Who the hell was this man?
He spoke without cursing once—though he almost slipped a couple times—he held his own with various topics and never once, during the complete meal, did he not have a possessive hold on her somewhere. Her neck, her thigh, or even simply holding her hand.
That did not go unnoticed by Drew or Nate.
Or even Natalie, who was actually flirting with him. Right in front of her.
Recently having gone through a long and rough divorce, she had said many times, and quite loudly, she was swearing off men. Apparently, the big man next to Cait wasn’t off Natalie’s menu.
But, sorry, the kitchen was closed. The woman wasn’t going to get a taste of Magnum. Not now, not ever.
And if Hank’s only daughter knew Magnum wasn’t what he appeared to be, she’d probably turn her nose up at him, anyway. Just like she was afraid they’d all judge Dawg, Cait’s father. Because Natalie’s tastes ran toward men with power and money.
Which made her wonder if that was why Nate chased her so hard. Maybe he thought Cait had power and money because of Paul and her mother. She didn’t and never would because she walked away from all of that as soon as she was old enough to make that decision. As soon as Dawg and Emma let her move in with them at seventeen, immediately after her high school graduation.
As soon as she realized she much preferred people who were genuine and down to earth. People who weren’t pretentious and whose goal in life was to live a good one. Not necessarily one filled with money, but more with love and loyalty.
That was the life she chose.
That was the life she wanted for her future. For her children.
And from her future spouse.
She didn’t need a lot, but she needed something real and solid.
She wanted to love a man who could love her back with both his heart and soul.
One as fiercely loyal to her as she was to him.
Magnum’s fingers squeezed hers and she pulled herself out of her thoughts to concentrate on the conversation around the table.
Suddenly, she wished she’d stayed in her head.
“Never seen her like that before. Had a bad reaction to the liquor. Appreciate you gettin’ her home safely. When she wouldn’t answer her cell, got worried and went over to her apartment. Her car wasn’t there and she wasn’t inside, either. Pinged her phone and located her at a motel a few miles away. Luckily, she was safe. But she doesn’t remember how she got there.”
Cait tensed. This was not a topic she was expecting this morning. Why was he discussing this with a table full of people?
Nate’s brow furrowed. “That’s strange. I unlocked her door for her and helped her inside. Then I left, thinking she’d sleep it off. Are you saying she went somewhere? Her car was left at the club.”
“Know it because I got it the next day. If you took her home, how’d she get to the motel? Doubt she walked that five miles in the condition you’re sayin’ she was in.”
Nate rubbed his chin. “There’s no way she could’ve walked five miles. She could hardly walk a couple steps.”
“Then how’d she get there, Nate?” His question was a low rumble but it had a sharpness to it.
Nate shrugged, appearing thoroughly perplexed. “I have no idea. Do you think she called someone?”
“Checked her phone. No calls except me tryin’ to get ahold of her. Also checked with the motel’s office, but they refused to give me that info. It would have to be requested from the pi—police.”
Damn, he was good at telling stories. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or disturbed that lies could slide so easily off his tongue.
“That’s very strange,” Drew said. “And worrisome. Was... everything okay? When you found her, I mean.”
Cait’s attention fell on Drew and her heart began to thump, unsure of what Magnum would say next. She dropped her hand to his thigh and squeezed hard. “I was fine.”
“Had a bad hangover and couldn’t remember sh— anything. She normally doesn’t drink like that. I forbid it.”
He forbade it?
More than one set of eyes around the table went wide.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Gotta understand me,” Magnum continued, ignoring that reaction. “Love this woman to death. Will do anything to protect her. That means I’m lookin’ out for her. I can’t be with her when she goes out? Then she needs to curb her drinkin’.”
Uh. Cait leaned forward to quickly say, “I don’t drink that much. I only had one drink that night.”
“I remember,” Nate said. “You only had that one margarita.”
“Then how does she not remember what happened? Why’d she end up at a motel she only lives five miles away from? Someone knows somethin’ and I’m wonderin’ who.”
Oh fuck. She squeezed his thick thigh even tighter and his hand reached down to interlace their fingers.
“Maybe you need to go to the police, Cait,” Drew spoke up. “It’s scary to think that someone may have slipped something into your drink.” His eyes landed on his own brother. “Very scary.”
Natalie leaned forward, a concerned look on her face and squeezed Cait’s arm. “That is scary. Maybe someone roofied you! But who would’ve done that? The club was closed to everyone but us. And the party only consisted of our employees and some significant others. I can’t imagine anyone in our workforce would stoop to something like that. If there is someone among us who would do that...” Her gaze swept the restaurant, which was full of eating and chatting employees. Funny how she didn’t look at the men sitting at her own table. Her own brothers.
“Has anyone shown you more interest than you’d like, Cait?” Drew asked, his eyes narrowed on her.
It wasn’t surprising he would ask that, because every time Nate had asked her out, he’d done it with no one else around. So, no one probably knew how persistent he’d been.
Was she supposed to out Nate right there at the table? Speak her suspicions out loud at the breakfast table to his siblings?
Her mouth gaped open and she couldn’t push the words up and out of her throat.
“Nate,” Drew started, focusing on his brother. “This sounds like something your department should handle. If one of our employees drugged Cait during a work function, this could be a crime, as well as an HR nightmare. You need to handle this.”
Now it was Nate’s mouth that gaped open as he stared back at his older brother. “It didn’t happen at work.”
“It happened during one of our sponsored get-togethers.”
“Drew...”
“Nate, you need to get with the authorities and not only report this but do an investigation on your end. So we can find out who he is and terminate him... Or her.”
“I—”
Drew leaned forward and hissed at his brother, “It’s your damn job. Do it.”
Nate’s jaw became set and as he turned to Cait, Magnum said, “No cops. You find out who it was, you come to me.”
Natalie raised her palms. “No. The police need to be involved. Especially if...” She turned to Cait, concern in her brown eyes. “Did you wake up alone?”
All eyes landed on her.
She struggled to breathe. Her brain was spinning since she had no idea what to say or how this would play out.
“Yes... Yes, I was alone and I was fine.” She waved a hand in the air. “It’s just a mystery on how I got from my apartment to the motel, as I don’t remember going there. Mag—” She swallowed his name. “Malcolm came and picked me up. I only had to deal with a pesky headache for a while afterward.”
God, she could lie as easily as Magnum.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Natalie whispered, sitting back and relaxing a little more. “But still, if you were drugged by someone who had nefarious intentions, we still need to know that. Good thing Nate was there to get you home safely.”
“Thank fu— God,” Magnum bit off next to her.
“Yes,” Cait leaned forward, caught Nate�
�s gaze and forced out, “Thank you, Nate.”
“My pleasure. Anything for you, Caitie.”
Magnum tensed next to her and a low growl slipped out.
“Cait,” Nate corrected quickly. “Cait. Sorry. I know you don’t like being called that.”
She also didn’t like being drugged and violated while she was passed out. Him calling her Caitie was harmless and excusable. The rest was not.
But if he was the one, he showed no signs of guilt during the whole conversation. None at all.
Which could be a sign the man was a psycho.
Or it could also be an indication of innocence.
Maybe this whole thing was just a bad idea. Maybe she never should have considered getting Magnum involved. Just let it all go. Forgot about it and moved on.
But what if whoever did it, did it to someone else? And she did nothing to stop him?
That’s what ate at her the most. She didn’t want any other woman to go through what she did. Maybe she didn’t remember it but that didn’t mean the next woman wouldn’t.
And maybe the man wouldn’t be gentle with his next victim. Maybe he’d be emboldened because of not being caught the first time—if it was his first time—and would hurt the next woman badly.
No.
No, she needed to find out who he was, and something needed to be done about him. So, she was back to square one. And the reason she got Magnum involved in the first place... because she had nowhere else to go. And while she’d originally been worried about being blackmailed, no further contact from whoever sent her that video had been made.
That made it even more confusing on why the video was sent to her in the first place.
What a damn mess.
She was glad she had finished eating because after all of that, she lost her appetite. She no longer wanted to sit at the table with the Gallos for the rest of the morning. She was also not happy with Magnum for not warning her that he was going to bring that subject up. Not in private, but right there at the table. In front of the person she suspected was the one who did it.
At least he hadn’t mentioned the video. And he also made it sound like she had only gotten “lost” instead of raped.
He apparently wanted them to concentrate on who drugged her. Because that would tell him who did the rest. And again, it pointed at Nate Gallo since he had been the one near her drink before she went to the restroom. He’d sat with her and never left her side. He was also the person who “helped” her home. If she even got home. She had no evidence of that, either. Nate could be lying and had taken her directly to the motel.
She chewed on her bottom lip, staring at her now cold cup of coffee.
Magnum pulled her bottom lip from between her teeth with his thumb, leaned over and gave her a firm kiss, then said softly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, “Love you, baby.”
He then kissed her again on her temple while her heart pounded so hard in her chest, she swore everyone could see it. When he sat back, a satisfied look on his face, she whispered, “Love you, too.”
He gave her the biggest smile she’d ever seen from him, before lifting his coffee cup and downing it.
When he put the empty cup on the table, he was still smiling.
Magnum sat under an umbrella by the pool as a bunch of Cait’s co-workers played water volleyball in a “team building” exercise. It didn’t go unnoticed that a few of the men had done a quick, and not-so-quick, inspection of Cait in her fucking bikini.
Knowing she would be jumping around in the fucking pool, hitting a ball while getting up close and personal with some of her male co-workers made him ask her if she had brought along another bathing suit that covered her more.
She had not.
Then he strongly suggested she skip that exercise in fucking team work.
She did not.
And now he sat there watching her laughing, smiling and splashing around, wanting to throat punch every fucking male in that pool as they watched her tits bounce as much as that fucking ball.
He was also starting to wonder if they were purposely hitting the ball to her more than her female co-workers like Angie, who was about five feet tall and the same width around. Or Petra, who had zero tits and an allergy to shaving her pits, which, with her hands in the air, only made it too obvious.
But, hell, maybe those women did it for someone else. Just not him.
He got it, though. A twenty-five-year-old, curvy blonde with big green eyes and even bigger fucking tits was hard to ignore. Unless you were fucking gay.
He doubted any of them were gay. Petra, maybe, but since she didn’t have a dick—from what he could tell—he didn’t care if she checked out Cait.
He squeezed the lounge chair’s armrests to keep himself in his seat and clenched his teeth to keep from yelling out that those were his fucking tits and to stop eyeballing them, otherwise he was going to make sure those fuckers couldn’t see anything after he was done.
But he was also pretty fucking sure Cait wouldn’t appreciate that outburst or those busted eyes, so he suffered in silence.
However—and it was a big fucking however—they were going to have a conversation later about her buying a one-piece bathing suit. Or a damn tent. Or better yet, banning her from pools all together.
Fuck.
As soon as Nate Gallo exited a building on the other side of the pool, Magnum released the armrests which were anchoring him in place and surged to his feet. That motherfucker’s eyes went directly to Cait who just hit the ball high and whose tits bounced even higher, almost right out of her top.
“Fuck no,” he growled as Nate approached the pool.
Fuck no, screamed in his head. As did, get the fuck outta the pool, Cait!
But somehow he managed to choke all of that back and, instead, tried to be casual as fuck as he stalked his way around the pool, staying far away from the edge. Because right now, if he knew how to fucking swim, he’d be in that pool, throwing her over his shoulder and hoofing it right back to their room.
But, fuck him, he couldn’t, so he didn’t.
Instead, when he got close enough to Gallo, he cleared his throat loudly and gave that fucker a smile. Whether it appeared deadly or not, he didn’t fucking care.
“Malcolm,” Gallo greeted, also clearing his throat, but not in a gonna-fuck-you-up way, but more of a please-don’t-slice-off-my-balls-and-shove-them-down-my-throat.
“Gallo. Got a sec?”
“Uh... Sure.”
Magnum turned to see Cait staring at them from the water. “Be back, baby. Don’t leave this area without me.”
He ignored her frown and the worry in her eyes, and jerked his head toward an empty pavilion away from the pool area. Gallo followed him and once they were out of hearing range, he turned and towered over the fucker, hands on his hips.
Magnum wondered if the man’s asshole was as puckered as his lips. If not, it should be.
“Need to talk to you about that night. Without Cait. Without other ears hearin’. Since you’re head of the HR department and are supposed to handle this sh—stuff accordin’ to your brother, comin’ to you with more info no one knows about ‘cept me and Cait.”
“Uh... okay. I think we need to get police involved.”
Magnum frowned. “You want cops involved?” That surprised the fuck out of him.
“Well... I’m not sure I could do a proper investigation and if Caitie... uh... Cait was drugged, that’s a crime.”
What the fuck!
“Yeah, it’s a fu— a fu—” He huffed a breath through clenched teeth, then tried again. “Right. But I got evidence no one else knows about. And... Caitie doesn’t want anyone going to the pi— cops.”
“Why?”
Because I’m gonna kill the fucker so he never does it again to anyone else. “Because she’s embarrassed about what happened. She blames herself for being careless. And if her father finds out, which he will if you go to the cops, it’s gonna cause a major issue.”
And that issue would be caused by more than just Dawg.
“You’d think Paul would want her to go to the police.”
Jesus fuck. He kept forgetting they thought that fucking stepfather of hers was her real father. “He’s got a temper.” He never met the asshole so he had no idea if that was true or not. “A bad one.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Just be glad you haven’t.”
“But—”
“Look,” Magnum cut him off. “Need your help. We can work together. Get me a name and I’ll handle whoever it is. If I find out who it is, I’ll give you his name so you can fire his— him.” Though that last part would never happen because he’d never share that fucking name with anyone but maybe Cait. That name would go to his grave with him, just like the fucker who did what he did to her.
“How?”
Fuck. “How what?”
Gallo’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “How are you going to handle it... him? If it even is a him.”
Oh, it was definitely a him. Magnum had seen the hard proof. “You leave that to me.”
“How about we just leave this to law enforcement, I fire whoever it was and you can sleep easy he was caught?”
“Lemme tell you somethin’, Nate. I love that fu— woman. I don’t like that someone drugged her with the intent to hurt her. She also doesn’t wanna make a big deal out of it, but I’m makin’ it a big deal ‘cause I can do that. She’s mine. She’s mine to protect. How ‘bout I make a deal with you? You find out who it is before me, just let me have a few words with the fu— guy and then we’ll let the p—olice deal with him.”
“Okay, but I’m still not sure how I can help. I didn’t see anyone slip anything into her drink and I was...”
“You were what?” Stalking her ass? Pressuring her? Knockin’ her the fuck out so you could steal a piece of her ‘cause she wouldn’t give it to you willingly?
“There,” he finished lamely. “You keep saying it’s a guy. We don’t know that. It could’ve been anyone.”
It wasn’t just anyone. “She wasn’t alone in that motel room.”
Gallo looked up at him in surprise. “She said she was.”
“She woke up alone but wasn’t alone while she was unconscious.”
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