The Billionaire Who Bought Christmas. Barbara Dunlop

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.