A Billionaire for Christmas

Even Beth raised one eyebrow in surprise at Raji’s voluptuous figure when she popped up with her date, Joshua, the pencil-necked anesthesiologist. “Hey, Raji! Who’s your date?”

“Um, this is—” Oh, crap. They hadn’t practiced anything. She hadn’t even mentioned to Peyton that he needed to be on the down-low.

Peyton stepped up and extended his hand. “Alexander Astor of the Connecticut Astors, not those Massachusetts ones. A pleasure to meet you.”

Beth laughed. “Beth Dansk of the New Jersey Dansks, all of us hoity-toity types off of Exit Eight-A. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.” Beth barely glanced at Peyton, so she probably hadn’t recognized him.

Peyton said, “Charmed, I’m sure.” His accent was so broad with no Rs at all that it was almost Bostonian. He was chahmed, he was shu-uh.

Beth said to Peyton, “I work with Raji here at the hospital. What do you do?”

He grinned that sunny smile of his, his lips curving under his Venetian mask. “I’m a lawyer. Don’t hold it against me.”

Beth laughed again. “Where did you go to school? What specialty?”

“Yale and Yale Law, I’m afraid, and finance, the most boring of the law specialties. You must pity Raji for her poor choice in men.”

Beth was still laughing at him, though her eyes were wandering off into the crowd.

Raji grabbed Peyton’s hand to haul him away. “Good seeing you, Beth. Talk to you later.”

Peyton had played that perfectly, even down to the broad Connectikite accent that he didn’t usually have and keeping his mask angled toward Beth. With all of Peyton’s diversions, Beth hadn’t recognized the Killer Valentine rock star at all, and Raji’s secrets were safe.

Raji smiled at him.

Peyton had her back.

They danced and ate dinner at the hospital gala, never once removing their masks. Raji knew everyone there, of course, and recognized them all, even though they wore masks, too.

Everybody recognized her, too, so she kept introducing Peyton as Alexander Astor. That took care of any Killer Valentine fans they might meet.

A few of her girlfriends glanced downward at her boobs, with one eyebrow lowered, as if asking if whether Raji had had a boob job. They must know that she hadn’t, of course. A surgeon would never take the time for cosmetic surgery during her residency.

They danced for hours on the huge dance floor. The band played covers from the last couple decades.

Peyton appeared to be having a good time. He laughed at all the right times and was his usual charming, gregarious self.

For minutes at a time, Raji forgot about the thing she really should tell him.

She did ask him what he thought about the band, considering that Peyton played in a world-famous rock band and these guys didn’t know who was in their audience that night. Peyton insisted that the band was together, in tune, and had interesting interpretations of the songs, but he wouldn’t criticize them at all.

Because he was kind. Because he was sweet.

Raji needed to tell him.

Some of her friends had just gone and had it taken care of when it had happened to them, without telling anyone at all.

Telling him might not be the right thing to do.

Why would it be better to share the misery?

It would probably be kinder to not put him through it.

After they had consumed what was indeed rubbery chicken and danced the night away, Raji drove Peyton back to her apartment.

She was fine to drive because she hadn’t been drinking.

Not that it was going to matter.

She could have had a few drinks if she had wanted to, considering that she had every intention of medically solving the problem.

So when they took the elevator up to Raji’s apartment in downtown Los Angeles, a building conveniently near the hospital because Raji was on-call day and night, she wasn’t particularly worried about anything. She was just going to let him know that she had a little medical condition that she would get taken care of, and it was no big deal.

Peyton stood in her living room, stretching his arms over his head. The black ribbons from the Venetian mask that he held in one hand fluttered in the air conditioning. He pulled the covered elastic band out of his blond hair and shook it behind his shoulders. The ends trailed several inches past his collar. With his little scruff of beard, too, Raji had been teasing him all night that he looked like a noob lumberjack.

Dressed in the white-tie tuxedo and standing in her living room, Peys didn’t look like a lumberjack. He looked like a blond nobleman from the 1800s, or maybe a Viking in a suit.

He smoothed his hair to the back of his head and bound the elastic around it again.

Raji hadn’t been sure how she’d felt about “manbuns” before, but watching his biceps bulge under his tux and the formal jacket rise above his slim waist while he tied his hair back made her appreciate the hairstyle far more than she would have, otherwise.