Free Gambler’s Woman by Unknown Page B

really respected her progress in die corporate world. Not knowing had seemed to make it ail the more imperative to succeed. She had driven herself relentlessly for the past two years.
    Then, a couple of months earlier, because of Ray and Julia Burgess, she had discovered the world of gambling. It had proved a wonderful escape from the self-inflicted pressures under which she worked.
    What wouldChador her father have said if they had ever learned that her one area of "genius" in the realm of mathematics had proved to be an intuitive ability to play cards and roll dice? She didn't really have to wonder. They would have been thoroughly disgusted.
    But the fantasy world of gambling offered her exactly what she had been needing. It freed the cheerful, fun-loving, playful side of her personality. It was when she was in that world that the mischievous smile lit her eyes, and sometimes that smile carried over into her real world when she returned. She needed the escape. She needed to throw herself into the exciting fantasy where her one true talent reigned supreme.
    She had known from the beginning, of course, that her "escape" represented a very real threat to her carefully built career. And the goals of that career and its accompanying life-style were too much a part of her to even consider abandoning them. The trick, she told herself, was to keep the fantasy world separate from her real world, and she'd been quite successful at managing that feat. Perhaps she even took a certain pleasure in managing it Even Alyssa wasn't fully aware of the hidden smile that played in her eyes these days when she took on the challenge of juggling her two lives.
    The excitement of her new, secret world had put a flare of energy into her life and a subtle recklessness into her way of looking at things. Until this weekend, however, she had thought she had both under full control. Jordan Kyle had taught her differently. He had materialized out of her fantasy and had at once made it far more real and therefore more dangerous than she would have dreamed possible.
    What did he really think of her? The world of gambling was still largely a man's world. When women played, for example, it was assumed they played with some man's money. NoLas Vegasgentleman would be so ungallant as to allow a woman companion to risk her own money! The attitude toward women in places likeLas VegasandRenowas as traditional and conservative as that of mythical small-townAmerica.
    Women fit either into the category of showgirl-hustler or wife-mother. A woman who manipulated the world of gambling, who dealt with it on its own terms and won, would have been almost impossible for either the gambling establishment or most men, in general, to understand. And if they did understand, they would have invariably seen her as a threat
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    But Jordan Kyle had been the exception. Was that why she had found herself so easily seduced by him? He had admired her ability. Alyssa closed her eyes, trying to sort out her memories of the weekend.
    There had been an incredible enticement in the knowledge that he had known from the first exactly what she was doing and had fully appreciated her peculiar "talent" When his own talent had proved to run along exactly the same lines, she had been fascinated. Together they were like a pair of mathematical magicians sharing secrets no one else knew.
    Added to the intellectual attraction had been a level of passion utterly new to her. Never had she known the sheer, raging excitement she had discovered in the arms of her golden-eyed gambler.
    And because of that combination of irresistible lures, Alyssa knew she wanted to return toLas Vegasthe following weekend.
    The dinner party on Friday night, however, was important in her other life, her real life. It was important career-wise because she would be entertaining her boss and his wife among others, and it was important socially because she