Boss Woman

by Victoria Quinn

  My stoic expression didn’t change, remaining as rigid as ever. He was charming with that nice smile and those expressive eyes.

  “I want to be your distributor. I can get your products on every single shelf in the world. Not just China, Japan, and South Korea, but Russia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and everywhere else under the sun.”

  It was a goal I had in mind but hadn’t reached. I’d arranged a meeting with Kyle Livingston just to explore China. Vincent Hunt exceeded my dreams by offering opportunities that would take decades to reach. But within the snap of a finger, he put the offer on the table. He was a wealthy man with decades of experience more than mine. He’d had the chance to establish business relationships long ago and maintain them to this day. I was young and still had my entire life ahead of me. That was one thing he would always have over me.

  But instead of jumping out of my chair in excitement or cracking a smile, I remained hesitant. Vincent Hunt wouldn’t offer this unless he wanted something in return. “Your terms?”

  “Five percent of all profits in those territories.”

  Five percent was exceptionally low. Even though I managed a multibillion-dollar empire, five percent wasn’t worth all the work he would have to do to make this happen. Even if he delegated it to his team, it would still be time-consuming. “And?”

  “That’s it. Five percent.”

  There was no point in negotiating a lower number because that was far below what I expected. Red flags were popping up all over my brain. It would be easy for him to develop his own cosmetics company and invade those retailers. Why help me and gain such little in return?

  I had no idea—but it wasn’t good.

  The devil was sitting in front of me, and he offered me a deal any sane person couldn’t refuse. He wanted something from me, something that I couldn’t discern. All I could think of was Diesel.

  This had something to do with him.

  Going into business with Vincent Hunt would be a betrayal of my relationship with Diesel. It was a major conflict of interest and an insult. After everything Vincent put him through, it would be wrong for me to shake his hand.

  But he was giving me everything I wanted.

  I still didn’t know how honest Diesel Hunt really was. I found those documents in his drawer, my most terrifying secret stacked into a pretty folder. Whether he really read them or not, he’d invaded my privacy. He wasn’t entirely truthful, and there were so many caution signs everywhere.

  Could I walk away from a deal like this for a man I didn’t trust?

  Could I walk away from billions?

  Vincent hardly blinked as he stared at me. “I have to say, I’m surprised you aren’t jumping out of your chair to shake my hand on this deal.”

  “I have to say, I’m surprised you offered such a deal. It’s suspicious to me.”

  “We both make money. Nothing to be suspicious about.”

  That was bullshit. He had a trick up his sleeve. I didn’t know what his motives were, but they weren’t good.

  “I’ll give you the day to think about it.” He rose to his feet, towering over me once more. “But not much longer than that. I’m sure Kyle Livingston would be thrilled by the offer.”

  If Vincent Hunt swooped up Kyle, then I would be left with nothing. Kyle was my ticket into Asia, and without him, I had no hope for expansion. Something told me Vincent knew that, and he was using that to light a fire under my ass. It was a veiled threat. Vincent did his homework, knew exactly what my goals were so he could use them against me. He was doing everything possible to make sure I took this deal.

  But why?

  I rose out of my chair and walked around the desk. “Thank you. You’ll hear from my office by tomorrow afternoon.” I walked up to him, slightly unnerved that he looked so similar to the man I loved. I shook his hand, feeling the similarities in their grip and strength. Their knuckles were prominent in the same way, the veins from his forearms moving over the top of his hand just the way Diesel’s did.

  He dropped his hand and gave me a slight nod. “I hope you make the right decision, Titan. A deal like this only happens once in a lifetime.” He stopped before he reached the door to turn around and look at me. “And most of the time, it doesn’t happen at all.”

  13

  Hunt

  I got the information from my PI. I knew exactly where Bruce Carol was staying. His penthouse was on the market, and he was waiting for it to sell before he packed up and headed somewhere else. He probably had enough in savings to live out a quiet retirement, but he wouldn’t have enough to keep his yachts, luxury cars, and planes.

  Too bad.

  I got out of the shower after hitting the gym. I styled my hair and pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I wasn’t staying home tonight. My woman was at her penthouse, probably waiting for me to step out of the elevator doors at any moment. Instead of being home alone, I’d rather be naked and sweaty in her bed. I’d always been a sexual person who needed it on a regular basis, but with Titan, it wasn’t about sex. It was much more than that—to both of us. It was when I felt most connected to her, and nothing else existed outside the four walls that surrounded us.

  I had just pulled on my shoes when the elevator lit up and the doors opened.

  Titan stepped inside, still in the black dress she’d been wearing at Stratosphere. Her stilettos were five inches tall and made her toned calves looked even sexier. She wore the uncomfortable shoes every single day but never broke her graceful stride.

  My eyes quickly roamed over her body, seeing the tight fabric stretch across her perfect rack and her tiny waist. She was petite, but that fiery presence made her appear ten feet tall. The second I reached her, my hands glided around her hips until I felt the steep curve in her back, one of the features that aroused me the most. My head angled down to hers, and I gave her a kiss that was packed with the lustful thoughts I’d had about her all day. I had to sit across from her in a conference room fully clothed and discuss business while I fought the raging hard-on in my suit. My hands held her against me, allowing me to claim all of her mouth. Innocent kisses always turned devilish in nature. We couldn’t touch without it developing into something more. We couldn’t even look at each other without wanting to strip one another down to our basest nakedness. That was why I didn’t want to let her go. I didn’t want to search the world for her replacement. There was only one person in the world who affected me so deeply. I had to fight for her, to make sure I got to have this special joy for the rest of my life.

  She ended the embrace before it could ignite into a wildfire. Her hands were against my chest, and they slowly drifted down to my hard stomach. “I want to see Bruce Carol tonight.”

  With lidded eyes and thoughts only on sex, I had to take a few seconds to digest what she said. “We agreed to see him in the morning.”

  “I don’t want to wait.” Her hands dropped from my stomach and returned to her sides.

  My eyes shifted back and forth as I looked into hers. “Why?”

  She held my expression, but there was an ounce of anxiousness in the look. She was unsteady, even desperate. “Because I need this answer, Hunt. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

  The second I saw her step into my penthouse, there was only one thing I wanted to do. I wanted her face down and her ass up. I wanted to nail her from behind, to shove my thick cock inside that slick pussy until she was stuffed with my arousal. But Titan always got what she wanted—because I allowed her to. “Alright.”

  “Let’s go.” She turned back to the elevator and hit the button.

  I pulled my jacket over my shoulders and looked into her face. “Everything alright?”

  She watched the doors open with a distinct look of sadness on her face. “No, Hunt. Everything isn’t alright. It hasn’t been alright in a long time.”

  * * *

  We stepped onto his floor and approached his door.

  “Let me do the talking.”

  Sh
e nodded.

  I knocked on the door and waited for a response. Coming at night wasn’t the best time. He could be drinking, drowning in his self-pity. When there wasn’t an answer, I rang the doorbell. “Open up, Bruce.”

  A moment later, the door opened. Bruce Carol looked exactly the way he had a few months ago, but there were a few more lines on his face. His eyes were filled with unmistakable depression. He looked at me coldly, but the look he gave Titan was pure venom. “If you’re here to gloat, you’re wasting your time. You can’t make me feel worse than I already do.” He kept one hand on the door as if he was prepared to slam it in our faces.

  Now he was my number-one suspect. He had the perfect motive to do this to us. We ruined his life, and now he wanted to do the same to us. “I know you’re the one who went to the New York Times about Titan’s story. I understand you’re upset, but that was unnecessary.”

  “Went to the New York Times?” Bruce asked incredulously, his speech slightly slurred. “About that punk ex-boyfriend of hers?”

  Titan didn’t show the slightest reaction.

  “I didn’t tell anybody anything. I didn’t know a damn thing about Titan before I met her. The only reason why I didn’t want to work with her is because she looks like she has a tampon stuffed up her ass.”

  I didn’t think twice before I crowded him with my fist raised.

  Titan grabbed me by the arm and jerked me back. “He’s not worth it. I’ve had worse things said about me, and I don’t lose any sleep over it.” She released me, still maintaining her proud look. “Ignore him.”

  Bruce stared at her, a look of contempt on his face. “Don’t you two have a business to run? Why are you here?”

  He was beyond buzzed or just stupid. “I want to know why you did it. Why did you tell the newspapers about Titan? What were you trying to achieve? I can’t sue you for defamation because it’s accurate. There’s nothing I can take away from you because you already lost everything. So you may as well enjoy the last bit of your revenge and tell us why you did it. Were you hoping Titan and I would no longer be partners? Titan is smarter than that. She knows I wouldn’t betray her.”

  Bruce switched his gaze back to me, still wearing the exact same look of annoyance he’d been wearing since the very beginning of the conversation. “Like I said, I didn’t tell anybody anything. What’s the point of revenge when it doesn’t change anything? My wife is gone, my kids won’t speak to me… The only thing I enjoy is a good drink after a long day of selling all of my personal assets to pay my debt. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” He stepped back inside his penthouse and shut the door. The bolt locked into place when he turned the knob. A second later, his footsteps tapped against the floor as he retreated farther inside his home.

  I stared at the dark wood of the door because I couldn’t think. I had been certain this conversation would go differently. I had been certain if I seemed confident in my accusation, he would crack. Perhaps he knew Titan and I had issues between us, and by keeping the truth from us, we had to function in the dark. She didn’t know if she could trust me, and that was exactly what he wanted. He was stupid for crossing us, but he wasn’t quite as stupid as we both believed.

  I bowed my head as the sigh left my lungs. My hands dragged down my face, and the frustration cracked through my bones. I was dismayed, disappointed, and furious. If I’d gotten the answers I wanted, Titan would be in my arms right now. But now we were just as distant as we were before—if not more.

  I finally turned my head and looked at her.

  Her expression hadn’t changed. She turned away from the door and stepped farther into the hallway, the diamond necklace around her throat sparkling under the lamps that hung from both sides of the corridor.

  I walked with her back down the hall, trailing away from his entryway where we couldn’t be overheard. “He’s lying.”

  She hit the button, and we both stepped inside the elevator. We shifted down to the lobby level, the lights telling us exactly what floor we were on as we descended. She crossed her arms over her chest, her beautiful hair perfect around her shoulders.

  “Baby, he’s lying.”

  The only response I got her was a sigh.

  I turned my head in her direction. “He’s the only one with the motive.”

  “But he’s lost everything, Hunt. He has no reason to lie anymore. If he wanted to tear us down, he would be gloating right now. But he seems nothing but indifferent.”

  “He’s the only person it could possibly be.”

  “I want to believe you, Hunt. Believe me, I do. I’ve been patient. I’ve waited for you to give me a way to exonerate you. But it’s not coming…and it’s never going to come.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true,” she whispered.

  I panicked as we stood side by side in the elevator. My life was stressful because of the enormity of my responsibilities, but I’d never been scared like this before. The most important thing in the world was about to be taken away from me. Just as I took away Bruce’s legacy, he was going to take away the one thing that made me happy.

  The elevator stopped on the ground floor, and we walked through the lobby to the back seat of my Mercedes. The divider was up, so the driver couldn’t hear or see us. We headed back to my penthouse a few streets away.

  Titan looked out the window, ignoring me as much as she could.

  I stared out the other window, unsure how I was going to get out of this mess. The situation was so fucked up, and I couldn’t blame Titan for feeling hesitant. If the situations were reversed, I’d have a hard time believing her too.

  But I couldn’t let him win.

  I couldn’t let him rip us apart.

  “Just because I can’t prove my innocence doesn’t mean I’m guilty.”

  She kept her eyes out the window.

  “Baby.”

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Titan.” My hand moved to her thigh. “Look at me.”

  She watched the neon signs flash by before she finally turned her gaze on me. There was anger in her eyes, bubbling under the surface. She didn’t hide her resentment, her obvious disappointment.

  “I’m going to need you to believe me, Titan. I know it’s a lot to ask, but you have to have faith in me.”

  She shook her head slightly. “It’s too much to ask.”

  “You know I didn’t do it.”

  “Hunt, I have no idea what to believe. I think it could go either way.”

  “You know I love you. That’s something you have to believe in. I wouldn’t have told the world about my relationship with my father if that wasn’t true. I wouldn’t have defended you from Bruce Carol if you didn’t mean everything to me. I wouldn’t have put you back together with Thorn, the man you’re planning to marry, if I didn’t put you first. Ignore the bad and focus on the good.”

  She turned back to the window, her lips pursed tightly together. “I think Thorn is right. And I also think you’re right.”

  That just left me confused.

  “I think you do love me. I think you would do anything for me. But I think your initial motives were evil. I think you wanted to tear me down, but in the process, you fell for me. Now you’ve been trying to make up for it.”

  It was a devastating blow, but I was also grateful that she knew I really cared about her. “That’s not what happened, Titan.”

  “There’s no evidence to suggest otherwise.”

  “I know…but I really am innocent.”

  She kept her gaze out the window, shutting me out. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Hunt. I just want to move on.”

  I felt the finality of her tone fill the back seat of the car. I felt her pull away from me even though she didn’t move. I felt her slip from my fingertips no matter how hard I was gripping her. The one person I loved more than anyone on this planet didn’t trust me, didn’t believe me. An invisible wall formed between us, and it was so solid I would never be able to get thro
ugh. I wanted to scream until she heard me. I wanted to destroy everything in my path until she listened to me.

  But there was nothing I could do.

  Nothing at all.

  14

  Titan

  “Everything alright?” Thorn was bare-chested and barefoot, just wearing his sweatpants. It was almost eleven in the evening, so it was much later than I would normally stop by. He walked up to me at the doorway, his hair flat because he didn’t style it after he got out of the shower.

  “Do you have company right now?”

  “She left thirty minutes ago.” He stood in front of me with his strong build, eyeing me with the same look of protective concern he’d been giving me the past decade. It was the look a brother would give a sister, but it was also the look a husband would give a wife. Sometimes I wondered how we had so much love between us, but not an ounce of it was romantic. Over all the years I’d known him, I’d never felt a single ounce of jealousy for the women he brought home. But when I saw Hunt kiss that woman in the photograph, I thought I would never feel happiness again.

  “Vincent Hunt stopped by my office today.”

  Thorn’s eyes widened instantly. “What did he say? Did he talk about Diesel?”

  “Never mentioned him. He gave me a business proposition.”

  His surprise immediately turned to suspicion. His eyes narrowed on my face, and he crossed his arms over my chest. “Out of the blue?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve never even met him before.”

  “I know.”

  Thorn shared the same healthy skepticism I did. Anytime anyone did anything, I always questioned it. I needed to understand someone’s motives before I could trust them. Business was all about getting the best deal. If someone handed you something wonderful without expecting anything in return, that was just strange. Everyone was selfish. Everyone had their own self-interests—me included. “What was his offer?”