Page 32 of Cross Point

“He could have been lying.”

“Nope. I got pissed off and shot him in the knee. If he lied, I would have capped the other one. He was telling the truth.”

“You…” Jackson shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“She did,” Maxwell called out over his shoulder. “Naked.”

“You could have left that part out,” she shouted back.

He laughed. “But how could I forget that part, love?”

Jackson looked so pissed, Trinity was surprised steam wasn’t coming out of his ears. She quickly finished telling the story, wanting to get it done before his head exploded. When she was done, he just sat there watching her silently.

After a long pause, he asked, “Where did you sleep last night, Katrina?”

“With me,” Maxwell answered loudly as he turned the boat off. He had stopped them out in the water overlooking the construction site of the new resort, exactly where they needed to be.

“Is that fucking so?” Jackson said softly.

“Yes, it is,” Trinity answered, her voice loud and clear, her gaze unabashed. “Maybe you’re waiting for me to say I was scared about someone trying to kill me, but I wasn’t. Not really. I’m attracted to Max. It was almost instantaneous, like it was with you. It’s never happened to me like that before, so this is all pretty strange for me. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have acted on it if you hadn’t bailed.”

“I did not bail!”

“You freaked out the night we were together, and I haven’t heard from you since” she snapped, out of patience. “So, you don’t get to judge me, Jackson. Now, I have work to do, so don’t fucking bother me.”

Lifting her black matte case from where she’d secured it, she set it down on the side row of seats next to her and opened it. As she began to expertly assemble her sniper’s rifle, she heard Jackson suck in his breath.

“You will not shoot anyone!”

She turned toward him and took her sunglasses off so he could see the full impact of her irritation. Pulling her hair back in a ponytail, she said, “Duh. I need it to see into the construction site. We stopped there before we came here and stirred shit up. Now, stop talking to me, asshole. I’m working.”

Chapter Twelve

Maxwell sat down on the seat next to where Trinity now crouched, the barrel of her rifle on the edge of the boat, staring out at the hotel renovations. Instead of looking at the hotel, he was content to look over at the other man who had captured his woman’s interest.

He saw the fire burning in the lieutenant’s eyes as he stroked a lazy hand over her ponytail. Yes, Jackson was still interested, but he had fucked up and left an open path for Maxwell to step in. That was something he wholeheartedly appreciated, even if it hadn’t been intentional.

Still, he had no intention of stepping back.

Holding her through the night had been an experience for him. He rarely spent the entire night with a woman, and when he did, he never slept peacefully. But with her, he had. After they had finished making love, they’d had another round of sex in the shower before they drifted off to sleep wrapped around one another.

When he’d woken hours later, he was surprised by how well he had rested. He’d been thrilled to find her cuddled up against him and had woken her with soft kisses. He’d made love to her slowly in the early morning light. Being with her had just felt right. And it wasn’t something he would give up without a fight.

The walk through the construction site earlier had gotten the reaction they had thought it would. No one could say no to the big boss coming in to ask questions when they would have given her the boot if she’d showed up alone.

Or, at least, they would have tried.

A lot of the crew was local. It had been one of the stipulations he had put in place when he’d taken bids on the project. However, he had gone with a construction company based out of Miami to head up the development and most of the management was from the mainland. It had taken a great deal of time and money to ship over the necessary equipment and materials for the build, not that any of it had been worth it now that he saw with his own eyes what was going on at the site.

He had immediately put a halt on construction and sent everyone home until further notice until he could speak to the construction company’s owner. Not only were they way behind schedule, the material they were using wasn’t what he was supposedly paying for. Someone was skimming off his project, and they were willing to kill or kidnap to protect their secret.

He needed to find out who was behind it and end them…permanently.

Maxwell had no doubt that Trinity would find out who was behind all of it, but he’d made a few calls of his own to see what he could discover. And he had special plans in the works for anyone within the company that was part of the scheme. Depending on how far up the chain it went, he was prepared to take the construction company apart, piece by fucking piece until nothing was left but a useless pile of rubble.

Just like his new resort.

They would learn the hard way just why no one cheated a King.

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