Page 53 of Titus

I’m no longer interested in working solely for you, Mr. Hawk.

The words hit again, as if I were reliving my earlier conversation with Catalina. Nothing, and I fucking mean nothing, ever consumed my mind the way this woman had, with every rejection she seemed so happy to send my way.

It wasn’t just rejection. It was final.

Across from me, Spencer leaned back slightly, watching me rather than the projections. I swear the bastard always saw more than he let on. That’s why Jim called him Mitchell and Associates’ bulldog. The man read rooms and people like a psychic—only without the crystal ball or the bullshit.

My brother, Wyatt, of course, didn’t care about this half as much as I did. Ordinarily, I didn’t care about his easygoing ways because each of us brothers had our strengths—I was the visionary, Colton was the steady, brilliant one, and Wyatt had a magnetic personality that no one could say no to—but tonight, I wasn’t in the mood for any of it.

I downed the entire glass of bourbon and motioned for my staff to bring another. While waiting, I glanced over at my other brother, Colton, who tapped his tablet to pull up the location grid.

Thank God, maybe this will distract me.

“All right,” he said, all business, “we’ve locked the six island acquisitions into shell entities. No visibility back to Hawk Crown.”

“Good,” I answered. “And now we won’t have anyone inflating prices because they know Hawk Enterprise is buying them. Go on,” I nodded, taking my new glass of bourbon and sipping it.

Colton flicked the screen toward the center of the table, lighting up the map. “Right here, we have The Aegean…Mykonos side, on the private inlet.”

I nodded.

“Then, the Amalfi Coast. Cliffside, with limited access,” he moved his pointer. “We have St. Barts. The western ridge.”

Wyatt let out a low whistle, but it didn’t stop Colton from continuing.

“Maldives. Full island acquisition.”

“Of course it is,” Wyatt said.

“Fiji,” Colton continued. “Outer chain. No commercial traffic.”

“And lastly?” I questioned.

“The one you fought hard for,” Colton grinned. “I can confirm we now have French Polynesia. Bora Bora perimeter. Completely private.”

“And each of these locations can easily host at least thirty of our villas?”

“Easily,” Colton answered.

Spencer exhaled slowly. “Shit. We’re not just building fucking resorts,” he said with a hint of humor. “You’re building a goddamn network.”

“That’s exactly why I pushed for Jim to join us on this,” I answered.

Wyatt smirked, lifting his glass. “Yeah, what if, for some bizarre reason, this doesn’t appeal to anyone but us?”

I didn’t look up. “It will.”

Colton leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table. “At twenty-five million per villa, minimum, we’re not selling volume. We’re selling access.”

“Scarcity creates demand,” I said flatly. “People in our world want to feel exclusive, one way or the other. Owning a villa on one of our islands will give them just that.”

“And starting with only thirty villas will create demand,” Colton smirked at Spencer. “And demand creates obsession.”

I nodded once because this is the type of shit I understood well. I calculated it well, dreamt it up, created it, and exploded the wealth of my entire company with this knowledge.

The shit I didn’t fucking understand? What didn’t add up in my head? It was simply that a woman who’d built her entire business around high-net-worth clients had just walked away from mine without blinking. My offer to hire her should’ve been a fucking dream come true, and yet she treated me as if I were some simpleton upstart elite who didn’t have the first clue about the world I owned.

I sighed too loudly and took another large gulp of bourbon.