A Billionaire for Christmas

Peyton was lying on his side, the sheet draped over his slim waist and long thighs. “I know it’s not a game to you.”

“This would be a person’s life! We can’t just pretend to make a go at it and shrug if we fuck it up.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Raji.”

“A kid deserves a home with two parents, with love, with a big, extended family all around them who puts the kid first, not themselves.”

“It sounds like you’d be a wonderful mother.”

Raji ignored that. “And if we divorced, I’d probably end up paying you alimony.”

Peyton laughed. “I doubt that very much.”

“You have no idea how much I’m going to make as a heart surgeon,” she snapped at him.

He laughed. “I’ll sign a prenup that assures you that I would have no claim on your future earnings, if you’ll sign one with the clause that you have to make love to me whenever you’re angry. God, you’re beautiful with your dark eyes flashing like that, and your body flushed with emotion. You look just like that when I’ve been playing with you, when you’re pleading with me to fuck you.”

The faint starlight of humor shone into Raji’s darkness.

She snorted. “You are so full of yourself, sitting over there with your shredded abs and ripped pecs and impossibly blue eyes.”

“And you, standing over there with your lovely, lush body and your sweet lips and your soft, silken skin. Also, my eyes are green, not blue,” he said.

“It’s these lights.” She gestured at the dimmed LEDs recessed in her ceiling. “They look dark blue.”

He held out his hand. “Come back to bed.”

Raji did as he said because that was what she always did. She sat on the edge of the bed.

He stretched her out beside him. “Don’t answer me now. Wait a week before you decide. Whatever you want, I’ll be here for you. If you need someone to drive you to the doctor and take care of you for a day or two, I’m your man.” He tucked her close to his warm body. “And if you want to marry me and have our child, then I’m your man.”Chapter Thirty-ThreeNot Bad SushiRaji and Beth were in the locker room after sewing veins on some old lady’s heart, chatting while they changed out of the scrubs they wore under their protective suits.

Other surgeons chattered among the rows of lockers, their conversations in several languages bouncing around the wooden cabinets.

Raji hadn’t quite worked up the energy to strip off her scrubs yet. She felt puffy, like she had eaten too much broccoli with cheese sauce all at once. Her hands still smelled like the rubbery, non-latex gloves, and the powder crusted in her knuckles.

Beth tossed her blue scrubs in the biohaz bin in the corner where the banks of lockers met. She sat in her bra and underwear on the wooden bench. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Ate some bad sushi or something.” If she had said that she was just generically sick, Beth would have insisted she describe her symptoms in order to diagnose her and prescribe ameliorating pharmaceuticals. However, nobody wanted to hear more details about diarrhea.

Beth scrunched up her nose and upper lip. “My bachelor’s is in microbiology. I never eat anything raw.”

“Yeah, I did general biology and philosophy. Guess that’s why I eat stupid things.”

“Oh, God. Remember the Malaysian Chicken at the Asian Students’ Association’s All-Asia Night? Five hundred people got salmonella. The ER was full the next day. I’m still surprised nobody died.”

Raji bit her lip, deliberating. “Yeah, it may not have been the sushi.”

Beth rubbed a deodorant stick on her armpits and waved at Joshua, the pencil-necked anesthesiologist, as he walked in. He walked around to the next bank of lockers to change because he was too prudish to get naked in front of female colleagues. Beth asked, “What do you mean, it wasn’t the sushi? Did you eat something else at room temperature, maybe some nice British mad cow steak tartare?”

“No, I don’t think that was it.”

“What then, one of those Japanese fish dishes where the fish is still flopping around on your plate?”

“I think I might have gotten knocked up,” Raji admitted.

“Shhhhhh!” Beth hissed, and she sneaked around the end of the row of lockers, looking to see who might have overheard. She came back and put her head right up next to Raji’s, whispering, “Was it that Alexander Astor guy from the masquerade? He looked hot. I mean, you couldn’t tell because he was wearing a mask, but he looked hot. Yeah, I can see doing him.”

“I lied. That wasn’t ‘Alexander Astor.’ That was Peyton Cabot.”

“Oh my God. Please don’t tell me that he’s the bassist guy, the fucking musician?” she hissed.

“Yep!” Raji tried to sound cheery about it. “The musician.”

“Of course, he knocked you up. Did he lie about using a condom?”