A Billionaire for Christmas

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-OneHiding ItRaji 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.