A Billionaire for Christmas

Chapter Forty-FourThird Proposal, Sort OfRaji slipped her arm around Peyton’s waist.

He flinched a little and stiffened in her grasp, but he settled his arm over her shoulders. “That’s right. We’re married.”

Because she could trust Peyton to have her back.

Her mother unleashed a torrent of Tamil, the trailing end of her sari fluttering in her anger, which essentially meant Raji had broken her heart by not inviting her to the wedding, not allowing her uncle to arrange her marriage, not being married in a Hindu temple with the appropriate pujas—

The list kept going.

—not purchasing the appropriate wedding saris, not throwing the proper three-day wedding celebration, not allowing a Brahmin priest to pray over them for three days, not allowing her mother and aunties do the pujas for her first child—

Her mother’s tirade did not stop.

—that the boy was most unsuitable because he did not speak Tamil, that she had been anticipating doing the in-law pujas with Raji’s fiancé before her wedding and now she would be denied that—

Peyton whispered to Raji, “What’s going on?”

Raji shrugged. “She just has to get some stuff out of her system. This is nothing. When I got a B-minus in fifth grade math, she flipped her lid.”

Her mother paced the living room, stomping on the floor.

—that the baby would not have good eyebrows with such a pale father, that it would be born under a bad star, that they had not had the boy’s astrology chart done and had his and Raji’s charts compared for marriage compatibility so who knew what would happen—

Peyton asked, “Do we have an anticipated time that this will finish? I was going to make dinner reservations.”

Raji shook her head. “You can’t rush this. Just go with it.”

Her mother slapped her hand on the kitchen counter as she walked by and glared at both of them.

—and most cruelly letting Aarthi think she was getting a baby when obviously they were married and were completing their own family.

Oops.

Shit.

Raji said to Peyton, “We need to talk.”

She grabbed Peyton’s hand and towed him into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them.

As soon as the door shut, Peyton grabbed her and shoved her up against the wall. His mouth crashed down on hers, kissing her deeply.

She grabbed him around his neck, holding on as she felt his lips on her for the first time in far too long. He sucked at her lips and tongue, his mouth driving all thought from her head. He stroked her side, gently exploring the shape of her pregnancy.

“Don’t,” she said, wondering if he would be repelled by it. She wasn’t particularly thrilled with her size, shape, or her explosive farts when the baby sat on her intestines.

“I’m fascinated,” he whispered in her ear as he kissed her neck. “I thought you did the other thing, but I wanted to see our child grow in you.”

“I just couldn’t,” Raji said. “I’m supposed to be a cold-blooded lizard person, and it was supposed to be a clump of cells, but I couldn’t. I kept thinking what it might look like, what it might be like.”

“It?” Peyton asked. “Don’t you know whether it’s a boy or girl?”

“I didn’t want to know,” she said. “I was going to give it to my cousin, Aarthi. She can’t have kids. Or he can’t. Or both. It was never clear to me what the problem was.”

Peyton’s hand flattened on the silk over the swell of her belly. “You were going to give it up?”

“I couldn’t take care of a baby by myself, Peys.”

“I wanted to be with you.”

“No, you didn’t. You never told me what to do. You always asked. It was always a suggestion or a question or a query. That’s not how we do things. When I’m with you, you tell me what to do. I do what you tell me to.”

“Not about this, Raji-lee. That’s a game we play, but this is for the rest of our lives. You have to tell me that you want to be with me, that you want us to be together. We both have to enter with all our hearts, not just as part of a game. For this, I need informed consent.”

“But you don’t want to do this,” she said, watching his blue-green eyes for any hint that he was lying.

“I do. I do want it.” His gaze was steady, not flicking away. “As soon as the shock wore off, which was only a second, I wanted to be with you, both of you, and I wanted us to be a family. I’ve missed you so much these last few months. I regret that I walked away even though you told me to. I should have stayed.”

“Stayed? We were talking on the phone.”

“I was in the hallway, outside your door.”

Raji sucked in air. He’d been so close. He’d been there. “You were?”