A Billionaire for Christmas

Working the day before Christmas Eve, what the fuck? He’d had to reschedule his flight home to Connecticut.

He scrubbed base onto his forehead with the spongey wedge. The sticky liquid smelled like talc and clung to his skin.

Since he had grown in his blond, scruffy beard, the make-up process had become faster, just a base coat on his forehead, cheekbones, and nose, and some subtle darker powder above his eyelids and to hollow out his cheeks. A little brown eyeliner around his eyes and brown mascara.

Not too much. Peyton wasn’t the frontman and didn’t want to be.

Not for a rock band, anyway. He wasn’t cut out to gyrate at the front of the stage like that.

Okay, make-up done. Now, hair.

Boris still inspected Peyton before the show to make sure he hadn’t fucked it up.

His blond hair had grown out over his shoulders. Most of the time, he just used his fingers to comb the thick mass into a bun-thing on the back of his head. He was starting to look like a proper vagabond rock star.

Raji might have been pleased, but he hadn’t seen her in a long time.

Months. Too many months.

He set down the hair brush, suddenly tired. His heart still ached when he thought about her.

Peyton didn’t need much make-up or hair work that night, anyway. The “concert” was just a club gig in France, hastily booked because Xan couldn’t handle staying off of a stage for the entire six months they had planned for the sabbatical. Evidently, Georgie had called the band manager, Jonas, last week and told him to book them a gig somewhere, anywhere, before she strangled Xan.

And so, even though they had a month left on their supposed sabbatical, Killer Valentine had a club date on the day before Christmas Eve.

No matter what Xan said, Peyton was wearing his damn Santa hat on stage.

The dressing room door blasted open, smashing against the wall behind it.

Peyton leaped up, fists raised.

Xan charged in, shaking a magazine so hard that the paper rattled. “What the fuck is this?”

Peyton dropped his fists. Even though it had been years since they had rescued Georgie from the Russian mafia, he still got a little riled up when anyone came at him. That had been a rough night. “What’s going on, Xan?”

“What the fuck do you think is going on? Who did you tell?”

Peyton crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This fucking article!” Xan slapped the magazine on the make-up table. The glossy paper hit a make-up brush. Powder flew into the air, dusting Peyton’s arm.

The magazine cover was a photoshopped picture of Xan and Peyton standing on either side of Georgie, looking quite a bit like, ahem, a three-ple. Peyton’s arm appeared to be around Georgie’s shoulders, while Xan’s was around her waist.

Peyton said, “Obviously, that’s altered. Look, you can see my hand from the original picture by my leg. It looks like I have three arms.”

“That article could ruin us!” Xan yelled, his dark eyes wild. He pulled his dark blond hair back from his face. “And it’s come out while we’re not touring, so we don’t have the platform to rebut it.”

Peyton picked up the magazine and thumbed through it. “You don’t need a stage. You have your social media. One tweet or post will knock this shit down.”

“Who the fuck is Raji?”

Peyton’s hands chilled, and he almost dropped the magazine. “It says something about Raji?”

“She’s the source for the article.”

Peyton stumbled backward and managed to find his chair before he landed on his ass. “She wouldn’t. She would never.”

“Xan!” a woman’s voice shrilled down the hallway. “Alexandre! Don’t you do anything! Don’t you touch him!”

Georgie skidded around the doorframe, her brown eyes wide. Her stage make-up was flawless, and her long, brown hair had been twisted into a complicated up-do. Her body was still soft and curvy from having the baby five months before, and Boris had dressed her in flowing scarves reminiscent of Stevie Nicks.

She asked Peyton, “Are you okay?”

Peyton was still holding the magazine. “Where does it say that Raji is the source?”

Xan slapped the magazine with the back of his hand, and it flapped in Peyton’s fingers. “Her name is all over the article. That magazine isn’t a rag that makes things up and speculates. They don’t get sued the way the others do. There’s an interview with her.”

Peyton scanned the article, looking for sources and citations. “I don’t believe it.”

“It says she’s pregnant and going to have your child this month.”

Panic blasted through him. “She said that she was going to take care of it.”

“And you trusted her? Did you get an NDA?”

“No,” Peyton said. “No Non-Disclosure Agreement. No Settlement Agreement, either.”

“Then you’re fucked,” Xan said, his French accent thicker than Peyton had ever heard it, slurring his words. “Then we’re all fucked. We can’t even sue her for defamation. Maybe for the other stuff unless she has proof. Does she have fucking proof?”