A Billionaire for Christmas
“Maybe we shouldn’t have met up so much.”
“You were on track. You were thinking strategically. I should have followed your example.”
“But you quit the band.”
Peyton said, “When the article came out, Xan was blustering. He sees things as threats. If you consider his childhood, it makes sense. The problem is that most of the time, he’s right. If he were wrong even a quarter of the time, it would be a lot easier to talk sense into him. He saw the Fame This Week article as a broadside shot. Not even a shot across our bow, but a direct hit.”
“It sounded like a pretty horrible piece,” Raji said. “I haven’t actually read it.”
Peyton grimaced. “It was brutal. The main problem is that Killer Valentine has been on top for so long, so the reporters wanted to tear KV apart. With celebrities, there is a narrative that news outlets and gossip sites perpetuate. A band rises and is the new, golden thing. Then stories come out. Then they fall from grace. Then they climb back up. Just being a working band isn’t interesting to the gossip sites. They have to make it more dramatic.”
“Ugh. I’m glad I’m just a surgeon. Surgery’s easier.”
“The dramatic narrative of the rise and fall doesn’t even correlate with sales. Killer Valentine’s sales have steadily risen, plateaued, and are climbing again.”
“That’s weird.”
“This article and the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching around this one have gotten particularly vicious.”
Raji held the baby more closely to her chest. “Oh, no.”
Peyton said, “Here’s my problem: if I want to have a performing career, I need to get out there and hit back. If I just want to teach at Colburn or Juilliard or something, it doesn’t matter and I should let Xan have his story. But if I want to get back out on stage in whatever capacity, as a classical musician or contemporary, I have to manage the publicity for this one.”
She swallowed hard. Even the nifty stuff that Tashi had loaded into her I.V. couldn’t blunt her worry about Peyton. “What are you going to do?”
He sighed. “I’m going to need to call a press conference or do an interview. I’ve had two and a half years to learn from the master. I have to control my own narrative now.”Chapter FiftyPhone Call to MotherPeyton picked up his cell phone and punched a contact. “Hello, Mother?”
A woman answered the phone with a low, cultured tone. “So have you made me the laughingstock of all my friends by turning me into a grandmother yet?”
“I’m sorry to report, yes. You’ll have to lament to your friends how inconsiderate I am. Raji and the baby are doing beautifully, but we do seem to have a problem.”
“Oh?” As usual, his mother sounded distant, somewhat disinterested.
“Raji plans to return to her residency—”
“Yes, have we mentioned how much we appreciate that she is a career girl and not a flighty socialite?”
Yes, they had mentioned it. Often. “—in three weeks.”
“So soon?”
“That’s what I thought, too. Though I have quit Killer Valentine—”
“You have? Your father will be so pleased.” That was code for how pleased she was, that a decade and a half of shuttling Peyton to classical piano classes and workshops and competitions, not to mention standing over him during practice, had not been wasted on a career in (shudder) rock and roll.
He said, “So though I have some extra time on my hands, we are going to need help with the infant.”
“Oh?” Her voice was faint. The insinuation was obvious: what to do you expect me to do about it?
“So I was wondering if you could send Lupe to help us set up our staff and get settled in a house for a few months?”
“Oh! Yes! Of course. I’ll have her on a plane this afternoon. So pleased that we could help you.”
“Thank you, Mother. I expected nothing less.”Chapter Fifty-OneInterviewPeyton adjusted the lavaliere microphone clipped to his black tee shirt.
Raji had insisted that he wear this particular shirt even though he thought was too tight. It rode up his biceps and showed off the Nordic armband tattoos that she had convinced him to get, practically marking him as hers.
He liked that thought.
The interviewer smiled at him as she adjusted her mic and read from the teleprompter just over his shoulder. Extra flood lights were stationed around her to illuminate her ebony skin for the cameras. Her dark plum lips curved in a smile as she read Peyton’s weird bio, from classical piano at Juilliard to Killer Valentine rock star.
Peyton reviewed his plan in his head.
As a paid contractor and not-quite-member of Killer Valentine, Peyton had done little publicity for the band over the years. When he’d done interviews or appearances, Xan’s publicity person and admin, Yvonne James, had handed Peyton an agenda, talking points, and death threats if he didn’t do it right.