years, my mind wasn’t consumed by acquisitions, negotiations, or the endless demands of the world I operated in.

And somehow, even with the one woman I couldn’t bend to my will sitting across from me, everything about tonight felt easy… natural, even. It was like breathing fresh air after being trapped somewhere for so long that I hadn’t even realized I’d been slowly suffocating.

Watching Cat sip her beer while stealing bites of coleslaw from beside her fish tacos shouldn’t have affected me the way it did.

But it did.

Because somewhere between the harbor, the garlic fries, and this relaxed side of Catalina Veléz I’d never seen before, I realized I no longer saw her as a challenge.

I simply wanted more of her presence, more nights like this. Honestly? That was becoming far more dangerous than obsession ever had been.

I leaned an arm casually against the table and took another sip from the new bottle of beer I’d retrieved for both of us.

“Tapping out already?” Cat teased playfully.

I loved that she was so relaxed with me like this. It was as if she were an entirely different woman.

“I believe you can rest easy, as I understand another reason you strategically brought me to this place.”

“Oh?” she said, pushing her food aside and relaxing with her cold beer, too. “What’s that?”

“Well,” I said, glancing down at the beans and rice I’d mindlessly demolished, “those beans are going to declare war on me in about an hour.” I smiled as she covered her mouth to keep from spitting beer all over me. “Which means that while I’d undoubtedly remember your name after having the luxury of spending the night with you, I can’t imagine you’d have much interest in remembering mine.”

She pinched her lips together. “So, I’m safe then, Mr. Hawk?”

She looked so adorably cute right now that I wished I hadn’t touched the damn beans. “Well, that depends. You are driving me back to my chopper⁠—”

“Chopper? You honestly commute in that thing?”