PEYTON was wiping stage make-up onto his face with a cosmetic sponge in a tiny dressing room backstage at a French nightclub. Xan’s wardrobe guy, Boris, had taught him how to do his own stage make-up because Peyton didn’t like being fussed over.
Plastic holly wreaths had been stapled to the wall around the mirror in some lazy attempt at holiday cheer. A Santa hat sat on the make-up counter beside Peyton’s elbow. He had every intention of wearing it on stage that night.
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?”
“Raji wouldn’t give an interview like this,” he said, muttering more to himself than anyone else.
The article was damning, however. The photoshopped cover image related to a long section about a supposed love triangle between Xan, Georgie, and Peyton.
Shit. It even mentioned Tanglewood.
In the article, the section entitled Shocking Killer Valentine Secrets! Sex! Drugs! went on to detail Xan’s addiction to steroids to reduce the inflammation in his throat so he could keep up with the insane touring schedule. It specifically tattled about the thousands of Polaroids glued to the underside of the stage, illustrating the degrading things young women would do with roadies to get backstage.
Peyton swallowed hard.
He had told Raji those things. Damn it, had she taken notes?
Another section detailed allegations of drug abuse in the most garish terms: heroin addiction, casual and rampant drug use by nearly all the band members, Jonas the band manager delivering illegal drugs to Rade, Grayson, Tryp, and Cadell, the steroids injected into Xan Valentine’s throat by unqualified medics, smuggling drugs over international and state borders, drug dealers meeting the band at the hotels as soon as they checked in, and worse.
It even mentioned Georgie’s miscarriage several years earlier.
Dammit.
Peyton was sure he had told Raji all of those things over the years they had been together. He had still been processing them, and he had been reassuring her that he wasn’t part of it.
Maybe he shouldn’t have divulged any of that to anyone.
He had trusted her, and it was inconceivable to him that he had been wrong about her.
The last part of the article included more damning details about the heartless Peyton Cabot, how he was still pining after Georgie Johnson so much that he had abandoned his pregnant girlfriend, Raji Kannan.
The picture of Raji showed her pregnant belly bulging out her white doctor’s coat. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she smiled for the camera.
It sounded like it could have been written by a jilted lover.
No.
Raji wouldn’t.
Andy, the tour doctor and Cadell Glynn’s wife, ran into his dressing room door. She wore a long sweater and a baby carrier holding her daughter, Priya, whom she’d had with Cadell only a few months before. “Georgie? I got your text. What is the problem?”
Peyton read faster, trying to find out what the article said, but his eyes kept returning to that picture of Raji, heavy with child. He did the math, and the baby was indeed due any time now.
Their baby might already have been born.
Damn it, his emails, phone calls, and texts seemed so inadequate now. Peyton should have shown up on Raji’s doorstep. He should have broken down her door and demanded that she talk to him.
He should have begged her on his knees to marry him.
He should have been there for her.
“We can’t let this stay out there,” Xan emphatically said to Georgie.
He wasn’t yelling at her, of course. King Arthur never yelled at Guinevere.
The Queen’s Knight, Sir Peyton, would have had to intervene.
Xan told her, “This is a smear campaign. This could ruin Killer Valentine. We have to hit back, hard.”
Peyton stood. “What do you mean, hit back?”
Xan said, “This woman, this Raji Kannan—”
“Raji?” Andy shrieked. “What about Raji?”
“—has sold her smear story to this magazine,” Xan said, poking at the magazine in Peyton’s hand. “We must show that it is lies, that she is a liar. We will have Jonas arrange interviews to deny everything. We will dig up dirt on her and smear her back so that no one believes her.”
Peyton held the magazine in his hands. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s shocking, oui-oui, but we must believe it and prepare ourselves to destroy her. She thought she could get famous by telling all our secrets and making up these lies. We’ll make her famous for all the wrong reasons. By the time we’re done with her, no self-respecting hospital will have such a notorious liar on their staff.”
“You can’t do that,” Peyton said. Jesus, all those years that Raji had put into medical school and her residency would be wasted.
Andy was holding her hand over her mouth, tears budding in her eyes.
“Raji wouldn’t do this.” Peyton put as much conviction into his words as he could, even though he could feel doubt drawing his eyebrows together.
“Did you tell her these things?” Xan demanded.
“Yes,” Peyton admitted. “Everything.”
“And they have these pictures of her smiling for the camera, and they cite her as a source, and the whole article is about you, you, you. Their source was fixated on you. It is Raji, and we will destroy her.”
“Raji would never do this. She would never try to hurt me or us. She’s not like that.” Peyton looked at Andy. “Do you think she would?”
Xan whirled and glared at Andy.
Andy’s dark eyes widened on her face. “I—I don’t know. I don’t think so. She never mentioned even being in a relationship with Peyton to me. She hasn’t returned my calls for a while, just texts saying that she’s fine. She didn’t even tell me she was pregnant. Beth didn’t mention it, either.”
“So you don’t know.” Xan whipped back around to Peyton. “This smear article is about you, so you will be front and center with our campaign to hit back. Jonas will have reporters here within hours. You will say that she’s a crazy stalker groupie who has lost her mind and is making up lies.”
Peyton gestured to the magazine. “Xan, this is all true. I can’t say it’s lies, but I don’t believe Raji gave the interview or spilled these secrets about us, either.”
“You will do it,” Xan said. “It’s part of the publicity that you’ve skived off on for years. This time, you’ll sit down with the reporters.”
Peyton shook his head. His too-long blond hair swished around his jaw. “I won’t, Xan.”
“She’s trying to ruin this band!”
Peyton’s answer came from every cell in his body. “I believe in her. I trust her. She didn’t do this, and I won’t help you destroy her. I’ll quit the band first.”
“This is it,” Xan said, grabbing his chest. “This is our Yoko Ono. This is the person who is going to lie about us and tear us apart.”
“I don’t think she did this. No, I know she didn’t do this. You’re unjustly accusing her, and she’s innocent.” He didn’t dare look at Georgie, who was standing over by the door.
Xan demanded, “Peyton, are you going to stand with the band like we have stood behind you, or are you going to let her pull us apart?”
Peyton slapped the magazine on the dressing table and picked up his Santa hat. “I won’t do your interviews.”
Xan’s hands curled into fists. His left fingers didn’t close all the way. “She’s going down, Peyton. I won’t let her destroy this band.”
“I won’t help you smear her,” Peyton said, his own hands clenched and ready to fight, “and I’ll talk to anybody who will listen and say she is innocent and you’re hounding her for publicity reasons.”
“I will terminate your contract,” Xan said.
“Fuck you. I quit. I’m quitting right now, as of this very minute. I won’t let you destroy her.” He grabbed his backpack and started walking toward the dressing room door.
“If you walk out that door, don’t come back,” Xan said. “Your contract is broken. You’re done.”
“Then I’m done,” he said. “Raji is innocent. I won’t help you railroad her just to get through some bad publicity.”
Peyton walked out the door.