The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  The private jet had a perfect little hostess set up, kept much cleaner than any airline could afford to do: she could serve coffee, cocktails, and small meals from whatever provisions she was given before the flight, and I’d had the plane stocked up pretty well in anticipation of the trip with my friends I’d originally planned to take.

  I showed her the main seating area, the dining area that pulled out to include space enough for about six or seven guests, and the bed tucked back in the rear of the plane. Kayla gave me a quick, knowing look at that—the flight wasn’t going to be long enough to justify using the bed but maybe, if things went really well with us over the holidays, we could take a longer trip together that would give us plenty of time to see how good the bed actually was.

  Before too long, we had to take our seats, and I suggested that Kayla should probably make a call to her parents to let them know she wasn’t coming home after all. “All right, fine,” she said, sighing gustily and then giving me a grin.

  Kathy went up to the galley to make us some drinks and Kayla took out her phone.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said after a few moments of waiting. “Yeah—yeah, listen. I’m not going to be able to make it home for Christmas. I’ve got a hell of a story to tell, and I’m safe but I’m going to be elsewhere for the holidays.” She paused for a long moment and I saw her roll her eyes. “No, it’s not because I’m single. Yes, I know Mom means well but this isn’t about that.” Another pause. “I’m actually going to be in Montauk, through New Year’s Day.”

  “If you want, I can talk to him,” I said from my seat, a few feet way from her.

  Kayla grinned. “Dad, I’m fine, I swear. I ran into a very helpful guy and he’s giving me a place to enjoy Christmas that isn’t the airport. Here: you can say hello to him. His name is Dean Pearson.” She handed the phone to me, shaking her head.

  “Good evening, sir,” I said as I brought the phone to my ear.

  “I understand you’re hosting my daughter for the holidays?” The man on the other end of the line sounded surprised but not exactly disapproving.

  “I ran into Kayla while we were both stranded here in Omaha, and since she wasn’t going to be able to make it home in time for Christmas from the main airport, I invited her to come with me to spend the holiday,” I explained. “I promise, hand to God, that I’m not a pervert or a serial killer.”

  “We’re going to be checking in with her throughout the holiday, I hope you realize that,” Kayla’s father said.

  “I would hope any good parent would check in with their daughter while she was away for the holidays,” I said. “And I know Kayla was planning on doing a video chat with you and the rest of the family tomorrow.”

  “Let me talk to my daughter again,” the man said, and I handed the phone back to Kayla.

  I took out my own phone to occupy myself and give her some privacy but I couldn’t help hearing her go through the details to her father: that she was safe and sound, that she had no reason to think I was going to try and kill her, and that she already had a flight back to her own home on the other end of the country booked for the second of January. That was another detail I’d made sure to see to, since I wanted Kayla to know she didn’t have to stay with me if she didn’t want to. I didn’t want her to feel trapped. I didn’t want to have things go pear-shaped in any way, if it just happened to not work between us for some reason.

  Finally, she was able to get off the phone, and Kathy came to serve us drinks and snacks before takeoff: champagne cocktails and chips and nuts, pretty light fare. We wouldn’t be in the air long enough to justify anything bigger, though if Kayla decided she was hungry for something more substantial there was plenty for her to choose from. I knew I was more than happy to wait for us to get back to my place, and the feast I’d set up for us that would be waiting when we got there.

  “So, tell me about your place in Montauk,” Kayla said, once Kathy went back up front to take care of her last chores before takeoff.

  I thought about her question for a moment before answering. “It’s got a hot tub on the back patio, a heated indoor swimming pool, and seven bedrooms,” I began. “I’ve got a dining room for formal meals, and a big living room with a fireplace from the 1800s, the whole nine yards.”

  “That sounds like a damn palace indeed,” Kayla pointed out.

  “It’s not the biggest place on Montauk but it’s pretty sizeable,” I admitted. “The master bathroom has a tub that you’d probably love, and of course, there’s the Jacuzzi. There should be plenty for us to do once we’re there.” In all honesty, I was planning on spending most of the time just getting to know Kayla: maybe watching a movie or two, eating some food, baking Christmas cookies and all those kinds of things. The Christmas before, I’d been with Natalie and it had been totally different; she’d wanted to throw huge parties for all of her friends, and she’d wanted about a dozen Christmas presents, and an enormous meal for her entire family. She’d wanted me to pay for her to get presents for all of her family members and had picked out the most expensive things she could think of.

  I’d been seriously considering marrying her if only because I’d been tired of being lonely. But after she’d cheated on me, flirting with one of the contractors who’d come to fix something at the house and then making out with him in the pool, I’d had enough. I’d woken up to the fact that all she saw in me was someone to give her a life she thought she deserved because she was beautiful.

  I had started to make a few plans in my mind for how things with Kayla and I could go, assuming the holidays went well; I hadn’t said anything to her about it yet but I thought—I hoped—that she would be willing to go along with them. I’d wanted her to feel comfortable with me first, and I didn’t want her to feel pressured, but I thought that we could both get exactly what we wanted most from each other, as long as things went well for the next couple of weeks.

  I barely even noticed the plane taking off, because Kayla and I were busy talking about what was in the area around my house. “You know, it might actually be fun to go grocery shopping in such an absurdly wealthy party of the country,” Kayla said, grinning at me.

  “You seriously want to go grocery shopping?”

  Kayla shrugged. “Why not? It would be nice to see what billionaires consider the essentials,” she told me teasingly.

  “Most of it’s just going to be normal stuff,” I pointed out.

  “I don’t believe that,” she said. “I think I’m going to notice a lot more things that are far from normal for people like me than you realize.”

  “You’re acting like I was born this wealthy,” I protested. “My parents weren’t rich! They were comfortable but it isn’t like their house even had a pool or anything.” I’d moved my parents to Florida for their retirement and taken care of them as a good son should—right up until they’d both passed away. I almost envied Kayla for still having her parents, along with her sisters.

  “I didn’t think you’d been born a billionaire, I just thought you’re probably used to a certain standard of living, so much that you don’t even notice it anymore,” she said. “Maybe it’ll be good for you to be reminded that not everyone can just grab five hundred dollars on the fly and play a game for the key card to an expensive hotel room.”

  “You took out two hundred,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah but that’s because I’m a professional,” Kayla countered. “Less than two hundred is no kind of bank. And you’ll notice that I got it all put back into my account before we left the hotel.”

  It hadn’t actually been that hard to check out, especially when I told the woman running the front desk that I didn’t mind paying for the night I wasn’t going to be there. I’d told her that if someone came in who didn’t have a room, she was empowered to give my room to them, provided they didn’t use any of the optional extras. I liked the idea of someone unexpectedly finding themselves in the best suite the hotel had to offer, after some grave misfortune had landed them temporarily
with nowhere to stay.

  We chatted all the way through the flight, and I couldn’t remember a time when I’d felt a flight go by so quickly. It was two and a half hours but it felt like maybe thirty minutes at the most. Just enough time for us to finish up a bottle of champagne, and eat up all of the chips and nuts, before Kathy came back to announce that we would be landing in fifteen minutes, and remind us to put our seatbelts on.

  I wanted to get Kayla alone with me again as soon as possible. We had a car that would pick us up from the private airstrip at Montauk and take us to my place, and then we’d be totally alone, in my big old house, and it would be nearly Christmas Eve. We’d have the night and the whole next day to enjoy each other’s company, and we wouldn’t have to even think about anyone else until Christmas morning, when Kayla would video-chat her parents to watch her family open presents.

  “Is there anywhere that you think we can go ice-skating?” I put my phone away after making sure it was shut off and looked at Kayla.

  “Like in general, or did you have something specific in mind?” Kayla shrugged.

  “I liked the idea of maybe going skating on Christmas, if anywhere would be open,” she said, sounding almost coy.

  “If there isn’t somewhere that was already going to be open, I will make it happen,” I told her.

  “No way,” she said. “If there’s nowhere that’s going to be open, we will just have to make do with the hot tub and the heated pool.”

  “What? Why?” Kayla sighed and shook her head, grinning.

  “Much as I appreciate the fact that you seem determined to spoil me, I’m not going to let that be an excuse for ruining someone else’s Christmas,” she said. I frowned in confusion at that for a moment before I understood what she meant. It was so different from Natalie that I almost wanted to cheer.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “We’ll see what there is to see, and if not, we’ll find some other way to amuse ourselves. There’s plenty to do, I’m sure.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kayla

  Christmas morning came with another snowstorm, immediately canceling any plans I might have had for going ice skating. It was going to be a day for sitting around, video-chatting my parents and sisters, and eating tons of food and drinking wine with Dean.

  We’d gotten in a little before midnight the night before Christmas Eve, and I’d called my parents to let them know that I was safe and sound at Dean’s house in Montauk. It was kind of incredible, even beyond what I’d been preparing myself for. I had never really given much thought to what a billionaire’s house would look like, and I had gone into it with the details in mind that he’d given me but no realistic, actual idea.

  The place was huge but somehow managed to be warm and even cheery, cleaned up and ready for a party that hadn’t managed to happen. Dean had made sure to have our meal delivered a little bit before we arrived from the private airstrip the jet had landed at: roast beef, mashed potatoes, tomato soup, asparagus wrapped in bacon, garlic bread—so much food that I had originally thought he’d just kept whatever he’d put together for his friends without canceling it when he found out he’d be coming home for the holiday alone.

  We’d eaten, and then curled up in front of the huge fireplace and watched a movie, and made out until we were both too turned on to put off having sex any longer. We’d made love on the floor, wrapped up in blankets and cushioned by a rug so thick I wasn’t sure it wasn’t on top of a mattress. We missed the last twenty minutes of the movie from making love, and re-watched it, falling asleep in each other’s arms after the tiring day we’d already had.

  Christmas Eve we’d done all the traditional things we could think of: baked gingerbread and chocolate chip cookies, and I’d even managed to get Dean to agree to do some decorating around the house. We’d gone out and gotten a last-minute Christmas tree, one of the freshest ones I’d ever seen in my life, and we’d gotten a hell of a price for it since the man selling them had wanted to get rid of as many as possible. I’d called my parents again to make sure that they knew I was okay, and Dean and I had ordered a “feast of seven fishes” style Christmas Eve meal with oysters and bouillabaisse and lobsters and poached salmon and shrimp.

  For today, we were planning on staying in, since the snow was supposed to come down pretty hard. I would be participating remotely in presents with my family, and then we would settle down in the hot tub for a while and drink some wine, and finally we’d have our Christmas dinner. I was so blissfully happy with the whole arrangement that I couldn’t imagine anything better.

  “Good morning,” Dean said, coming into the bedroom as I stretched and yawned. “I hope you’re hungry for an enormous breakfast.”

  “What did you do?”

  Dean grinned at me and I got up, finding the thick, heavy robe he’d gotten me the day before on the floor where I’d left it, and pulling it on. I looked around the bedroom for a moment, thinking to myself that if I had thought the Presidential suite at the hotel and casino had been huge, that I hadn’t known the half of it, when it came to luxury. Dean’s bedroom made the hotel pale in comparison, and I hadn’t slept better in my life than I had the night before. I found my slippers at the door and followed Dean out of the bedroom through the house to the living room; the place was so big it was almost intimidating, even though I knew there were bigger mansions all around it.

  “I ordered this special,” Dean said. “I don’t know about your family but it was the tradition with my parents that Christmas Morning breakfast was huge—and so was dinner—but we were on our own for lunch.”

  I laughed as I took in the incredibly improbable sight: stacks and stacks of pancakes, a platter of sausages, another one of bacon, a big plate of French toast, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket, pitchers of coffee and orange juice; in short, everything I could have possibly imagined to grace a breakfast table, and enough of it to feed a good six or seven people.

  “You are beyond wasteful,” I told him, shaking my head.

  “Whatever we don’t eat will go to the folks who work here, as a kind of bonus,” Dean said, shrugging it off. “They also get a bonus for working on Christmas, so don’t worry.” It had occurred to me, more than once over the past day and a half, that the kinds of things that wealthy people considered daily life were completely outside of my frame of reference. It had nagged at me more than once that I was out of my depths completely with Dean—in a world I’d never even fully imagined before. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

  He had a staff of five people working at the house at any given time: landscapers, a housekeeper, people whose entire careers revolved around keeping everything functioning the way it should and looking its best. I had never even really thought about having a household staff, as a thing that a person could do; I’d always just cleaned my own things and took care of whatever minor repairs I could, or called an expert if I had to. Dean had a handyman. He had a woman who came every day and cleaned everything spotlessly. If he had even wanted a trophy wife, I couldn’t even imagine what I would do in that position.

  I pushed the thought out of my mind and sat down on the floor next to the coffee table and started serving myself food. Dean poured us both coffee and mixed us mimosas, and I had to admit that it was the most luxurious Christmas morning breakfast I’d ever had in my entire life. I ate pancakes, eggs, bacon, and sausage, and we talked about what we’d do if we were having Christmas somewhere else: where we would choose to go, what we would choose to do.

  “It’s actually summer in the southern hemisphere right now,” I pointed out. “It’s hot as hades in Australia, or South America.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be somewhere it was summer,” Dean said, shaking his head even as he crunched on some bacon. “I’d want to be at a chalet—maybe in the Alps somewhere—lots of snow, and Christmas markets, things like that.”

  “Japan might be fun,” I countered. “It would be cold there, and maybe even snowing, and there’d be tons o
f things to see and do.”

  “Maybe next year, if we’re still together, we can do that,” Dean suggested.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t even know what to say to the idea of us still being together in a year.

  The sex was great and getting even better every time, and I definitely couldn’t imagine wanting to be with anyone else that way. And everything we’d done together other than making love like bunnies had been fun but I didn’t even know how to have a life as the girlfriend of a billionaire. He’d said that he would support me in wanting to be a professional blackjack player but I didn’t know what that would even look like. We would have to talk about that sometime soon, and I knew it.

  I was stuffed by the time we both finished, and barely had enough energy to climb up onto the couch and get out my phone to make the call to my parents for gift-opening. I knew that there would be a few presents for me amongst all the others—and I’d have to find out a way to get them before I went back home—but it was as much as I could take to deal with my family even in this limited fashion, knowing that I had plenty of fun waiting for me with Dean.

  “Here she is! Kayla, say hi to everyone,” Mom said as soon as the video connected properly. I waved at my sister, my dad, the whole family gathered around in my parents’ living room waiting to open presents. I held up a mug of coffee in a sort of toast.

  “I’ve got Dean with me, too,” I said, moving the phone around so that they could see the man I was with, seated on the couch next to me in his own robe and pajamas. Then I settled in to watch my dad hand out presents to everyone else, announcing who it was from and to. They piled my handful of gifts off to the side, and I waited patiently as I watched everyone else open theirs, including the ones I’d shipped to my parents the week before to make sure they’d be there for Christmas morning when I expected to be there. Everyone praised my gifts to them a little more than I thought they deserved but I was pretty sure they were putting on a show for me as much as I was putting one on for them.