The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas

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.

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.

Twobedrooms, 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.

Three

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?”