Barbara Dunlop - The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas

“That a girl,” Jack murmured approvingly.

The dealer took his money and replaced it with a clear plastic tray of color-rimmed chips.

Jack took the seat next to her. “There you go. Now pick a number.”

She glared at him.

“Care for a drink?” a female voice said from behind her.

“Glenlivet,” said Jack. “One ice cube.” He looked at Kristy. “A Cosmopolitan?” That was the drink she’d had before dinner.

She considered saying no. But two minutes ago she’d claimed to want a drink. She didn’t want to look like a fool. So she nodded, and the woman jotted it down.

“Did you pick a number?” asked Jack.

“Twenty-seven,” she said, giving up the fight with an exasperated sigh.

He nodded at the table. “Well, put some chips on it.”

She picked up a single hundred-dollar chip and leaned over to the twenty-seven square.

“That’s it?” he asked with obvious disappointment.

“You might be sure you’re not going to lose,” she said, as the dealer spun the wheel. “But I’m not.”

“I never said you weren’t going to lose.”

“There you go.”

He sat back in his seat. “What I said was, I’m not going to lose. And that’s because I’m not going to play.”

The wheel stopped on thirty, and the dealer cleared away her chip.

“See what you made me do?”

“Pick another one,” he said, eyes dancing. “And this time live a little.”

“Is this voyeurism for gambling addicts?”

He laughed at that. “I thought you said you wanted a room?”

“What does this have to do with getting a room?”

“You’ll see.”

“And it was you who wanted a room. I’m happy to wait at the airport with Dee Dee.”

“All night?”

To save several hundred dollars? “Yes.”

The dealer tossed in the small white ball.

Jack nodded to the wheel. “You missed that one.”

She swiveled the chair to the side. “Can we leave now?”

“We’ve got drinks coming.”

The ball stopped, and a sequin-covered woman next to Kristy gave a cry of joy.

“Play a number,” said Jack.

“You’re insane.”

He lifted a stack of chips and placed them in her palm. “If you want to play it safe, take red or evens. Or, see that? If you put it on the line, you can cover two numbers.”

Kristy squinted at another man’s stack of chips sitting on the line halfway between two numbers. “Really?”

“Swear to God.”

Kristy had to admit, that seemed like a pretty good deal. She put a stack on the line between seventeen and twenty. She refused to count the chips to see how much she was gambling.

Jack placed his arm across the back of her chair and leaned in. “Now don’t let it rattle you if you lose. You’re going to win some, and you’re going to lose some. But we’ll be fine in the end.”

Kristy held her breath as she watched the white ball bounce around the wheel. It rattled to a stop on the seventeen.

She blinked, sure she must be hallucinating.

“You won,” said Jack.

“I did?”

“You want to let it ride?”

She watched the dealer add a stack of chips to her bet. “Ha. What are the odds of it hitting seventeen twice in a row?”

“Exactly the same as the odds of it hitting any other number.”

Kristy eyed him skeptically.

“Seriously,” he said.

That couldn’t be right. She reached out and moved her winnings to twenty-nine and thirty.

Then she reconsidered and cut the stack in half.

Jack sighed, leaning in to mumble in her ear. “We’ll be here all night at this rate.”

She ignored the warm puff of his breath on her skin. “I don’t want to lose it all at once.”

The dealer spun the wheel and tossed in the ball.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” said Jack, tapping his finger on the plastic tray that held his chips.

“I can’t believe you’re so cavalier with your money.”

“I can’t believe you’re so cautious with my money.”

The ball bounced to a stop.

Kristy had lost.

“See?”

The waitress arrived with their drinks. Chatter ebbed and flowed around them as the sequined woman next to Kristy wriggled off her seat and slid to the floor.

A thirty-something man in a dark suit took her place.

He smiled a friendly greeting at Kristy. Jack reacted by leaning closer to her, closing the space between them.

She struggled not to grin at his posturing. They were about as far away as you could get from dating, yet some anthropological instinct had obviously kicked in.

“Make a bigger bet,” said Jack, the fabric of his suit brushing against her bare forearm.

“Fine,” she said, scooping a long round of chips and placing them on number four.

“Wow,” he breathed, and she shot him a worried look.

But he was grinning. “Just messin’ with you.”

“You’re a jerk. You know that?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled.

She lost again.

“I don’t like this game.” It didn’t matter that it wasn’t her money. She was stressing out over losing it anyway.

“You’re doing fine,” he said.

“Can we do something else?”

“One more time.”

She gave a hard sigh. “Fine.”

Following the lead of the man sitting next to her, she placed a smaller stack of chips on the cross between four numbers. Then she took a bracing swallow of her cosmo.

The ball clattered around the wheel, settling on twelve, one of Kristy’s numbers.

The dealer added a couple of chips to her stack.

“Low risk, low payoff,” said Jack. He grabbed two stacks of chips and set them on number twenty-two. “Incidentally, that’s also the way things work in real life.”

“I know,” said Kristy, watching in morbid fascination as the wheel spun around again.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Why do you think I’m going to L.A.?”

Astonishingly, with that much money riding, Jack turned away from the wheel to stare at her instead. “Is it?”

She nodded, not taking her gaze off the ball. “For the chance at a big payoff. I left my sister, my holiday shopping and my baking behind.”

He kept his gaze glued to her profile. “Well, if this works out, you’ll be able to do all the shopping you want.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Then her eyes widened and her stomach clenched with the thrill. “You won!”

Jack stared at her a split second longer. Then he glanced at the roulette wheel. “I guess I did.”

“Do it again,” she urged. Clearly he understood the game better than she did.

His shoulders relaxed. “It’s your turn.”

“You’re better.”

He split his bet between number eighteen and the red zone. Then he pushed a stack of chips onto the line between eight and nine.

“Wow,” said Kristy.

“What?”

“You must have a secret system.”

He shook his head. “You pick numbers. It’s completely random. Help me out here.”

Scooting forward in her chair, Kristy gamely pushed a couple more stacks onto the board.

“Now we’re talking,” said Jack.

“That’s a pretty rich bet,” said the man next to her.

She felt Jack still.

Then the man glanced past her to Jack. His expression sobered, and he turned his attention to the table.

The ball hit the wheel.

Kristy doubled her money on two, and her bet also paid out on black. Several spins later, with her Cosmo glass empty and a new player at her elbow, they were up several thousand dollars. A man in a navy suit and a red tie approached them.

He introduced himself as the casino manager and asked if they’d care for another drink.

Kristy was pretty much done with alcohol. Besides, it was getting late. She hoped she’d won enough to pay for a hotel room because, now that she was tired, an airport waiting area didn’t sound all that appealing.