Peyton paused, thinking back those five months. “I wanted to be a classical pianist, I think.”
Raji sat up, pulling the white sheet around herself and over one shoulder like a superhero’s cape. “You think? You don’t know?”
That was a tough question. “When did you decide you wanted to be a heart surgeon?”
Raji shrugged, and the sheets slithered down her smooth shoulder to her arm. “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor.”
“You didn’t want to be a ballerina or an astronaut?”
“Those are childish ambitions. I’ve always wanted a high-power, high-level surgical career.”
Which was specific and very un-childish. “And how did you know to want to do that?”
She shrugged. “My father is a psychiatrist. He always told me to go into hard medicine, not squishy science. Not that he was qualified to give anyone advice about how to live your fucking life.”
Interesting. “So, your parents told you to be a doctor.”
She frowned again. Peyton liked the way her pretty little nose wrinkled. “Sort of. I picked the cardiothoracic specialty.”
“The what?” he laughed. “Sounds like you teach exercise classes.”
“Cardiothoracic! The cardio part means the heart, and the thoracic part means the thorax, the rest of the chest including the lungs.”
“I’m just a musician. I don’t even know if I could pronounce that.” He smiled at her, wide enough that he knew the dimple on his left cheek would dent in.
She giggled. “Oh, my God, you’re cute. Cardio, like exercise. Thor, like that hot blond guy in the movie. Acic, like if you eat something that tastes like buttcrack. Ass! Ick!”
“All right. Cardio. Thor. Ass! Ick!” he half-shouted, waving his hands. “Was that right?”
She laughed out loud at him. Her throaty, jubilant laugh enticed him even more. “Close enough. We’ll have to work on it.”
“Why did you choose such an unpronounceable specialty?”
“Because it was the hardest of the hard sciences, I guess.”
“And I chose piano performance at Juilliard, the most elite of the classical music conservatories. I finished my Master’s in June, just weeks before I joined KV.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere. So, you have a Master’s degree. That opens up some interesting paths you could take. Damn, I wish I had my computer and a nice, blank spreadsheet right now. What is your degree in? How long does it take to get a Master’s degree in music?”
“Piano performance, minors in composition and voice. One year past one’s bachelor’s degree.”
She rolled away from him a little. “Wait, you just finished your bachelor’s one year ago? You’re how old?”
“I’m twenty-three.”
Her dark eyes widened a little. “Oh. Huh.”
One of her legs reached for the edge of the bed.
Peyton raised one eyebrow at her. “Is that a problem?”
“Uh, no?” She stared at the ceiling. “I mean, you fuck like you’re older.”
He cracked up. “I’m afraid to ask what that means.”
“Oh, don’t be. It means better. Longer, you know, stamina-wise. Good technique. Gives a damn about the woman. That sort of thing.”
“Have you had a lot of older lovers?” He laughed a little, letting the smile sparkle at her. He knew what he was doing, being charming, being sexy. He’d had a lot of practice.
“Not a lot. Just, you know, the normal amount. Since I’ve done my bachelor’s and four years of medical school and three years into my residency.” She said the next part slowly, enunciating clearly. “Because I’m twenty-nine.”
“Oh. Okay.” Peyton shrugged. He didn’t see why this was any sort of a revelation.
“That’s okay with you?”
“Why, were you going to change it if I wasn’t?”
She chuckled. “Okay, good point. So, back to your career and life plan. Your dad must have been a classical musician,” Raji said, her voice lingering over the words like she was trying to restart the conversation.
“No. He’s a lawyer.” Peyton settled back on his pillow.
“So, shouldn’t you have become a lawyer, then?”
“God forbid.”
She was grinning again. “Oh, did you break your daddy’s heart by becoming a musician?”
“My father was devastated for at least fifteen minutes when I told him that I wanted to be a concert pianist and would not be attending Yale Law. Four buildings at Yale bear the Cabot name, mostly because several of my underachieving ancestors needed to grease Yale’s gears to be admitted. But New Englanders don’t express such undignified emotions longer than is absolutely necessary—”
Raji said, “They sound like my kind of lizard people.”
“—so that was the end of it. But that’s not what I meant. My father is not a real lawyer who takes cases for money. I meant he’s rich. We’re rich.”
Raji laughed. “Must be nice.”
“I’m not complaining about it. I can do anything I want in life, or nothing, and not worry about money.”
“So this life plan is a waste of time. You can just float around on your family’s money. Don’t you want to have your own money, though?”
“My grandfather left me millions in a trust fund. A lot of millions. More than millions.”
She frowned. “But your grandfather should have left his money to your father, right?”
“Oh, no. Inheritance in wealthy families skips generations. My grandfather left me his money, and then my father will leave his money to my theoretical kids someday. That way, the family trust pays half the inheritance taxes instead of paying them every generation, plus everybody gets the bulk of their money earlier in their lives.”
Raji’s jaw dropped. “That’s shady.”
“Of course. We’re wealthy. Everything we do is shady.”
The look in her dark, sultry eyes was nothing short of aghast. “Dude, you are getting less and less sympathetic by the second.”
Peyton worked hard not to laugh. Damn, she was cute. “Really? Most of the time, when I mention that I’m a rock star and I’m loaded, women seem to like it.”
“Fuck you. I’m a fucking cardiothoracic surgeon.” She grinned. “If I do one surgery per week, I’ll make buttloads more money than you earn off the interest on your millions, and I’ll do way more than one surgery a week. But you’re cute when you’re full of yourself, there with your eight-pack of abs and big, strong biceps and shockingly green eyes.”
Peyton laughed and propped himself up on his elbow to look down at her. The sheet rose where she was still breathing hard. He said, “I like you better and better, the more we talk.”
She smirked. “You didn’t like me before? Could have fooled me.”
“I liked you a lot before, and now I like you better and better,” he clarified. He traced the curve of her shoulder with one finger. “You, there, with your pretty, little face and your huge, dark eyes and your fascinating tattoos on your skin that I want to lick every time I look at them.”