A Billionaire for Christmas

“That’s another ‘oh, hell, no,’” she said. “I don’t need rock stars phoning me at all hours of the day and night when I’m in the on-call room or wrist-deep in someone’s chest.”

“I could get you comp tickets when Killer Valentine is playing in Los Angeles.”

“As tempting as that is, I can buy my own tickets, Peyton. I’m a goddamn heart surgeon. I could buy a box seat if I wanted to.”

“I thought you said you were still doing your residency.” It was Peyton’s turn to grin. He was a wealthy guy, and a lot of his friends had ended up in medicine. He knew residents were paid meager stipends.

Raji frowned. “Well, I will be able to, and I can afford nosebleed seats now.”

He laughed again. “You are the oddest little person.”

“Why, because I’m not impressed with your money?”

“All my life, I’ve been warned about gold diggers who will try to get knocked up to get money out of me, to only date women whose families I knew, and all that rot.”

“So it’s because I’m not impressed with your money or your rock star fame.”

“That’s pretty much it, and because you’re impressive in your own right.”

Raji shoved his shoulder, and he fell back laughing. She said, “That’s right, buddy. I could rip out your heart and sew it right back in, and maybe I’d sew it in backwards just to make things interesting. Come on. We’d better get out there before people start whispering that the heart surgeon has snuck off to shag the rock star.”

“You go ahead,” Peyton said. “It would look better if we didn’t both reappear at the same time.”

“Good point!” She availed herself of the facilities and waved at him as she slipped out the door, not too noticeably tousled.

Peyton cleaned himself up and then stripped the sheets off of the bed, balling them up to carry them upstairs. He had crashed at Cadell’s house a couple of times when the band had stopped in New Jersey to record demos, so he knew where the laundry room was. It seemed impolite to leave a sticky bed in their wake.

Peyton Cabot of the Connecticut Cabots was unflaggingly polite.Chapter SixMammals and Cold-Blooded Lizard PeopleAfter Raji boinked Peyton-Cabot, she’d assumed that he would wander off into the party because he had gotten his, leaving her sore and with a stupid, grinning afterglow from the bone-shattering orgasm.

But he hadn’t.

Instead, he’d hung out with her, talking and asking her questions, drawing her into long, winding conversations with the other band members—Killer Valentine band members oh my God oh my God—about music and philosophy and the meaning of life and how good the wine was.

He stroked her back or shoulder a couple of times.

That was weird, right? They’d both gotten what they’d wanted—a mind-blowing fuck—so shouldn’t Peyton drift off into the past and leave her the heck alone?

But she laughed and had a great time with him all night.

Eventually, hours later, as the sun rose over the hedges and other houses in the high-rent subdivision, they lay on the carpeting of the living room while the other KV band people and their significant others lounged on the couches and chairs. Raji had ended up draped over Peyton like a lazy cat. Wood smoke from the fire pits lingered in their clothes, just enough like cigarette smoke to make Raji crave a cigarette even though she had quit years before. The huge, curved television silently played a repeat of some old reality show.

Raji’s friend Andy was curled up in her new husband’s arms. Andy was belly-aching again about how her patients died too much.

Because Raji was a cardiac surgeon, most of her patients had lived at least part of their lives before she sliced them open in a last-ditch attempt to keep them going a while longer.

Quite honestly, many of Raji’s patients had brought their troubles upon themselves with way too much rich food and no exercise. Raji could rationalize their deaths, even if she felt callous while she did it.

Kid patients hurt more when they didn’t make it. They had just been dealt a bad hand, and there was no way to rationalize any of it.

Raji and Andy had replayed this conversation dozens of times. Losing patients was part and parcel of being a doctor, especially a surgeon. Sometimes, no matter how careful you were, no matter how you did everything perfectly to the micrometer, patients died.

Sometimes, horribly.

One of Raji patients had died on her table the previous week. She hadn’t nicked an important artery or vein. She hadn’t made a mistake. The postmortem video in Grand Rounds had completely absolved her of even the smallest fuck-up.

He’d thrown a clot.

A blood clot had traveled from somewhere on him to his lungs, resulting in a pulmonary embolism. Pulmonary embolisms were one of those unknowable things that just happened. Even right on the operating table with every drug and device at her fingertips, Raji hadn’t been able to save him. No one could have. He’d coded, and it was over.