Barbara Dunlop - The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas

To her surprise, the manager held out a key card to Jack. “Please accept the Ruby Suite with our compliments.”

Jack gave Kristy a sparkling-eyed look. “Interested in a suite?”

“Two bedrooms?” she asked. It occurred to her that this could be a setup. Jack had been a perfect gentleman so far—maybe too much of a gentleman to be trusted.

He raised an eyebrow in the manager’s direction.

Without missing a beat, the man pocketed the key and retrieved his cell phone.

“This is Raymond Jones. Can you bring me a key for the Diamond Suite?” He paused. “The roulette tables. Thank you.”

He flipped the phone shut. “Two bedrooms,” he said.

“And my dog?” Kristy asked.

“Not a problem,” said Raymond.

“Then, thank you,” she said with a nod and a smile. A free suite definitely solved her accommodation problem.

“Anything else we can do to be of service?” asked Raymond.

Jack glanced at Kristy. “I can’t think of anything? Can you?”

Kristy shook her head.

Another man appeared at Raymond’s elbow and provided a new room key.

Jack accepted it with a thank you, while Raymond gestured to the expanse of the casino. “Please. Enjoy the rest of the evening.”

“We will,” said Jack. “Thank you very much.”

As Raymond and the other man walked away, Kristy turned to Jack. “So, did you pay him to do that?”

“Nope.”

“Come on.”

“I didn’t have to pay him. The room’s free.”

“I don’t get it.”

“That’s what happens when you bet big.”

“They give you a free room?”

Jack placed his hand in the small of her back, gently steering her toward the cage.

There was something about that hand…

“If you’re losing,” he said. “They want you to stick around and keep doing it. And if you’re winning, they want you to stick around long enough to lose it back to them.”

“Is that what we’re going to do?”

“Nope. Not unless you want to.”

“I don’t want to lose.”

“Then I vote we cash out and enjoy our free room.”

A free room with Jack.

Correction, a free suite with Jack. Two rooms, really.

She glanced up at his handsome face, and her stomach fluttered at the thought of such an intimate setting with such a sexy man.

Two bedrooms, she reminded herself.

Still. It was a hotel suite. And they were in Vegas. And she’d be a bald-faced liar if she didn’t admit her mind was jumping to the possibilities.

Kristy Mahoney was quite possibly the most perplexing person Jack had ever met. She admitted she was marrying his grandfather for money, yet he practically had to twist her arm to get her to gamble. They’d walked past designer fashions, fur coats and numerous jewelry displays in the hotel lobby, and she hadn’t so much as sent a covetous look at the merchandise, never mind suggesting she needed a few things to tide her over until morning.

Any gold digger worth her salt should be demanding Cleveland send a new private jet by now or dressing herself to the nines on Jack’s credit card. Instead, she was gazing around the luxury hotel suite in what appeared to be awe.

“It’s huge,” she muttered, her heels echoing on the marble floor of the foyer, Dee Dee’s claws ticked along at her side as they stepped into the living room.

Jack shut the suite door behind them. “You were the one who insisted on two bedrooms.”

She turned. “Did I foil your plans?”

He tensed for a split second before realizing she was referring to any plans he might have had to sleep with her. “I have no plans.” At least not to make love with her. At least not tonight.

Though, if she’d agreed to one bedroom and hopped into a king-sized bed, he would have eagerly followed.

“Let me guess,” she purred. “Other women generally fall for your ‘come on up to my free hotel suite. Oh—’” she dramatically raised her hand to her lips, mimicking his voice “—look, there’s only one great big bed.’”

He couldn’t help but grin at her exaggeration. Yet, somehow her opinion pricked his pride. It seemed she felt he had no honor, and had to resort to trickery to attract women.

He found himself crossing the foyer to gaze down at her. “Kristy,” he began in his own defense. “I’m a thirty-two-year-old man who works out five mornings a week and is in control of a billion-dollar conglomerate. What have I done to make you think I can’t get women?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “You’re only thirty-two?”

God, she was spunky. “Ouch.”

“And I thought it was Cleveland who was in charge of Osland International.”

Ahhh. This one definitely had a better brain than the last two gold diggers.

“He’s the major shareholder,” said Jack. “I’m the CEO.”

She shrugged. “I don’t even know the difference.”

Like heck she didn’t.

“But, whatever,” she continued. “I’m still not sleeping with you.”

“Kristy, Kristy, Kristy.” He didn’t want her to sleep with him.

Okay, yeah, he did. Obviously. Since she was stunningly sexy, and he did have a pulse. But what he really wanted was for her to fall for him.

Which meant he should probably stop yanking her chain.

But it was so much fun to tease her. And the woman could definitely give as good as she got.

“I’m sure you get women all the time,” she conceded.

“Now you make me sound like a player.”

“Are you?”

“No.” He wasn’t. He dated women occasionally. And he slept with women occasionally. But he was very discriminating. And he never led them on.

She moved to the middle of the living room, checking out the rest of the suite. “Got a girlfriend?”

“Not at the moment.”

Her perfume left a trace in the air. It was nice. More than nice, actually. It wasn’t fruity, yet it wasn’t floral…

“Did she break up with you, or did you break up with her?”

Jack blinked. “Who?”

“Your last girlfriend.”

“It wasn’t a serious relationship.”

Kristy turned back and nodded. “Ahhh.”

“What’s with the ahhhs?”

Was she accusing him of something?

“I know your type. Love ’em and leave ’em.”

There was something in her eyes, not hurt exactly, but something. Had somebody left her? Was that why she was willing to settle for money instead of love?

Now he was curious, but he didn’t want to bring up the subject of her love life. Because that would invariably lead to his grandfather, and Jack wanted her to forget all about Cleveland for tonight.

“I can hardly love you and leave you in forty-eight hours, can I?” he said instead.

“Forty-eight?”

Oops. “Twenty-four,” Jack corrected himself. “I meant twenty-four.”

“You scared me there for a minute.”

He gave her his most congenial smile. “Wouldn’t want to do that.” Then he nodded to the glass balcony door and the view beyond. “How about a swim?”

She turned to follow his gaze.

He crossed the room to open the doors, implicitly bidding her to follow him onto the wide veranda. “Take a look down there.”

She joined him to lean on the rail, between a pair of twin loungers at one end of the veranda and an umbrella table set up for four at the other.

He heard her suck in a breath as she gazed at the Mediterranean-style courtyard. The lighted pool was embraced by pillared fountains, terra-cotta tiles, tropical trees and sculpted shrubbery. It was peaceful and deserted this time of night, and the patterned pool bottom wavered through the mist rising from the heated water.

“It’s almost midnight,” Kristy whispered. “Are we allowed?”