A Billionaire for Christmas

by Phillips, Carly

  “I said yes,” Raji said, holding onto the rails and dreading the next contraction.

  “I mean, will you marry me right now? A Unitarian minister was attending one of her choir members down in oncology. She can marry us right here, right now, if you want.”

  “My mother is on her way,” Raji said. “She can’t see us getting married because then she’ll know that we weren’t married a year ago.”

  Peyton frowned at his phone. “Maybe traffic will be bad. After all, this is Los Angeles, and it is rush hour.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” Raji said. “There’s no rush hour today. That’s how we got here so fast.”

  “Damn.” He texted something, just as a statuesque woman wearing what looked to Raji like academic robes walked into the room. She was wiping her bloodshot eyes.

  The woman surveyed the delivery room and Raji, who was lying in the bed, sweating and probably looking like death. “I’m Reverend Yaa Idowu. You can call me Reverend Yaa. I heard you needed a quickie wedding? You have a marriage license?” Her voice sounded like she would sing in a creamy alto range.

  “Yes and yes,” Peyton said, fumbling and handing her a piece of paper.

  She glanced at it, holding it in her scarlet-tipped ebony fingers. “Within the dates, good. All right.”

  Another contraction squeezed Raji. The pain leaked through the epidural, drilling through her.

  After a moment, she panted, “We’d better do this soon.”

  Reverend Yaa asked, “Would you like music?”

  A dozen people wearing pale blue choir robes peeked around the doorway into Raji’s delivery room.

  “I beg your pardon?” Raji grated out.

  More faces popped through the doorway.

  Reverend Yaa explained, quietly, “One of our choir members concluded a long battle with brain cancer this evening, and the choir was here to sing her out. When they heard I might be performing a marriage ceremony for a couple who were bringing a baby into the world, they wondered if you would like some music to celebrate. They’ve had a hard day. I think they would love to contribute and witness you two starting your lives together.”

  Peyton asked, “Raji?”

  “Are they going to freak out that I’m in labor?” she asked the minister.

  “Oh, no. They’re Unitarian-Universalists. They’ll be fine.”

  “They’d better get in here quick,” Raji said, “and then they’d better get out of here quick or else they’re going to witness something they might not have bargained for.”

  Reverend Yaa brought the choir in and ushered them over to stand behind Raji’s head so they wouldn’t be looking directly into her yoni while they were singing. While the choir sang softly behind her—and Raji had to admit that their voices were soothing as she fought her way through another contraction—the minister began saying something about the importance of marriage and the beauty of (she consulted the marriage license) Raji Kannan and Peyton Cabot declaring their love to each other and before these witnesses.

  One of the choir members stopped singing and asked, “Peyton Cabot? Of Killer Valentine?”

  “Alisha!” Reverend Yaa snapped. “Sanctity of marriage and the beauty of new life. Focus!”

  “Sorry.”

  The choir sang a lovely, wordless song, a happy harmony of voices.

  Another contraction ripped through Raji, and she clutched Peyton’s hands, grunting and trying not to cry in front of the several dozen people in her delivery room.

  When it ended, Peyton said to her, “All right, my delicate flower. We’re going to have you hold onto my forearms here,” he moved her hands up, “instead of my fingers. Musicians are funny about their hands. Now, you just squeeze there as hard as you want to.”

  Reverend Yaa started preaching again and was just saying that she would ask the bride and groom to recite their vows, when another woman wearing blue scrubs bustled into the room.

  “Hello, Dr. Kannan,” Dr. Tashi Nyima, whom Raji knew from seminars and such, sat at the foot of the exam table and took a quick glance at the circus surrounding Raji. “Let’s see where you are. Up in the stirrups, please.”

  Reverend Yaa asked, “Do you want us to leave?”

  “Just hurry up!” Raji told her. “Ask us the vows!”

  Reverend Yaa asked Raji, “Do you, Raji Kannan, take this person, Peyton Cabot, as your lawfully wedded spouse—”

  Dr. Nyima told Raji, “You’re at ten centimeters, full dilation. You can push any time you want to. Do you feel the need to push?”

  “—to have and hold, to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, as long as you both reside on this Earthly plane of existance?”

  Raji nodded. Another contraction swept over her, and she gripped Peyton’s forearm as her muscles spasmed.

  Reverend Yaa asked, “Raji, do you take Peyton as your spouse?”

  “Yes!” Raji screamed.

  Darkness took over her.

  The contraction receded, and Raji panted.

  The minister asked, “—as long as you both reside on the this Earthly plane of existance?”

  Peyton said, “I do. Raji, could you pry your fingernails out of my arm, please? Yes, Reverend. I do.”

  Reverend Yaa said, “By the power vested in me by the Unitarian-Universalist Greater Los Angeles Rainbow Congregation and Reformed Coven and the State of California—”

  The choir’s voices swelled in song, reaching a crescendo for the wedding ceremony.

  Dr. Nyima said, “Okay, Raji. Push with this one. Here it comes!”

  The choir behind Raji sang a full-throated Hallelujah! refrain.

  “—I now pronounce you married as husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  “Push! You can do it!” Dr. Nyima called.

  “Hallelujah!”

  Peyton’s lips touched Raji’s forehead. “I love you, my wife.” He gripped her hands while the pain swept over her, drowning her. He fiddled with her left hand and slipped her wedding ring down next to the ornate engagement ring. “I love you.”

  A tiny, soprano cry joined the Hallelujah chorus.

  Dr. Nyima said, “It’s a girl!”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Beth and Mom

  * * *

  Peyton leaned over the pillow, trying to curl around Raji, his wife—his love and his life—and his child.

  When he had seen that terrible article in the magazine, every cell in his body had been desperate to get to Raji, to protect her from the reporters and Xan’s counter-spin, even if she might reject him again.

  Seeing Raji and their child had multiplied his protective instinct a thousandfold. A simmering rage waited just outside his soul, ready to unleash on anyone who threatened them. The energy vibrated within him.

  Reverend Yaa and the chorus filed out of the delivery room, everyone wiping their eyes and congratulating them.

  Peyton nodded and smiled as they left, but he couldn’t look away from his wife and their child.

  Mine.

  Some fracas was happening in the hallway, chattering and shoving.

  Peyton shifted, ready to leap up and defend his wife and their child—he couldn’t get enough of saying that in his head—but he didn’t want to leave them.

  Raji felt so right in his arms. The baby looked so perfect in hers.

  He was the mountain that lifted them up and protected them from everything below.

  “Ra-ji!” a woman’s voice said, and then there was a torrent of words in a language he didn’t know.

  He glanced over.

  Oh, Raji’s mother had arrived. Her cape fluttered behind her as she stalked into the room.

  A slim, tall, blond woman followed, wearing a white doctor’s coat over her navy blue suit. Everything about her signaled that she was a professional, upper-class woman, from the expensive, shiny high heels she wore with her tailored designer suit to her carefully bleached hair.

  Peyton remembered her from the hospital’s masquerade. She had
been wearing a designer dress there, too.

  This was Beth Dansk of the New Jersey Dansks, the traitor who had sold Raji’s secrets to Fame This Week.

  He could spot the signs of a bottle blonde—the darker roots, the shredded ends, the strategically placed highlights and lowlights. Killer Valentine’s stylist, Boris, had rotated Xan through dozens of shades of blond over the years, not to mention that many other members of the band did their hair in some way, from Tryp’s ice-blue tips to Cadell’s subtle chocolate streaks. Georgie had so many processes and extensions that Peyton never knew what she was going to look like from one concert to the next. Boris had finally gotten a girl-child to work with and was still having far too much fun.

  Raji’s mother unleashed a torrent of some other language at Raji.

  From the bed, Raji replied to her mother and then said, “Hello, Beth.”

  Peyton stood up.

  Beth straightened, staring him right in the eyes. “Hello, Peyton.”

  Raji’s mother strode over to the bed, her hands flailing and haranguing Raji about something.

  Peyton’s shoulders raised like he was swelling with righteous anger and ready to do battle.

  Raji, even as tired as she was, waved him off and talked to her mother, but she switched to English. “I texted you as soon as I could. Evidently, Beth brought you here as quickly as possible. I’m sorry you were cheated out of the birth of your first grandchild, but seriously.”

  Raji’s pleading glance up at him sealed the deal.

  Peyton guided Raji’s astonished mother backward and stepped between them. “Thank you for coming. Raji needs to rest now. Please wait in the seating area outside for a few more minutes.”

  Beth stepped up and tried to get in Peyton’s face. Even though she was tall for a woman and wearing heels, she was still half a foot shorter than he was. She said, “Hey, Raji didn’t say that. You don’t speak for her. Her mother has a right to see her and the baby.”

  Peyton crowded Beth backward, looming over her and blocking her with his broad shoulders and chest. “Raji needs rest and quiet, and we both need to become acquainted with our child.”

  Beth said, “I’m a doctor in this hospital!”

  He reached out his hand, herding Raji’s mother toward the door, too. “Raji needs some time to rest before receiving visitors. Please wait in the seating area until we call you.”

  “What you are doing!” Raji’s mother demanded.

  Beth said, “You can’t treat us like this! What would people say?”

  He straightened until he towered over Beth once more and glared down at her. “People had better not say a damned word about us, ever again. We know that you sold us out to the magazine. We know that you betrayed Raji’s trust. You hurt my band, me, and Raji. Personally, I don’t ever want to see you again. Raji can make her own decisions, but I swear to God, I will not let you hurt my wife ever again.”

  “Your wife?” Beth exclaimed.

  “I’m here for her, and I will protect her from you and people like you for the rest of our lives. You need to leave this hospital room right now. Raji will call you if she wants to see you.”

  Beth swelled up in a huff. “Asshole.” She stalked off.

  Raji’s mother looked between Peyton and Raji. She asked Peyton, “You will be there for her?”

  “Always,” he said.

  “You not leave her?”

  “Never,” Peyton growled.

  “You protect her, right?”

  “I will.”

  “Good.” Raji’s mom leaned around Peyton. “Raji, you don’t have any food in your refrigerator. I will go to the Indian store on the way back and pick up onions and pickle, and I will have lots of food ready for you when you come home. I will make pakoras and samosas and bhel puri chaat to help you recover your strength. I make some masala dosai for Peyton-Cabot, too. Boys love dosai.”

  She stalked off down the hall.

  Raji was smiling tiredly when Peyton came back and wrapped his arms around her and the baby again. “She likes you.”

  “How do you know?” he asked, settling his arms and staring at their little girl. Her tiny mouth worked, and her chin bobbled.

  “She’s cooking for you,” Raji said. “It’s an Indian mother thing. When Indian mothers are mad at you, they withhold their cooking. When they like you, they cook special things for you.”

  “And that works?” he asked.

  “Oh, you haven’t tasted my mother’s cooking yet. Once you taste her masala dosa, you’ll be wrapped around her little finger. Her masala dosa should be a Schedule One Controlled Substance. It’s as addictive as heroin. The next exposé article will have pics of you lying in a corner, bloated, with coconut chutney running down your chin.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Xan Hits Back

  * * *

  Raji lay in the hospital bed, recovering.

  Dr. Nyima had winked when she had injected something into Raji’s I.V. that ran into the back of her hand, whispering, “This is the good stuff we don’t let the civilians have.”

  Within minutes, the pain receded.

  A pleasant narcotic glow had risen up around her.

  Peyton and the baby and the nurses were all so pretty.

  Raji held their baby girl in her arms while the baby slept. Their baby girl was beautiful, with her pale caramel skin and light brown eyes. Black hair topped her head, and she had the most lush eyelashes that Raji had ever seen on a baby.

  The baby didn’t have a name yet. Raji hadn’t thought about names at all.

  Raji also had no crib, no car seat, no diapers, no baby clothes, and no bottles or whatever, but the very nice stuff that Tashi Nyima had injected into her I.V. kept Raji from panicking or worrying or even thinking about it too much.

  It would all work out.

  Everything would be fine.

  The nurse who checked on Raji and cooed over the sleeping baby for a minute was pretty, too.

  Even Peyton was pretty, there with his thick, blond hair bound back in a bun and his neat beard trimmed and handsome, but he was behaving like a daddy Viking. He snarled at the nurses and doctors until Raji told him to let them do their jobs. He hovered over Raji, pacing around her bed, until she finally suggested they turn on the television for a few minutes.

  Peyton shook his head. “Screen time is bad for children.”

  Raji laughed. “They aren’t talking about watching a TV around an infant who is just a few hours old, Peys. They’re talking about plunking toddlers in front of the computer to play first-person-shooter games for hours at a time. It’s fine.”

  “No good can come of it.”

  “The lactation consultant said that I need to relax and take my mind off the birth and the breastfeeding thing. Let’s turn on the news or something.”

  “Not the news,” Peyton said. “The news is the worst.”

  Raji narrowed her eyes at him as much as she was able. “Why?”

  “Let’s just not watch the news for a day or two.”

  “Why?”

  Peyton sat on the side of her bed and leaned over to peek at their baby again. “At least not the entertainment news.”

  Light dawned through the narcotic haze. Something else was published? “I will kill Beth.”

  “She didn’t do anything. Xan Valentine gave an interview. He’s obsessive about publicity. He had to control the narrative. It’s why Killer Valentine has done so well. Xan has micro-managed every drip to the media for years.”

  “So they’re concentrating on him now? That’s good, right? They’ll leave us alone.”

  Peyton shook his head. “He said some things. I’m surprised Georgie didn’t talk him out of doing it, but she’s his wife, not a miracle worker. When Xan gets locked onto something, it’s hard to pry him loose.”

  Raji tightened her arms around the baby. She lied, “I knew I never liked that guy.”

  Peyton shook his head. “A lot of it was directed at me, thankfully. We hav
e a few options.”

  The baby in Raji’s arms wiggled a little in her swaddle but went back to sleep. “Like what?”

  “It depends on what I will do next,” Peyton said, “since I quit Killer Valentine.”

  Tears rose in Raji’s eyes. She wiped them on her shoulders. Dammit. Pregnancy hormones are supposed to go the hell away after the pregnancy is over with, right? “You shouldn’t have quit.”

  “It was time. It was past time. If I had been thinking long-term about my career, I should have quit after a year or two with them.”

  “You didn’t want to quit being a rock star,” Raji said.

  “For years, I didn’t quit because you liked that I was a rock star. We had hammered out an odd lifestyle of me touring and us meeting each other. The busyness was so crazy that I didn’t stop and analyze what I should have been doing. I’ve been ready to go my own way for a long time.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have met up so much.”

  “You were on track. You were thinking strategically. I should have followed your example.”

  “But you quit the band.”

  Peyton said, “When the article came out, Xan was blustering. He sees things as threats. If you consider his childhood, it makes sense. The problem is that most of the time, he’s right. If he were wrong even a quarter of the time, it would be a lot easier to talk sense into him. He saw the Fame This Week article as a broadside shot. Not even a shot across our bow, but a direct hit.”

  “It sounded like a pretty horrible piece,” Raji said. “I haven’t actually read it.”

  Peyton grimaced. “It was brutal. The main problem is that Killer Valentine has been on top for so long, so the reporters wanted to tear KV apart. With celebrities, there is a narrative that news outlets and gossip sites perpetuate. A band rises and is the new, golden thing. Then stories come out. Then they fall from grace. Then they climb back up. Just being a working band isn’t interesting to the gossip sites. They have to make it more dramatic.”

  “Ugh. I’m glad I’m just a surgeon. Surgery’s easier.”