Page 138 of Titus

The surreal part was that I couldn’t quite believe he was either.

I shifted slowly beneath the buttery-soft sheets, and I instantly regretted it.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself, feeling the ache between my thighs and my calf muscles trying to spasm.

I was pretty sure I was going to look like the hot mess whose world was rocked last night, while he would most likely appear perfectly composed after absolutely ruining my ability to walk normally today.

A quiet laugh escaped me despite myself. His staff probably saw that sort of thing every morning after he brought some random woman on board to be alone with him.

With those thoughts, my eyes drifted toward the other side of the bed. It was still warm… but empty.

Something unexpectedly disappointing fluttered through my chest before I could stop it. I exhaled, placing myself in the position of the women who had undoubtedly come before me. A man like Titus claimed his prize, and once the thrill of the chase and hunt was over, he resumed his daily life of meetings, calls overseas, and running his business.

Men like Titus didn’t build their lives around women. They visited them briefly… then returned to the empires that were waiting for them.

The idea that I’d wake up in his arms was positively ludicrous. I had no one to blame but myself for the disappointment. Last night, however, any attempt at talking myself out of this would have been useless.

It had all happened too fast, and I’d been far too gone to think logically about what the next morning might bring.

Even so, my gaze lingered on the indentation his body had left in the mattress. Damn. If only we had come from the same world, maybe this could have been something that lasted more than a single night.

A soft knock interrupted my thoughts.

“Ms. Veléz?” a steward called gently through the door. “Mr. Hawk asked me to let you know that breakfast is ready whenever you are.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling weird about yelling through the door, but I wasn’t exactly dressed for company.

The send-off meal of gratitude, I smiled at the thought. Well, at least he was a gentleman about it.

My stomach growled. After the night I’d had, my body was demanding food, and I had no problem eating before someone from Titus’s staff came to collect me from the yacht this morning.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “My overnight bag is in that other room.”

I pushed back the covers, retrieved my dress from where it had been discarded on the floor, and slipped it on. Then I made my way into the massive bathing area of the Madrid suite, and the moment I caught my reflection in the mirror, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“When did we rip this off of me?” I questioned myself, staring at a woman who’d looked like she’d been out all night in a tornado. “This isn’t going to work.”

My nipple was on full display where the side seam of my dress had apparently given up at some point during the night, leaving one entire side of the bodice hanging open and no longer capable of concealing me.

“Talk about a walk of shame. How the fuck am I supposed to go anywhere wearing this shit?” I exhaled, holding my hair in a ponytail, and saw Titus’s navy button-down strewn across a chair by the bed. I picked it up and examined it. Unlike my dress, it appeared completely intact, which apparently meant it would be my outfit for the trip home.

I slipped the shirt on over the dress, rolled the sleeves, and tied it at my waist in my best attempt to look somewhat presentable. Before leaving the room, I searched for anything that might help tame the complete disaster that was my hair but came up empty-handed.

Well, the natural curls would just have to do. Hopefully, they would conceal my identity from anyone on this yacht if I ever had the nerve to come back and work for the man again.

The upper deck was quiet when I stepped outside, looking for where breakfast was being served. The ocean stretched endlessly around the yacht while morning sunlight danced across the water.

Overhead, seagulls drifted through the warm California air, and faint sounds of helicopters, most likely still filming the damn yacht off the coast, were in the distance.

To my total shock, I glanced over at the outdoor kitchen and saw the man I thought had dropped me hours earlier.

Titus stood near the kitchen area in a fitted black linen shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, while speaking quietly with one of the yacht’s chefs.

Excitement betrayed me instantly. So much for pretending I wasn’t absurdly relieved that last night hadn’t ended with him disappearing for good before sunrise.

Before I could regain my composure, my stomach betrayed me as I stood there.

He glanced up the second I stepped onto the deck, and something in his expression softened in a way that made me excited I didn’t protect myself from him last night.