* * *
Peyton held Raji in his arms, still gasping.
That momentary fall into oblivion at the center of his orgasm still echoed in his head.
Raji was clinging to him, her arms clasped around his chest, her eyes closed as she panted. The jasmine perfume on her skin swelled around him from their heat.
His chest swelled with longing for her, even though they had another few hours before she had to turn around and get back on an airplane for Los Angeles.
Paris would dull without her. He would probably drink himself stupid with the roadies and contribute nothing to Xan’s marathon songwriting sessions. The weeks and months without her seemed endless.
“I—” he said, but he stopped.
Raji chuckled a little as she breathed. She adjusted her arms around his neck, smiling. “Yeah. Me, too. Wow, huh?”
That wasn’t what he had meant.
He’d been writing music lately, melodies, harmonies, and a few lyrics, all floating around his time with Raji. They sounded like ballads, sweet and lilting sonatinas.
Not shallow, not meaningless. The music rose from some deep place within him, layers of notes and emotion, and he wasn’t sure how to tell her about it.
“Don’t go,” he said.
She cocked her head, smiling up at him. “You know I have to.”
“I want you here with me.” His voice was almost breathless as he spoke.
“I’d rather be in Paris than wrist-deep in some guy’s ribs and blood, but I have to go back, even though I’d rather stay here with you, you there with your lovely green eyes and your rippled muscles and your hard, hard cock.”
He forced himself to smile. “I want you here with me, you there with your tight pussy and your deep, beautiful eyes and your silken skin. I’ll come to Los Angeles as soon as I can, maybe in a week or two. Xan is just writing songs here. I’m useless to him. I’ll figure out a way to come see you.”
Peyton was useless to Xan because none of his music sounded like the drums, torment, and wails of Killer Valentine.
His music was quieter, more haunting, and imbued with longing for silken caramel skin and raven-wing hair and the fathomless depths of her eyes.
It was piano music, intellectual and placed on the grand staff, and it was far too personal to play for Xan Valentine.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hiding It
* * *
Raji sighed and gripped the barbell more tightly from where she lay flat on her back on the weight bench. “I’m doing a research project for Dr. Silverstein. It’s a lot of work.”
Beth stared down at Raji from where she stood above the barbell. She was spotting Raji while they worked out at the hospital gym. Weights clanged, and people shouted encouragement around them. “Baloney. What’s really going on?”
“Nothing! Really!” Raji said. The leather bench under her back smelled like cheap cleaning fluid and sour male sweat, tickling her nose. “She wants so many sources. I’m reading a lot of primary literature.”
Beth stated, “For months, whenever we have time off, you’ve been holed up in your apartment or else you’re going somewhere to do something. You got a drinking problem or something?”
Actually, it had been over a year and a half since she had started meeting Peyton.
Raji clenched her fists around the barbell and did a pull-up to make sure she was positioned correctly beneath it on the bench. “Come on, Beth. Your bedside manner is better than that.”
Beth laughed. “No, it isn’t. I’m a surgeon.”
She gave up. “I don’t have a drinking problem. I drink to cope.”
“We all drink to cope,” Beth echoed, the mantra of medical students everywhere. “Are you coping a little too much?”
“No! Now spot me.” Raji did more reps, straining to finish the last couple with the barbell and its skinny plates on the ends. Damn, everything hurt.
Beth leaned over the bar again, her blond hair curtaining her face. “So, about what you’ve been doing—”
“Nothing!”
“Are you sneaking off to underground raves?”
“No.” Raji took hold of the bar again.
“Writing a novel?”
“What kind of a loser does that?”
“Do you have a secret baby?”
“No!” She laughed at that one. Having Raji as a mother would be a tragedy for the child, not to mention for Raji’s career.
“Then you’re dating someone.”
“No, I’m not.” As a cold-blooded reptile, Raji was a skilled liar.
Beth’s sparse eyebrows rose. “Really? Who is it? Joshua Williams?”
Damn, Raji needed to work on her lying. “The pencil-necked anesthesiologist? No.”
“Then who?”
Raji didn’t entertain the notion of spilling her secret for even a second. “I’m married to medicine. I’m not cheating with some guy.”
“Well, then you’d better straighten up and fly right for a while. You’re not getting enough face-time. Dr. Anderson was saying that you’re not around for days at a time and that you’re a master at shift-trading. Whatever it is, people are noticing.”
A panicked shock ran through Raji like she had grabbed an electric wire. “I’m fine! I swear to God, it’s nothing.”
Beth shrugged. “Dr. Anderson thinks it’s something.”
Raji spun to sitting on the bench and grabbed Beth’s hand. “Come on.”
“What? Where are we going?”
Raji pulled Beth through the gym to the women’s locker room and then into the sauna. The room smelled like balsam and wood smoke from when the benches had overheated.
Beth said, “Ugh. I hate heat. This is gross.”
Raji hadn’t even turned on the steam. The air was just cloyingly warm in there, not hot. “I’ve kind of been hanging out with Peyton Cabot, that bassist from Killer Valentine.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open, and she said, “No way! I thought you broke up with him months ago!”
Raji sucked in a deep breath and admitted, “I kind of didn’t. It’s kind of on the down-low.”
“Raji, I warned you about this. It’s insane. It’s insane to date anyone during your residency, let alone a rock star.” Beth’s derisive snort at the end left no ambiguity about how she felt about it. “I will find you and drag you home by your hair if you try to ruin yourself over this rock star any more.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s not a rock star. He’s a musician and a really good one.”
“He wears leather pants and has long hair.”
“He wears jeans on stage, not leather, and khakis the rest of the time. He’s just now growing out his hair, some. He doesn’t even have any tattoos.” Well, he didn’t, as of last month, and it was making a really good point at that moment.
“Look, it would be one thing if he were an oboist in an orchestra—”
“He’s a classical pianist!”
“Then what’s he doing playing bass guitar in a rock band?” Beth said, her voice sounding like she’d said royal flush, ace high.
Raji whispered, just in case anyone was hiding under the sauna benches, “Peyton joined Killer Valentine because his ex-girlfriend was a member, and he was trying to get back together with her. You remember the Benedict Oelrichs scandal back East?”
“Yeah,” Beth said, her eyes narrowing with the effort of remembering. “Ponzi scheme, right? He committed suicide rather than pay everyone back.”
“Benedict Oelrichs was the ex-girlfriend’s father.”
“Oh. That sucks.”
“Peyton went along with everybody and ostracized her. He wanted to apologize and get her back or at least make it up to her, so he gave up a soloist slot with the L.A. Philharmonic to join Killer Valentine so he could make it right.”
Beth rolled her eyes, lapis lazuli marbles rotating in their sockets. “Wow, that was stupid.”
“I think it’s sweet,” Raji said. “That’s how important it was to h
im to make it right. He never told her that he quit the L.A. Phil for her. She thinks he turned it down before he found her again.”
“It’s pathetic that he followed her around like a lovesick puppy just to apologize for something that happened in high school.”
“But there’s more. The Russian mafia kidnapped Georgie, and Peys and Xan Valentine broke her out and saved her. The mafia guys tied Peys’ and Xan’s hands behind their backs, and Xan had to break the fuck out of his hand to get out. I mean, there was nothing left but bone shards and pebbles in there. That’s why he doesn’t play the bass or second guitar anymore.”
Beth blanched visibly paler, even though she was peaches-and-cream to begin with. She tucked her hands behind her back.
“I know, right? The hands.” Raji held her hands up, above her waist, and palms in as if she had just scrubbed in for surgery. “It makes me nauseated to even think about it. And Xan used to be a violinist. He was a child prodigy, a classical violinist over in Europe. Like, he had a recording contract when he was a teenager. Evidently, he was brilliant, not that I could tell the difference. I’ve seen videos of him, but he sounds like every other violin player to me.”
“I used to play the violin,” Beth said. A funny look had come over her face, her blue eyes too wide, and her breathing too shallow. “Let me see a picture of him.”
Raji retrieved her phone from her locker, went back to where Beth was lying down on the wooden benches in the sauna, and searched while she talked. “Peys said that Xan was famous when he was a kid, but that something went wrong. He disappeared from over there and turned up here to start a rock band.”
“That’s weird. No one does that.” Beth’s pale eyebrows met above her nose.
Odd.
Beth only did that when she was really worried about something, like the night before Match Day when every medical student finds out where they will do their residencies. Raji had had to get Beth wasted on schnapps to keep her out of the envelope until the appointed time for opening them.
Raji said, “Something about Xan’s childhood. Peyton says that he’s really unbalanced.”
“Is he on drugs?” Beth shifted her butt, squirming around where she was lying on the wooden sauna bench. “They’re probably all on drugs.”
“Peyton isn’t on anything. He’s funny about taking an aspirin when he has a headache. He says that Xan is all kinds of crazy, but drugs aren’t the problem. He was injecting steroids into his throat because of vocal nodes and inflammation—”
Beth turned her head to stare at her. “Jesus, Raji!”
“—but not heroin or anything.”
“Oh, yay. That makes it so much better,” Beth snarked and resumed staring at the ceiling. “It’s hot in here. Finish confessing so we can go somewhere before I dehydrate and die.”
“Pretty much everyone else in that band has had drug problems, though,” Raji admitted. “Rade, the original keyboard player, died of an overdose, you remember?”
“Yeah, no. But sure. I don’t keep up with the drug habits of rock stars.”
“Oh, quit being such a snob. And after that, they sent Grayson, the original bass player, to rehab. It’s been years, and he’s still there.”
“Wow. That band has a drug culture problem.”
“They used to, but not anymore. Cadell, the lead guitarist, was addicted to heroin, and Tryp, the drummer, dabbled in just about everything, from what I hear.” Raji scowled at her phone. “Where are those damn videos?”
“Heroin, steroids, other drugs. Holy crap. Were they sharing needles?” Blond Beth was so pale that she turned a delicate shade of green. “Raji, you cannot hang out with this guy. Everyone will just assume that you’re stealing from the pharmacy stocks or that you caught something antibiotic-resistant.”
“That’s why we’re keeping it quiet. We aren’t telling anyone at all. Admit nothing. Deny everything.” A video popped up on her phone. “Here’s a vid of Xan. Watch.” Raji held the phone out.
“Oh, my God. It looks like him.” From where she was lying on the wooden sauna bench, Beth held the phone above her face and scrutinized the screen. “Sweet Tap-Dancing Baby Jesus, Raji. That is Alexandre Grimaldi.”
“Yeah, that’s the name Peyton said. How do you know about him?”
Beth propped herself up on her elbows. “Are you telling me that the rock star Xan Valentine used to be Alexandre Grimaldi, the violinist?”
“Yep. It came out when they were over in Europe last year, but the American papers didn’t pick it up.”
“This is insane. This is sheer insanity, Raji.”
“Peyton is kind of afraid of him. Not in a wussy way, just aware that Xan is delicately balanced. He manages Xan. He says it’s like having a tiger for a lead singer. Most days, Xan looks pretty and roars on cue, but if you take your eyes off of him, he might eat a trainer.”
“Raji, you have to stop seeing this guy.”
“Peyton isn’t the steroid-addicted nutcase or the crazed druggie. He’s a classical musician who accidentally joined a rock band. He’s perfectly normal.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’m not in any danger. I don’t ever see Xan Valentine. Peyton isn’t telling anyone about us, either.”
“Peyton joined a rock band to be with his ex, who is married to the lead singer,” Beth sighed. “You don’t need to be involved in a love triangle when you aren’t even one of the three points. That’s a recipe for heartbreak.”
“There isn’t a love triangle. Peyton says Georgie belongs with Xan and that he’s let her go.”
“Yeah, right.” Beth’s words dripped sarcasm. “You need to tell him to fuck off now, tonight, before your reputation suffers any more or he breaks your heart because he’s still in love with another woman.”
“My heart is not going to get broken, Beth. I’m a surgeon, a cold-blooded, heartless lizard person, just like you. I can fuck this guy until I get tired of him and walk away any time I want to.”
Except that Raji had just been confronted with evidence that her relationship with Peyton was hurting her career, and she wasn’t going to immediately break it off.
She wasn’t planning to break it off at all.
That was a bad sign.
Yeah, well, the sex was phenomenal. Who would want to give that up?
Beth shook her head. “Raji, this is a bad situation.”
“It’s not. I’m just relieving some stress in a way that doesn’t involve drinking to excess like everyone else. I would have thought that you would be supportive.”
“This is dumb. You should stop.”
“I’m not stopping, and you’re going to cover for me. From now on, when I need to switch shifts, you’ll switch with someone, and then I’ll switch with you to cover my tracks.”
Beth fell back on the bench. “I cannot believe I’m doing this, but fine. Maybe in a few months, you’ll get tired of this bullshit and drop him. A few seasons of estrogen-fueled insanity shouldn’t derail your career.”
Raji grinned. “Thank you, Beth. I owe you.”
“I’m warning you, though. You need to hide the shit out of it.”
“I am. We have been.”
Beth shook her head. “Not well enough. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. You’re taking some huge chances here, missy. I hope the fucking is worth it.”
Raji grinned. “Yeah. It is.”
“What on Earth could he do so well that it’s worth risking your career this way?” Beth asked, aghast.
“Well—” Raji thought for a moment, taking a mental inventory of Peyton’s ripped, chiseled abs, long thighs, and broad chest, not to mention his strong shoulders, bulging biceps, or the thick and rosy length of his cock that hit all the right spots inside her. Or his talented tongue.
Raji edited that in her head.
She said, “He’s gorgeous. I mean, those incredible eyes of his, just an amazing blue-green that practically glows, and those cheekbones and square jawline, and he
works out in the hotel gyms a lot while he’s on tour. You have to respect his commitment to exercise. And he’s tall. Really, really tall. He had to have been healthy and well-fed growing up, signs of good genes and high social status. No stunting in evidence at all. You can tell that his genes are all adaptive and evolutionarily conserved, nothing deleterious. To put it in biological terms, he’s a healthy specimen and of high-value for breeding purposes.”
“Now that’s my cold-blooded lizard friend talking,” Beth said. “Tell me about his evolutionary fitness, baby, but do it slowly.”
Raji mused, “In the hospital, I’m responsible for so much, all the time. People’s lives hang on my diagnoses and surgical technique every minute of the day, and I’m here every day, all day, and then overnight. I mean, we’re in the hospital right now, even though we’re in the gym. We could get paged at any minute and have to sprint to scrub in for surgery. I saw two of our attendings while I was on the treadmill, and I swear to the gods that they were watching to make sure I didn’t spend too much time working out that could be better spent on rounds. I can’t relax, ever. I have to constantly be on. I have to constantly be perfect or a patient will die and everyone will talk about how it takes me an hour to exercise when everyone else only takes forty-five minutes off.”
Beth raised her open palm. “Hand to Heaven, I hear you.”
“With Peyton, as soon as the bedroom door closes, he’s in control. I mean, I can do stuff if I want, but he’s letting me do it. He’s in charge. He does stuff to me. He has meals delivered, and if I dither, he tells me what to eat. I can get wasted on hotel champagne, and we’ll have awesome, wonderful drunken sex. Not non-consensual, just uninhibited and not caring at all. I don’t have to plan it. I don’t have to organize and evaluate it. I don’t have to think about it.”
“You have to go places to meet him. Organizing that must take some of your time.”
Raji shook her head. “We have a shared document online, and we both input our schedules. Whenever there’s a window, I get an email where he’s made an airline reservation for me. When I get there, there’s a car to take me to a hotel. I just walk out the door with my toothbrush and clothes to wear on the flight home.”
A Billionaire for Christmas Page 10