A Billionaire for Christmas

He reached over and held her hand.

Fitting, really, that their relationship had begun at a wedding and during a wild car ride to the airport, and now it was ending with a wild ride to the hospital and, at some point, a wedding.

When they arrived at the hospital, Raji pointed Peyton around to the staff entrance. He screeched the brakes, stopping the car.

Raji was bent almost in half, hanging onto the car’s dashboard, and she whispered, “I’m having some trouble here. Would you mind maybe going inside and getting me a wheelchair?”

But Peyton had already run around to her side of the car, opened her door, and gathered her up in his arms. He carried her into the hospital, and the automatic doors jumped out of his way to let them inside. The Christmas wreaths hanging on the doors swung like ringing bells.

Raji clung to Peyton’s neck as he strode through the corridors, his long legs traveling quickly over the tile. He seemed to be following the signs to the maternity ward, so she just leaned her head against his shoulder and watched while the orderlies and nursing assistants dodged the Christmas trees, chasing them with a wheelchair.

At the maternity ward, a nurse whom Raji really should know but couldn’t quite concentrate enough to remember her name at the moment waved her over to a gurney.

Peyton laid her on it, saying, “Contractions are less than five minutes apart and strong.”

“Splendid. I need to speak to Ms. Kannan privately.”

“Doctor Kannan,” both Raji and Peyton said at the same time.

Yep, because Peyton had her back.

The nurse said, “Privately.”

“Okay. I’ll be out in the hallway. Yell if you want me.” Peyton wandered out into the hallway, looking at something on his phone.

The nurse shoved a clipboard in front of Raji’s face. The paper on it had one question: Are you afraid of the person who brought you here, are you in any danger, or should we call a domestic violence specialist?

Raji screamed at her, “I’m in active labor, you bleedin’ idiot! I’m having a baby!”

At Raji’s shout, Peyton started to walk over. He was still wearing that stupid Santa hat.

The nurse said, “Sir, this is a private consultation.”

Raji said, “Peyton, I need to tell off this nurse, and you should back up for a second or else I might shatter your impression of me as a delicate fucking flower!”

Peyton retreated, hands raised.

Raji turned back to the nurse. “No! Of course not! Now get that fucking clipboard out of my face before I shove it up—Ah!” Another contraction seized Raji and twisted her guts.

When Raji recovered, panting, the nurse told her, “It’s standard protocol. You of all people should know that, Dr. Kannan.”

“Fuck you and get Peyton over here!”

Peyton trotted back to her side, “Yes, my sweet, delicate flower?”

“Give me your goddamn belt!”

His sea-green eyes expanded a little. “Why?”

“So I can beat you with it for doing this to me. Why do you think? So I can bite on it, so I don’t shatter my damn teeth!”

Peyton whipped the belt out of the belt loops of his pants and offered it to her, gingerly.

Raji crammed the leather in her mouth and mumbled around it, “Tell Joshua Williams to quit being a lazy dick and get his pencil-necked ass down here!”

After an epidural and Peyton stroking her hand for a few minutes, Raji stopped threatening to assault people. She was still panting through contractions, but they didn’t feel like a giant was twisting her in half anymore.

Peyton checked his phone. “I’ll ask you one more time: will you marry me?”

“I said yes,” Raji said, holding onto the rails and dreading the next contraction.

“I mean, will you marry me right now? A Unitarian minister was attending one of her choir members down in oncology. She can marry us right here, right now, if you want.”

“My mother is on her way,” Raji said. “She can’t see us getting married because then she’ll know that we weren’t married a year ago.”

Peyton frowned at his phone. “Maybe traffic will be bad. After all, this is Los Angeles, and it is rush hour.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Raji said. “There’s no rush hour today. That’s how we got here so fast.”

“Damn.” He texted something, just as a statuesque woman wearing what looked to Raji like academic robes walked into the room. She was wiping her bloodshot eyes.

The woman surveyed the delivery room and Raji, who was lying in the bed, sweating and probably looking like death. “I’m Reverend Yaa Idowu. You can call me Reverend Yaa. I heard you needed a quickie wedding? You have a marriage license?” Her voice sounded like she would sing in a creamy alto range.

“Yes and yes,” Peyton said, fumbling and handing her a piece of paper.

She glanced at it, holding it in her scarlet-tipped ebony fingers. “Within the dates, good. All right.”