Page 18 of Cross Point

She set the gun down on the table out of his reach and leaned over to pick up her robe from where it was draped over the back of another chair.

“You don’t have to put on that robe on my account.” His voice lowered to a seductive murmur. “I am thoroughly appreciating the view.”

“You’re a funny guy, Max,” she said as she put the robe on without getting up. She was all right with flashing a little boob to a stranger, but she’d rather not give him full frontal if she could help it. “My initial question is still valid, though. What are you doing in my suite?”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, more relaxed now. “It’s the owner’s suite. Being the owner and all, this is still my suite, love.”

She shrugged. “This is where Julian and Tara put me for the duration of my stay. I’m Katrina Cross, by the way. You can call me Trinity. I work with Tara, so you can contact her to verify. You’re welcome to the other bedroom, or you can find somewhere else to stay, but I’m not moving. I’m having a love affair with this place, and I’m not giving it up.”

His brows furrowed in surprise “You…don’t mind if I stay here with you?”

Sexual hunger fired to life in his eyes, causing a responding flutter to stir in her belly that she ruthlessly ignored. Damn it, had something in the water down there turned her into a sex-starved maniac? Or was this simply a sign that she needed to date more? Either way, she needed to get her hormones in check.

“Not at all,” she told him. “I’m offering you a room to sleep in, not a blow job. As long as you remember I sleep with a gun next to my bed, we’re all good. Besides, this might make more sense since I think I’m here for the same reason you are.”

“And that would be?”

“You’re totally getting screwed on your new renovation.”

“Bloody hell, I knew it!” He slapped his hand down on the table, rattling her gun and phone.

“Relax. I’m here to help you figure out what’s going on.” She paused as the doorbell to the suite sounded. “That should be room service.”

Maxwell frowned as he stood and gestured for her to stay where she was. “You are not answering the door wearing a robe. I’ll get it.”

After issuing the command, he strode back into the suite, missing the way she rolled her eyes at him. She approved when he stopped to check the monitor by the door before opening it. When her cell phone rang, she glanced at the display and smiled when she saw a name pop up on screen that she hadn’t seen in a while.

Nikita “Flame” Nuria had been one of the best agents Trinity had ever worked with, but even she had started to worry that her friend had become too desensitized to everything. Sure, every agent had to learn how to compartmentalize. Seeing what they did and doing the things that they were required to do meant they couldn’t get emotional over things like normal people, but retaining some humanity was essential.

However, Nikita had been different.

Trinity had jokingly called her friend a sociopath a few times in the past, but she understood that in reality she really wasn’t too far off the mark. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. At least, not to her. She found Nikita’s blunt way of speaking refreshing, though not everyone could handle that kind of brutal honesty.

Since Nikita had officially retired, she was now on the periphery of the agency, but Trinity knew that no IAD agent ever truly left the life completely. The only way to do that was if they stopped breathing.

She answered the call, but before she could say anything, Nikita said, “You got shot again. What are you, a fucking bullet magnet?”

“It was only a graze this time,” Trinity clarified. “But I did get stabbed a few times, and that definitely fucking sucked.”

“At least they didn’t hit anything vital, or you wouldn’t be answering my call.”

She wanted to chuckle at her friend’s casual tone but held it in. Leave it to Nikita to make getting stabbed sound trivial. “So, I heard hell froze over. Did you really get married?”

“Yeah, that happened.”

Trinity laughed at her impassive tone. “Congrats and all that. I’ll send a gift soon since I didn’t get to attend the wedding.”

“I only found out about the damn wedding right before it happened,” Nikita explained. “I think Ash figured there was a better chance I’d say yes if he rushed me into it.”

As the owner of Rough & Tough Sports Apparel and Equipment, Ashton Marks was known for being a smart, innovative businessman. Running a corporate empire was undoubtedly notable, but it was even more impressive that he’d managed to convince Nikita to marry him.

“I’d say your new hubby must be a very astute man.”

“He’s certainly something,” Nikita muttered. “Anyway, getting to the point of my call. Sin contacted me a few days ago about possibly running a training facility here in Breakers. Since I heard you are considering retirement, I wanted to talk to you about possibly coming down here to help me run things. That is, if I decide to do it.”

Sinclair “Sin” Hamilton was one of the commanders in charge of coordinating all of the different IAD agency branches around the world. He was mainly responsible for the divisions in America, though he seemed to pop up everywhere, especially if there was trouble brewing in the area.

Normally, if Sin wanted something, he wouldn’t stop until he got it. However, that kind of pressure didn’t work on someone like Nikita. Still, if she was reaching out to Trinity, her friend was most likely already planning on moving ahead with the plan to run the new IAD training facility.

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