First of all you should not have to use a crossover cable as the Mac's Ethernet Adapter should be Auto-Sensing and should handle the cross over of a straight cable automatically. (At least this is so on my Mac.) Secondly I would not give the Host a routable IP Address and only set the IP Address in the CE-Device and the VM using no Gateway/DNS IP Addresses. while using a Bridged Network Adapter in the Virtual Machine.
On the Host if the Ethernet Adapter is using DHCP then you'll have to wait for it to time out and get a 169.254.0.0/16 IP Address or if you what faster response then manual assign a 169.254.0.0/16 IP Address to the Host's Ethernet Adapter. This way the communications id directly between the CE-Device and the Virtual Machine using VMware Bridge Protocol.
If you do what the Host itself to have connectivity in this loop then of course assign an appropriate IP Address using no Gateway/DNS IP Addresses.
Example IP Address Configuration
CE-Device IP Address: 192.168.3.1/24
Virtual Machine IP Address: 192.168.3.2/24
Host IP Address: 169.254.0.0/16 or 192.168.3.3/24
No Gateway/DNS IP Addresses on any.