A Win-Win Proposition. Cat Schield

myself to one movie and one dinner out per pay period.”

      “Those are significant sacrifices,” he said with a straight face, but mockery hovered in the back of his eyes.

      Missy tossed her head. What did he know about making sacrifices? He’d paid eight hundred thousand dollars for a home because he liked the neighborhood, then tore down the house so that he could spend another two million building something to his exacting taste. A mansion he barely lived in because he spent so much time at the office.

      “They were,” she retorted, frustrated with everything in her life at the moment and taking it out on Sebastian because it was easier to blame him than face where she’d gone wrong. “Aren’t you curious why I’ve decided to blow the money rather than buy the wedding dress of my dreams?”

      “I’d love to know.” Calm and measured, he sounded like a firefighter talking a crazy lady off the ledge. “Let’s go somewhere quiet so you can tell me the whole story.”

      “I don’t want to go somewhere quiet. My entire life has been quiet. I’m looking for a little excitement.”

      A chance to run wild.

      Sebastian’s disapproving frown would not steer her off course. She was tired of behaving like a mouse when what she wanted to do was roar like a tiger.

      Daughter of a small-town pastor, she’d been a free-spirited kid, breaking rules and flaunting authority. True to herself but a disappointment to her father and mother, Missy’s carefree days had come to an end in high school when her mother suffered a stroke. Bound to a wheelchair, needing help with the simplest of tasks, she’d needed Missy to grow up fast. Missy had shouldered a lot of her mother’s daily caretaking until her death after Missy’s twenty-fifth birthday.

      “Haven’t you had enough excitement for one day?” Sebastian asked. “You had a makeover. You’ve had too much to drink. Let me take you back to your hotel room. We have a big day tomorrow.”

      “I haven’t even gotten started.” She turned to the roulette table and plunked down her wad of cash. “Five thousand in chips, please.”

      Sebastian put a hand over the cash before the dealer could move. “Think about what you’re doing here. That’s a lot of money. Two years of saving and sacrificing.”

      She tugged at his wrist but might as well have been an ant trying to move a mountain. Her efforts brought her in close to his body. His heat surrounded her, seeped into far corners of her soul where wild impulses waited to be set free. His masculine aftershave invaded her nostrils and sped along her already overstimulated nerve endings. She was teetering on the edge of something reckless.

      “I know what I’m doing.” That was the furthest thing from the truth. She had no step-by-step plan. No clue if she was making good decisions. And she didn’t care. For the first time in fifteen years, she was following her instincts wherever they led. Whatever the cost.

      And it felt amazing.

      “Miss?”

      The dealer interrupted their argument and Missy shoved an elbow into Sebastian’s ribs. With an oomph, he released her money.

      “Five thousand in chips, please,” she repeated, turning her shoulder away from her boss’s frustrated frown.

      His disapproval made her uncomfortable. As she had done with her father, she’d grown accustomed to doing things the way Sebastian wanted them done. How many times had she let his opinion dominate hers? Too many to count.

      And old habits were hard to break.

      The wheel spun before she placed her bet. Annoyed that she’d second-guessed herself, Missy drummed her fingers and waited for the ball to drop.

      “Don’t throw your money away like this,” Sebastian said.

      “Why not?” What good was being in Las Vegas if she couldn’t do something that she’d regret even a little? “I was supposed to spend it on my wedding dress. That’s not going to happen now.”

      “You’ll find someone,” Sebastian argued. “You’ll get married.”

      “I had someone.” He knew absolutely nothing about her, did he? “He dumped me.” Yesterday. The day before her birthday. Two years after she thought she’d be getting married, she was back to square one. No. Worse than that, she was two years older with fewer single men to choose from.

      “I’m sorry.”

      “You should be. It’s your fault.”

      “My fault?” Usually he gazed at her in a neutral way as if he never truly saw her. At the moment he was assessing her with something other than his normal cool. “I don’t see how.”

      What was going on here? Sebastian regarded her as if she were a luscious chocolate truffle he wanted to devour. Unsettled, she stammered her first word. “H-he broke up with me because I wouldn’t quit working for you.”

      “Why would he care that you worked for me?”

      Because he thinks I’m in love with you.

      And, of course, she wasn’t. Well, maybe she had been a little in the beginning. For the first year or so. But after Tim came along, she’d gotten over her feelings for her boss. Unrequited feelings. Feelings with no hope of ever being reciprocated.

      She wasn’t in Sebastian’s league. He dated women with money and prestigious social status. She knew the type. For a time in high school, she’d dated a boy from the wealthiest family in town. She’d been as infatuated with his promises to take her out of west Texas as she’d been with the guy. But in the end, it was the sting of why he’d broken up with her and how he’d handled it that remained branded on her psyche.

      “Tim hated how I went running whenever you called,” Missy continued. “Every one of our fights was over you. I should’ve quit a long time ago.”

      “Why didn’t you?”

      In true Sebastian fashion, he arrowed straight to the heart of her dilemma. Her boss grasped underlying problems faster than anyone she’d ever known, including her father, who had an uncanny ability to read people. People, but not his daughter.

      She couldn’t answer his question. To do so would force her to admit that leaving his employ would be akin to chopping off her arm. She needed him in her life. Needed to be around him to feel alive.

      How pathetic was that?

      “I just did.” Only not soon enough because yesterday Tim had told her he’d met the girl of his dreams, and they were getting married. Her hands shook. “I waited for two years for him to propose.” Her throat tightened, blocking the next few words.

      And he decided to marry someone else after only knowing her a month.

      Tears dampened her eyes, but Missy blinked rapidly to make them go away. Facing her undesirability hurt too much. If she wasn’t good enough for Tim, an unmotivated pharmaceutical salesman, who was she good enough for?

      “Place your bets,” the dealer called as people began setting chips all over the table.

      Missy pushed all her chips onto red. “Five thousand dollars on red.”

      “Don’t do this.” Sebastian spoke softly but it was a command.

      “Why not?” She didn’t attempt to keep defiance out of her voice. He needed to realize she wasn’t his to boss around anymore. “It isn’t as if I have anything left to lose. Not really.”

      “Take the money and spend it on something of value. A new car. A down payment on a house. Something that will last longer than twenty seconds.”

      Solid advice, but she could never look at the thing she’d bought with the money and not see her wedding dress. The gorgeous flowing gown of satin and lace with the gathered skirt and beaded bodice. She’d cut the picture out of a bridal magazine two years ago when she and Tim