The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  “Let’s sit down, get something hot to drink, and talk,” I suggested.

  Kayla glanced at me and nodded again. “Let’s do it,” she agreed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kayla

  I had gone outside because the lobby had felt too warm, and I’d felt too worked up to just keep sitting around waiting for something to happen, waiting to decide on something and figure out what was going on inside my own mind. I had thought to get an Uber or a Lyft and maybe go back to the airport for a while, see if there was anything I could do to get on a flight. But it had already begun snowing, so when Dean caught up with me, I hadn’t exactly been against the idea of going back inside, no matter how awkward I felt about him finding me in the first place.

  “Let’s go sit in the bar,” he suggested, and as he steered me in that direction a bit, I could feel his hand still shaking a bit from the cold.

  We sat down, and I saw the same waitress from the night before moving around the tables; of course, there were a lot more people in the bar than there had been the night before. Everyone was holed up for the snowstorm. As soon as she spotted Dean, she came right over to where we were sitting, all smiles. That’s what you get when you tip heavily and often.

  “What can I get for you two? It’s cold out there,” the waitress said, looking from me to Dean. I thought I could see a little twinkle in her eyes, looking at Dean but then, she was probably counting on making another great tip. I would probably have a twinkle in my eyes, too.

  “Something hot, for sure,” Dean said. “Can you do some kind of decadent hot chocolate thing?”

  The waitress laughed, and I caught a glimpse of what I thought Dean must deal with more than the average person: people acting like sycophants, at least a little bit, around him.

  “We’ve got an Irish cream hot chocolate with all the toppings,” the waitress said, beaming. “That’ll warm you up.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of something with maybe a nip of whiskey in it,” Dean said.

  “I can do that,” the waitress told him with a nod, forgetting I existed almost completely.

  “Does that work for you, Kayla?” Dean looked at me and I nodded. I didn’t really need booze just then but I was more than a little chilly, too, and I thought it would warm me up. Besides, it wasn’t like we were planning on getting drunk.

  The waitress left, and I waited for Dean to tell me whatever it was he wanted to say, looking around occasionally. No one seemed to be close enough to try and eavesdrop on our conversation but I felt so conspicuous sitting there with a billionaire, especially after a good half of the people in the bar with us had witnessed our little mini-tournament the night before. It almost felt as though someone had put a flashing neon sign over my head that said Kept Woman!

  “I wanted to make a proposal to you,” Dean said, shifting in his seat to put all of his attention onto me.

  “That sounds... interesting,” I said, trying to slow down the rapid fluttering of my heart. Why did I feel so nervous? It didn’t make any sense.

  “I just got word from the pilot I’ve been using for my chartered plane that he’ll be able to take off tonight,” Dean explained. “So, I can head out to Montauk between seven and nine tonight, get there by a little after midnight.”

  “That sounds great for you,” I said, making myself smile. What does this have to do with me?

  “I was going to ask you to come with me,” Dean said. “I know you left this morning but I think we really hit it off last night, and it didn’t seem like you were all that into the idea of spending the holiday with your parents and sister anyway.”

  I stared at him, wondering what kind of life I had just walked into. A billionaire who I’d had a one-night stand with wanted to whisk me away to his place in Montauk?

  “I…” I licked my lips, wishing I still had the bottle of water I’d snatched from the room on my way out. “Why did you come looking for me?” I couldn’t help but frown in confusion at the knowledge that Dean had obviously been seeking me out. How long had he been looking for me?

  “Because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see how you felt,” Dean said. “Last night... well, it was the best night I’ve had in a while, and I don’t just mean the sex.”

  I felt my cheeks heating up with a blush, and I was glad that the waitress came back to the table then, carrying two big, oversized mugs topped with whipped cream and caramel drizzle. She carefully set them down and Dean reached into his pocket to take out his wallet. He didn’t even look at the tab before handing the waitress a fifty. “Keep the change, whatever it is,” he said dismissively. Apparently, he just wanted her out of the area, so we could talk.

  “It was a great night,” I said, as soon as we were alone once more. “And…” I sighed. I leaned in and took a sip of my hot chocolate. It was made with milk, creamy and rich even without the whipped cream, and the fiery burn of the whiskey underneath the sweetness definitely helped. “Look. I know it was probably shitty of me to just run out this morning without leaving a note or anything but I just got out of a relationship, and…” I shrugged.

  “And what?”

  I took a slow, deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts. “My life is really complicated right now. I just broke up with my boyfriend about a week ago, after I found him in bed with someone else.” I smiled wryly, looking away from Dean. It had hurt more than I wanted to let it, remembering what Brandon had done. “And... I’ve been thinking that I want to go into playing blackjack full time, because Brandon—my ex—never wanted me to, and now I’m free.” The words were just tumbling out of me with no rhyme or reason, and I couldn’t make myself stop them or make sense of them. But when I glanced at Dean he just nodded, gesturing for me to go on.

  I took another sip of my hot chocolate and tried to come up with some clearer way of explaining what was on my mind, what I’d been trying to think through for hours already. “What I guess I’m trying to say is that I ran because I didn’t know what you wanted from me,” I said finally. “I want to be independent, and I’m just out of this relationship with my ex, and trying to figure things out on my own, and I don’t want to get into anything with you if you’re expecting me to be some... good little trophy girlfriend, or something.” I risked a look at Dean, not even sure what I hoped or feared to see on his face.

  He smiled slightly, and that took me aback. “Look, you already know I’ve got plenty of money at my disposal, and I love to travel. I’m not trying to convince you to come away to my palace like some prince or something. I want to get to know you better, and I think we could be good together, even with your goal of becoming fully professional as a blackjack player.”

  “What?” I stared at him.

  “I was going to make a counter-offer, if you really just didn’t want to be with me,” Dean explained. “If you’d left because you didn’t like me, or didn’t want to have anything to do with me, then I was going to say that you could have my suite for tonight, since I wouldn’t be using it. I really just flat-out like you, Kayla. If you weren’t into me, I’d let you go and do your own thing.”

  “You would?” I wasn’t sure why that fact surprised me but there it was.

  “I’m not about forcing myself on women,” Dean said. “And I don’t know if this makes sense to you but I have had enough of women who just want to be with me because I can bankroll them in the life of some kind of American princess.”

  I snorted at that. “I definitely am not into that idea,” I said, trying to picture myself in couture gowns and visiting some kind of high-end spa, or going to gala events. I didn’t even particularly like to go shopping. Apart from making sure my bills were paid and I could safely work my way up the ranks in the world of blackjack, I didn’t really want anything.

  “That’s about what I figured, and that’s a big part of why I want to get to know you better,” Dean said. “You’re competitive like me. You’re into earning what you get, and I have to say, that makes me pretty at
tracted to you.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Your standards are pretty low,” I joked. My heart was still beating faster in my chest, and I could feel my blood flowing faster in my body, rushing to my face and heating up everywhere. How much whiskey had the bartender put into the hot chocolate?

  “You’re beautiful and smart and ambitious,” Dean said, ticking the points off on his fingertips. “And I think we work well together. At least, we have in the last twelve hours or so.”

  “Yeah, I guess we do,” I admitted.

  “I would never want to do anything to smother the things that make me most attracted to you,” Dean said. “If you want to pursue poker professionally, then we can work out how you’ll do that, assuming we still like each other after a couple of weeks.”

  “After a couple of weeks?” This was going so fast, I couldn’t even entirely keep up with the directions the conversation was going in.

  “I mean, we should probably figure out if we like each other beyond a one-night stand, don’t you think? I’m not about to commit to you overnight,” Dean said with a little grin.

  “I guess—yeah, that makes sense,” I said, chuckling as the craziness of the whole situation occurred to me.

  “So, if you’ll indulge me a bit, we can go back to my place in Montauk for the holidays. You can tell your parents you’re safe, and maybe—I don’t know—Skype them on Christmas morning just so that you get your family time in and you know you’re not staying with some axe murderer.”

  “I kind of feel like it would be difficult for even a billionaire axe murderer to stay hidden for very long,” I pointed out.

  “We can spend Christmas and New Year’s together, and then we can talk about what you want and how I can help you,” Dean explained. “If that’s quitting your job and living with me, letting me cover your bills, whatever it is. Basically, I want to invest in you: as a person, as someone I’ve already started caring about.”

  It was an amazing offer, and all I could do for a few minutes was just stare at the table, at Dean’s hand draped over mine.

  “What if we don’t get along?” Dean shrugged.

  “Then no harm done; you go back to doing whatever you want to do with your life on your own, and we have a couple of weeks of good memories,” he replied. “If you want, I’ll buy you a ticket back home right now for the day after New Year’s, from any airport you want, so you know I’m not going to try and keep you hostage or something.”

  “Now that would be a story to tell people,” I said. “All about the time a billionaire tried to keep me locked up in his basement as his slave-girlfriend.”

  Dean snorted and shook his head. “I am not that guy,” he told me. “If you want to leave after the holidays are over, you can go. If you want to leave while the holidays are going on, you can go. I just thought it would be great to spend Christmas with someone I like.”

  “When you put it that way, it actually sounds pretty good,” I admitted.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dean

  I hadn’t expected what kind of agony it would be to wait for Kayla to answer me. I’d thought the hard moment was going to be just making the proposition to her. Knowing that she actually was into me, even if it was only a little bit, made it easier—but she hadn’t been lying that her life was complicated. I hadn’t had any idea about her boyfriend situation; I’d just assumed she’d been single for a while. Remembering the comments I’d made the night before, her little fits of temper made more sense, as did the fact that she’d lost her focus at different parts of the game.

  “So, how are we going to do this? If we do this, I mean,” Kayla said.

  “I can get us checked out of the hotel at six, and we can to the airport,” I told her. “And from there, we fly to Montauk. We get there just in time for Christmas Eve... have a nice, late dinner, and spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day celebrating.”

  “What is there even to do in Montauk?” Kayla looked doubtful again.

  “If it gets boring, we can go into the city, catch a show,” I suggested. “Or we can do whatever you want.”

  “What do we do until then?” Kayla looked around the bar, and I had to admit that I hadn’t thought much beyond offering to take her with me to Montauk. I hadn’t really had any idea of what to do to kill time before we left, or what, specifically, we’d do when we got back to my place, beyond some vague ideas of what it would be like to see if our first night together was a fluke or if we really were just that great together physically.

  “We could go back up to the room,” I suggested. “I could order you an in-room massage to relax you... maybe get you a bottle of wine to enjoy, some bath stuff.” I was so used to relationships with women being me buying them things, paying for things for them.

  “Maybe we could take a bath together?” Kayla gave me a little look and I saw her blush again. “I mean, at least one of the tubs in that room is big enough for three people, let alone two.”

  “If you want,” I said, feeling the heat starting up in me again. I can picture her so perfectly, lying in my arms in the deep, hot water, naked. It’s a stunning image.

  “Let’s finish these up and go back to the room, then,” Kayla said with a little shy smile. I nodded and drank down about a third of my hot chocolate, eager to get to the next phase of the plan. I definitely wasn’t going to put off seeing Kayla naked again.

  We talked about what we could do over the holidays as we drank our drinks, and I found myself looking forward to Christmas—really looking forward to it—for the first time in years. By the time we were headed back to the room, I thought I should talk to Kayla, too, the way she had me. We both needed to have all our cards on the table, so to speak.

  “Listen,” I said, as we got onto the elevator to head up to our suite. “I wanted to be upfront with you.”

  “Oh god, you’re going to tell me you’re some kind of registered sex offender or something, aren’t you?” Kayla looked horrified.

  “No—no, nothing like that,” I said. “I told you last night that I was used to women just wanting to be with me because I have money, and can buy them things.”

  “Right, that stands to reason,” Kayla agreed. “So, what did you want to say, what do you need to be up front with me about?”

  “This time last year, I was getting ready to ask someone to marry me,” I said. “I thought I was in love with this woman. Natalie. But she was just using me as a meal ticket, and I’d found out she was cheating on me, too.” I sighed. “So I’m kind of in the same boat as you, at least a little bit.”

  “But you’re interested in seeing where this goes?”

  I nodded in response to her question. “I am. I think we could hit it off, and I think we could be good together. I’ve just been alone, you know? I want something more than just spending time with the guys, or hanging out with friends. I’ve seen so many happy couples and it just tears me apart. I think that’s why... that’s why I almost married Natalie, in spite of the fact that she showed me exactly the kind of person she was pretty early on.”

  “It just seems so strange to me to think that someone with your looks and—well—everything else would have a hard time finding someone real,” Kayla said.

  “Well, believe it,” I told her. The elevator got to our floor and beeped to let us know. “That’s part of why I was willing to go out into the snow to get you—if you were even a little interested in me.”

  “That was crazy—don’t do that again,” Kayla told me. “No matter what else happens, don’t risk hypothermia on my behalf.”

  I laughed, and we got off the elevator and started toward the room.

  “It was worth it,” I said. We got into the room and I kicked off my shoes. “What do you say: another round of strip poker?”

  Kayla laughed and shook her head. “I think I’m about done with card games for a couple of days.”

  “Then how will we ever decide who has to get naked first?” I raised an eyebrow at her and K
ayla laughed.

  “Like normal people?” She kicked off her shoes and started toward the master bathroom. I followed her, already feeling the heat simmering through my blood that had nothing to do with the booze or the hot chocolate we’d just had. I took off my shirt, and let it fall to the floor, and then both of us were stripping off our clothes, bit by bit. I caught Kayla sneaking little looks at me and I couldn’t deny that it was sexy, just seeing her in her bra and panties, looking at me through her eyelashes with her pale cheeks dusted with pink.

  I started the faucet for the tub, checking the water, and all of a sudden, I actually felt nervous around Kayla. We’d had sex a good four or five times the night before—I’d seen her naked, she’d seen me naked, and we’d both gotten off plenty—but there was something even more intimate about taking a bath with her, about just lying in the hot water and being close to each other.

  “There’s a lot of nice stuff in here,” Kayla observed, looking under the sink in the bathroom as we waited for the bath to fill up. She’d already tested the water and said it was fine. It felt a little hot to me but then I was kind of a wimp when it came to that.

  “Like what?”

  She pulled out a basket, filled with items I didn’t even recognize or have names for, with a little note that said Compliments of the Staff. I wasn’t sure if it had been in the room the night before but it was there now.

  “We’ve got bath bombs, bubbles, soaps, oils…” Kayla shook her head. “I just can’t imagine being so rich that people give me stuff like this for free just for staying at their hotel.”

  I laughed and pulled her close to me on impulse, kissing her lightly on the lips. “Whatever you want in this tub, we’ll have,” I said as soon as I broke away from her mouth. She felt so good pressed up against me, naked, that I almost couldn’t bring myself to put off what I wanted to have happen next. But I wanted to be as good as my word. We were going to have a bath together and then we would see what the rest of the day—until we had to check out—would be like.