The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas

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.