He knew the minute Lexi told him she wanted to meet him at the Dungeon deck separately that she was up to something. He'd tried to redirect her. After all, almost everything she'd brought aboard the ship had been moved to his suite, so why would she even need to get ready somewhere else?

The Dom in him wanted to make her stay. Require her to submit and keep her out of trouble. But that's exactly what Donovan and Ian had been afraid he would do. Strategically, the best plan was to give her enough rope to hang herself. It was the only way to prove she was guilty.

But damn it, he didn't want to prove she was guilty. 

Every time he'd gotten an update from Donovan the news hadn't been any better. They'd been unable to find any reason why Lexi had set up the skimming program except to skim. And Jackson could admit, if it was any other person, the damning evidence would've already been enough. 

Except for the time Donovan had been with them, the other man had been looking into Lexi and SilverSystems as thoroughly as possible. The coding she'd programmed into the ship’s servers had been left alone. Pulling them would've tipped her off that they were on to her. But the software was being watched very closely.

Just as he had been watching Lexi very closely. There had been no need to turn on the tracker in her necklace because she’d been with him every moment of every day for the last few day. There was no way she could've accessed the software she planted.

He couldn't remember ever enjoying time so much. Not just the sex, the company. The conversations. The laughter.

And the sex. Because he knew he could fuck her for the next fifty years and not get tired of it, the sex was so good.

But that wasn’t the problem, her potential criminal activities were the problem.

Donovan had Lexi thoroughly check out and hadn't found anything that would suggest that Lexi wasn't a completely law-abiding citizen. There was nothing found in her financial records, personal dealings, or activities that lent itself towards criminal tendencies. 

But then again, Lexi was very smart. Her analytical mind would not have entered any sort of activity without having the means to cover her tracks.

Every hour that they couldn't figure out a reason for her software beyond outright theft made it more likely that Lexi was, in fact, guilty. Jackson had to admit that.

Her insistence that she go get ready in her own cabin before meeting him around midnight on the dungeon deck was just further proof of her guilt. Under other circumstances, he would've totally understood her need for a little bit of space. They'd had a very intense few days. And though surprisingly he hadn't felt crowded, he certainly understood the need for having one's own space, even temporarily.  And hell, maybe that was part of why Lexi wanted a few hours on her own.

But he would bet a considerable fortune that Lexi planned to make a stop before going out to play.

The real question Jackson had to face now was what he was going to do if they discovered Lexi really was guilty. When they discovered she was guilty.

Normally someone who stole from him would be going to jail. Calder enterprises had a team of lawyers to make sure it would happen.

But he couldn't do that to Lexi. No matter what her reasons for stealing from him were, whether it was because she was angry or she had gotten herself in some sort of financial bind, he would get the truth from her and they would work it out.

Admittedly, her job, probably her entire company, would be finished. But at least she wouldn't go to jail. 

Donovan was waiting at the server room. He'd been there since the moment Lexi had left Jackson’s cabin. It was odd not having her with him, her smaller body pressed close like it had been for the last seven days. 

And it would be again. His mind was made up. She would be punished severely for her theft attempt, but not in prison. She would be his to punish. 

He liked the thought of that almost as much as he hated the thought of her stealing from him in the first place. 

But one way or another this was going to end. Tonight. They were going to face each other.  

Thirty minutes after Lexi left him, making sure he had himself completely under control for the night ahead, Jackson made his way to the server room. He half expected for Donovan to have already caught her, but the other man shook his head when Jackson arrived.

“No sign of her,” Donovan said.

“She's supposed to meet me on the Dungeon Deck in fifteen minutes. How long will it take her to do whatever she needs to do in here?”

Donovan shrugged. “Depends on what's she's trying to do. If she was just trying to pause the skimming software, it wouldn't take very long. Which, since she doesn't know we're on to her, she would have no reason to think she needs to go in and attempt to cover her tracks. The software is very clever to begin with.”

“Okay, so maybe she's going to make her way here right before she goes to the club if she only needs a few minutes. We'll wait. Plus, we always have our backup plan.” 

Jackson grimaced. He didn’t like talking about, or even thinking about the tracking device in the collar he’d given her. Somehow using something so personal, almost sacred in the BDSM world, for the purpose of spying seemed like a pretty huge betrayal of trust. Although thinking that was ridiculous, given she was stealing from him.

After another thirty minutes of waiting, it became clear Lexi wasn't coming.

“What does that mean?” he asked Donovan as they walked to Jackson's small office across the hallway. 

Donovan shrugged. “It means she either has no plans to stop stealing from you or she realized that it was more risky to stop the software than to just let it go and forget about it.”

“And either way we don't get our answers.”

“Afraid not. Not unless you ask her outright.”

Damn it, he was not going to let this sit between them. There had been too many things that had kept them apart for too many years — her age, his dominance, her innocence — Jackson wasn't willing to lose her again. 

“Can we shut down her software ourselves? Stop her from being able to use it at all?”

Donovan nodded. “But if we do, she's going to definitely know we know.”

“She's going to know that anyway. Trust me.”

Donovan sat behind Jackson's computer. “Let me look at what's being filtered, then I can go bypass it in the server room.” 

Jackson was surprised at the disappointment weighing on him. He'd known that Lexi was up to something but had held out hope that it wasn't something illegal. Wasn't something personally vindictive. Especially not after how sweetly submissive she'd been the last few days. How honest everything had felt between them.

“What the fuck?” Donovan stared at the computer. “The skimming has already been stopped.”

“What? How? I thought you said it had to be shut down from the server room.” He walked around the desk to see what Donovan was looking at. ”How long has it been stopped?”

Donovan clicked at the keyboard. “Just over thirty minutes. But looking at the numbers now, there's something weird going on.”

“But how did she turn it off, Donovan?'

A few more clicks. “God damn it. She used the secondary server room down on level five. It's actually closer to the Dungeon Club. I didn't even think about it. But wait, give me a second. There's something going on with these numbers.”

Now anger warred with disappointment. She was going to keep this from him. Had she changed her mind about stealing all together or was she just hiding it for right now?

Jackson slammed his fist down on the desk. How could he ever trust her again?

“I'm going to the club.” They were going to have this out. Right fucking now. He could force her body to be honest even if he couldn't force her mind.

“Jackson, I'm telling you, there's something going on with these numbers.”

“Whatever it is, it can wait.” 

This confrontation with Lexi couldn't.