Killer Valentine’s publicity problem had, predictably, passed in a month or so. The supposedly jilted pregnant girlfriend was suddenly married to the musician who defended her at every turn. With no additional clickbait such as ODs or drug-fueled hooker binges from the Killer Valentine camp to feed the media beast, it just died down. The ravenous media had moved on to the next sordid story because, just like sharks, they needed to keep swimming forward or they would die.
Peyton wouldn’t talk to Xan fucking Valentine, though. Fuck him and his PR machine.
After a few months of growling at each other through intermediaries, Killer Valentine had stopped for a tour date in Los Angeles. Georgie had called up and asked Peyton and Raji to meet her for supper, and a part of Peyton still couldn’t refuse her.
When he and Raji arrived in the private room at the rear of the French restaurant, Xan fucking Valentine was sitting at the table, too.
Xan’s dark eyes widened in shock. “What the fucking hell?”
Peyton had turned on his heel, preparing to walk the fuck out.
Georgie and Raji had pounced on them both, insisting that they talk it out.
Obviously, this was a coordinated attack on both fronts.
There was nothing to do but surrender.
After some snarling from both sides of the table, they crossed the distance between them and talked about music and the music business.
Within an hour, Xan was offering terse, instructive critiques on Peyton’s lyrics, and Peyton listened. When one of the century’s geniuses is willing to give you notes, you should let them.
Peyton offered Xan an introduction to a social media blogger whom he hadn’t been able to find an in with.
Now, Peyton stood in the dark of the Hollywood Bowl, listening to seventeen thousand, five hundred whispers wither and fall away.
Night air gathered around him.
Behind him, the orchestra settled, tuning their instruments one last time in a smooth cacophony.
Over on the side of the clamshell in the wings of the stage, just visible in the backstage safety lighting, Raji stood with Xan Valentine, Georgie Johnson-Grimaldi, and the other members of Killer Valentine.
Georgie’s arm was draped casually over Raji’s shoulders as they both grinned.
Xan looked like he was restraining himself from walking onto the darkened stage. One of his hands firmly grasped the back of a chair.
Tryp had wrapped his long arms around his sprite of a wife, Elfie, and was ruffling the brush at the end of her blond braid. Rumor had it that she was pregnant with their third child, but they hadn’t admitted it yet.
The toddlers and kids were sequestered at Peyton and Raji’s house, corralled by a platoon of nannies and sitters. Play yards lined the large nursery-slash-play room, waiting for bedtime.
Gita had been toddler-flirting with both Tryp’s son Neil, who was her age, and Xan’s son Adrien, staggering after them as they stumbled around the padded playroom. Peyton was pretty sure she was primarily after Adrien who was almost two years old, so she might have a thing for older men.
At the Hollywood Bowl, out in the dark expanse that crawled up the hillsides of the canyon turned into an open-air theater, the lights dimmed. The crowd quieted in their seats and on the benches that striped the hills around the stage.
Over seventeen thousand throats breathed out there. Seventeen and a half thousand hearts beat. Tree-covered hills in the Hollywood Heights funneled cool air and quiet into the valley, blocking out the traffic and blare of Los Angeles. The stars above glittered through the haze of light all around the tops of the mountains.
Peyton’s parents were in the front row, mollified that their offspring was at least making his debut at the Hollywood Bowl, a stage renowned for its classical and jazz traditions and for being the summer home of the L.A. Philharmonic. The venue was a marginally suitable substitute since their progeny was too stubborn to make his entrance to musical society at Carnegie Hall like a proper musician.
At least they were there.
Peyton took one last look over the body of the piano at Raji, standing in the wings. Her thrilled grin and hands clasped under her chin in excitement made each day of his life worthwhile.
Every step of his shooting-star rise to fame had been detailed on one of her spreadsheets, from polishing a defined number of songs via intermediate goals, to capitalizing on his classical contacts, to working his connections in the rock world, to the initial club dates, and finally to uploading his music to the streaming services with advertising already in place.
Raji’s spreadsheets and then project management software files were organized, so precise and detailed that Georgie had dragged Killer Valentine’s A&R VP Jonas all the way to California during another one-month band hiatus. Raji had given them both a crash course in how to use the software.
Peyton had cracked up as both Jonas’s and Georgie’s eyes had lit up at the possibilities for long-term career planning and management team organizational structure. So much planning.
Now, at the apex of Raji’s planning, seconds before the beginning of his first stadium-sized concert, Peyton drew a deep breath and laid his hands on the piano. The cool ivory calmed him.
Voices broke the silence of the crowd beyond the apron of the stage.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, he counted in his head.
In the darkness, the few wails swelled to screams, which expanded into a roar.
Three.
Peyton shouted into the darkness, “One, two, one-two-three-four—”
His hands slammed the piano keys.
Spotlights blasted through the Hollywood Bowl. The clamshell brimmed with light, and the glow flowed over the restless audience along with his music.
Peyton opened his throat and his soul and sang.
He had been born to do this.
In the floodlights on the wings of the stage, Raji laughed and beamed at him, thrilled.
Peyton poured his heart onto the stage in the form of love songs, all of them written for her.
I hope Peyton and Raji brought a little joy and warmth to your 2020 holidays! I love writing about rock stars, but it’s the royal billionaires that really keep me up at night.
Maxence’s book is available now, and WOOOO, let me tell you, this royal billionaire will take you on a journey you’ll never forget!
Click RIGHT HERE to get Rogue (Billionaires in Disguise: Maxence.)
FML. I will never believe anything a man tells me, ever again.
Even if he is a 6-feet-4, hot, ripped, handsome as a movie star, filthy rich billionaire.
I was a good girl who had nothing left to lose, literally. My ex-boyfriend had stolen everything except a non-refundable plane ticket to Paris, which was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime where that deadbeat was going to propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower. So, I got on the plane without him.
After all that, it was understandable that when I started drinking at the Buddha Bar, things got a little out of hand.
Luckily, a man intervened. He was so ripped that I could see every thick muscle of his abs, obliques, chest, and arms through the tight tee shirt he was wearing. He towered over the guys who were bothering me, and they backed off.
I took him back to my hotel because I was full of drunken, bad decisions that night.
The last thing I needed was a man who wanted to save me when I was trying to do all the wrong things.
Maxence's brother was trying to kidnap or kill him, and an organized crime thug wanted to cut off Max's head and feed it to the sharks for entirely unrelated reasons.
So, when a cute little blonde stood up on a barstool in the middle of the Buddha Bar in Paris and drew the attention of the wrong sort of guys, Maxence swooped in for the rescue. Everything about her appealed to him: her sweetness, her giggliness, and especially the fact that she was in trouble.
That last part made her sugar and catnip to Max.
Luckily, he only had five days before he left Pari
s and Europe for wherever his global charity job was going to send him this time.
Why not spend it with the funny blonde who insisted he lie to her?
Indeed, if she thought everything he said was a lie, he could confess his sins, unburden his soul, and reveal what he thought he never could.
Five days with her sounded like Heaven, if he could just convince her to stop throwing him out of her hotel room.
* * *
Jesus’s Buddies: Dree
“I’m not crying,” Dree said, holding her dead phone in her hand and surreptitiously smearing her wet face on her shoulder.
“You’re crying,” Augustine said, his voice lowered to a growl. He was so hot when he scowled like that, which seemed odd to Dree. Usually, she freaked out when men got mad at her. He asked, “What did I do wrong?”
“Nothing, you didn’t do anything. You were great. No, you were magnificent.” An amazing fragrance had filled the air while she was talking, something like baking pastries smothered with the best kind of Irish butter that she’d only bought once because it was too expensive. “What is that smell?”
“Croissants,” Augustine said, holding out the pink box. “You said it was your first time in Paris. You should eat croissants in Paris.”
Her lack of breakfast in the hotel room embarrassed her, and she felt like she shouldn’t let him go out of his way to give her something. “I—I appreciate that, but you didn’t have to.”
He shrugged. “My favorite café was near—where I was, so I picked some up. I also promised to buy you a new coat today.”
“You only said that to stop me from going back inside the Buddha Bar.”
His slow smile was sexy as hell. “Yes, but a promise is a promise.”
The weird shakiness in her chest subsided. “I was going to go back down there and see if they found it. I really liked that coat. And if they didn’t find it, like you said, it’s not that cold. It’s just a little ‘fresh.’ I don’t really need a coat.”
“You were freezing last night. I say, do you mind if I come inside? Standing out in the corridor like this is odd.”
“You weren’t supposed to come back,” she told him.
He shook the box again. “But I brought you croissants.”
“Fair enough. Come on in. I mean, it was really nice of you to offer to share your croissants with me, but you don’t have to.” She stood aside so he could come in. “I have coffee.”
“I brought you some of that, too. Do you have a table?”
She locked the door behind him. “I have a countertop.”
He set the boxes and cups on the table and held the flowers out to her. Ivory roses and white Narcissus blooms filled the brown paper cone. “To celebrate your first trip to Paris.”
She stared at the flowers for a moment, gathering herself. Francis had never brought her such extravagant flowers, and he was the one who was supposed to be here in Paris with her, buying her flowers and seeing it together.
After nearly a year with Francis, marrying him had seemed inevitable.
Instead, this beautiful, impossible man had brought her flowers and breakfast in Paris.
He tilted his head. “You’re crying again.”
“I am not,” she said, wiping her face on her tee shirt again. She gulped some air and said, “The flowers are just so beautiful that they caught me off guard. And it was so nice of you to bring me croissants.” She took the flowers, the paper crackling in her fingers. “I’ll put these in some water. I really do appreciate them, Augustine.”
His smile was wary. “Are we still doing the ‘Augustine’ thing?”
“Yes.” She found a plastic water pitcher among the assorted useless things in the kitchen cabinets and filled it with water for the flowers. “Yes, and I don’t want to talk about why. Don’t tell me who or what you really are. Just be a mystery, okay?”
“All right,” he said, though he was still frowning, and his eyebrows still pinched together.
“It’s not about you,” she said. “It’s about me. I just don’t want to be me anymore. I want to be somebody, anybody else. I want to be a superhero or a princess in disguise.”
His dark eyebrows twitched.
She continued, “But I’m pathetic and stupid, and I want to be anybody else, so you can be someone else, too. Otherwise, I’d feel bad about lying to you.”
Augustine closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t think I’m following your logic.”
“That’s because there isn’t any. Just accept it, okay? Let’s just do it.”
He spread his hands. “All right. I’m game. It’s probably better, anyway. For the time being, my name is Augustine, and I owe you a coat. Is your name actually Dree?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said, wincing because he’d caught her. “I was too drunk to make something up. My name is Dree, and I shall call you ‘Auggie.’”
He cracked up, laughing long and hard from his gut. He placed one hand on his lean, flat stomach as if his tummy were going to split open. When he wound down, he said, “Auggie, yes. By all means, let’s call me Auggie. Friends of mine will perish when I tell them this. Can we eat breakfast? I’m famished.”
“Sure. Didn’t you get something to eat while you were out?”
“I don’t eat in the mornings. I have to attend—” He stopped talking and frowned.
“The gym?” she offered.
“Right,” he said, drawing out the word. “I have to attend the gym.”
She set the pitcher of white flowers on the bedroom dresser by where Augustine was standing. He opened the box and began setting out the food on paper napkins he’d brought. Inside the box, a stack of a half-dozen croissants nestled little tubs of butter and strawberry jam.
She said, “Strawberry is my favorite! That is so sweet of you.”
He smiled at her, and his dark eyes crinkled at the edges. “Mine, too.”
Dree found some knives in a drawer, slathered butter and jam on a croissant, and bit into the flakey, buttery heaven. Brittle layers shattered in her mouth, and tender layers inside collapsed when she bit down. “Oh, my God. This is nothing like those little crescent rolls from the tube. Those are just bread.”
He raised one eyebrow while he ripped off a hunk and stuffed it into his mouth. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“Those little rolls in the tube, and when you open the tube, it explodes and you jump.”
He shook his head as he spread jam on his croissant.
“Must be an American thing.”
The way his lips closed around the pastry and he sucked on his thumb made Dree’s knees flinch. Damn. She tried not to watch him nibble and lick the French pastry and failed.
She wanted to be the croissant, but she wasn’t supposed to see him or touch him ever again.
Stupid bucket-list napkin, bossing her around.
When Augustine had finished chewing the last bite, he glanced up at her. “Are you going to tell me why you were crying?”
She shook her head and concentrated on buttering her next bite of croissant.
“Then lie to me,” he said, reaching for another croissant.
What? “Lie to you?”
“Yes.” He tore another croissant to pieces with his long fingers. “That’s what you said we should do. If you don’t want to tell me the truth about why you were crying, tell me lies.”
It was completely ridiculous, so she laughed at him. “Okay, I don’t even know how to start.”
He was standing straight and still as he ate, not leaning on the counter or fidgeting. “What could be so awful that it would make a beautiful woman like you cry?”
She did laugh at him for that. “I don’t know, alien abduction? The state of the whole world? That I had no one to bring me flowers, but now I do?”
His gaze slowly rose from his croissant to her eyes.
Dree realized what she’d said and waved her hands, crossing them like she was waving off a landing airplane. “Oh, I didn’t mean it
like that. I’m not imagining that we have a relationship. We don’t. It was just one night, and that’s all it was supposed to be. I just meant that it was nice of you to bring me flowers this morning. If there had been something else going on, if I were in Paris alone for some stupid reason when I should have had a romantic trip planned but then everything went to shit, it’s not your responsibility. I don’t expect anything from you. We’re cool. That’s all. We’re cool.”
Augustine held a piece of croissant pinched in his fingers, staring at it and not eating it. Butter and strawberry jam leaked onto his fingers. His steady look seemed resigned and sad, not freaked out.
Or he might be screaming inside and good at covering it up. It was hard to tell with guys sometimes.
“It really is okay,” she said. “I was just thinking about things I might do in Paris, like tourist stuff.”
He finally spoke. “Last night, it sounded like you had a bucket list.”
“Funny you should put it like that, a bucket list.” That’s what Roxanne and Gen had called it the night before. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
Augustine neatly wiped his fingers on a paper towel and then reached over and picked up her special napkin that was covered with black handwriting and her map for the rest of her life.
“Uh, yeah,” she said. “You don’t have to look at that.” A lot of it was pretty embarrassing and made her look like a tramp. Well, even more like a tramp than she’d already made herself look by screaming that she wanted to screw all the men in a bar and then taking a guy home for the hottest sex of her life.
Yeah, the tramp ship had already sailed.
He studied it, frowning in places. “This is quite a list.”
“I wasn’t planning on doing it all.” She totally was.
Augustine tilted his head, glanced up at her with a startled expression, and then looked back at the napkin as his eyes grew larger. “A threesome, a foursome with three guys, a gang bang. You mentioned these last night.”
A Billionaire for Christmas Page 23