A Billionaire for Christmas

Chapter One

Backyard Wedding Reception

Peyton Cabot leaned against the deck railing, holding a red plastic cup in his hands and trying to get wasted.

The backyard wedding reception bubbled over with laughter and music.

Speakers hanging from the eaves of the large house blared rock and roll. The crowd seethed in the yard, dancing around the fire pits that warmed the brisk November air. Gray wood smoke curled around and between the people and fluttered into the night.

Peyton tapped the cold side of the cup with the fingertips of his left hand, the hard calluses from the bass guitar’s strings rattling the plastic.

He was a rock star in one of the world’s hottest bands, a formidable musician in his own right, and the only one at the wedding reception who was alone.

Again.

All the other musicians in the band Killer Valentine were married off, and they milled around the party with their spouses.

Tryp, the drummer, had married a pyromaniac roadie named Elfie right before Peyton had joined the band, and the two of them were canoodling over at the picnic table. Tryp’s hand rested, as usual, on Elfie’s somewhat pregnant tummy, and he smiled wider every time he looked down at his fingers splayed over her bulging sweater.

The band’s previous backup singer Rhiannon was engaged to their previous band manager, Jonas. They had managed to catch a train down from New York City for the wedding reception. The two of them were billing and cooing by one of the firepits, laughing with a swarm of roadies.

The tall, blond lead singer for Killer Valentine, Xan Valentine, had married the keyboardist, Georgiana “Georgie” Johnson, a few months before. They were standing over by the keg, laughing and toasting the bride and groom of the night. Xan pulled his long, blond hair back from his face and fanned himself, probably overheated from dancing.

Peyton couldn’t quite look at those two without an ache creasing his chest, but the pain had lessened over the last few months.

The wedding that afternoon had been a surprise to everyone, even to the bride and groom. Cadell Glynn, the lead guitarist, had married the voluptuous Dr. Andy Kumar, a surgeon. The bride was still wearing the bright red, drawstring scrubs that she had worn for the ad hoc ceremony. They stood with Xan and Georgie, laughing and eating Indian food off of paper plates.

Peyton took a long drink of the strong Seven and Seven from his plastic cup and tried to look like the dispassionate observer rather than the pathetic loner in the corner.

A lithe Indian woman—not the bride but her maid of honor at the wedding—grabbed Xan Valentine and Georgie by their hands and dragged them out into the yard to dance. The stranger was still wearing the blue scrubs that she had been wearing at the wedding in the hospital’s atrium. They were laughing and having a great time out there, right until Georgie waved to Peyton.

He focused his eyes beyond her, for surely he hadn’t been staring at her like some freaky stalker, right up until Georgie ran her finger over her throat and up to the shell of her ear.

Peyton could look away. He could leave Georgie with her husband out there in the dark yard, dancing in the crisp, late-fall night. It wasn’t a terrible fate.

But Peyton had always been Georgie’s knight in shining armor, even though it had become clear a few months ago that he would be the chaste and longing Lancelot to her Guinevere.

The King always won the Queen at the end of the story because they belonged together, but Peyton was still the Queen’s knight. Thus, he rode to her rescue.

Even when she needed rescuing from an overly enthusiastic dancer.

He sucked down the last of his drink in one gulp, disposed of the cup, and stepped down off the deck, wandering across the lawn and wiggling between groups of dancers and partiers who were warming themselves around the fires.

When he reached Georgie, Xan, and the stranger, Georgie reached out to him. “Peys! Just the guy I was looking for!” she yelled over the music and talking that filled the night. One of the groups was singing along to the music.

“Hey, yourself,” he said to her and nodded at Xan.

Georgie grabbed Peyton’s elbow and tugged him against her side. “Have you met Raji Kannan, Andy’s friend?”

“Pleased to meet you,” Peyton said to the woman.

The slim woman was more than half a foot shorter than Peyton, which meant that she was probably in the range of five feet, six inches or so. She had dark, Kewpie-doll eyes fringed with loads of dark lashes. Her black hair waved around her head, a layered pixie cut that flipped around while she danced. Two piercings glittered on her face: one on her lip, and the other in her nostril, and a dark tattoo marked the back of her right hand.