Bound To Be Mine (The Billionaire Legacy #3)

Chapter 1

brIGGS

“Where are you?” My brother Sebastian’s voice came through the Bluetooth speakers in my car. “You’re going to miss it.”

“I was in a meeting when I got the call,” I said. “I’ll be at the hospital soon.”

“Just tell me you’ve left the office?” Sebastian asked, sounding more nervous than I’d ever heard him.

“I’m literally a few blocks away. Relax. Breathe.”

I heard him take a deep breath in my speakers, amplified and in stereo. “Okay. Now what?”

“Now hold tight and I’ll be there in five minutes. If the baby is born before I get there, just tell the kid I’m in the restroom.”

I hung up the phone and focused on traffic. My oldest brother, Adrian, and his wife, Elizabeth, were having their baby. It would be the first of the next generation of Blackwells, and in a family like ours, legacy was a big deal.

The whole family was excited, and I was, too, but the timing wasn’t the most convenient. Too bad most births couldn’t be scheduled.

As promised, a few minutes later, I stepped into the cheery waiting room and spotted Sebastian right away.

He was hard to miss with the giant balloon bouquet beside him on a table and an enormous pickle in his arms. Not an actual pickle.

A plush fluffy thing that was at least three feet long with eyes pointing in opposite directions.

His fiancée, Bernadette, sat at his other side, rubbing his arm like she was keeping him calm.

His eyes widened when he saw me.

“There you are!” He sprang to his feet and hurried to look me over, like the only possible reason for my late arrival must have involved visible bodily harm. He patted my shoulder and adjusted the pickle he was cradling like an infant. “You almost missed it.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Are you expecting me to catch the baby or something? Pretty sure you can’t miss the birth of a child that isn’t your child.

” I looked down at Bernadette, who sat in one of the mint-green waiting chairs with a perfectly normal teddy bear in her lap. “Has he been like this the whole time?”

Bernadette giggled softly and shook her head. “Sebastian is very excited to be an uncle.”

I nodded down at the green plushie in his arms. “A pickle?”

Sebastian grinned. “Because of her pregnancy cravings. That’s how I figured out she was pregnant before anyone else. Her sudden pickle cravings.”

“It’s really green,” I said with a shrug.

Sebastian ran his hand over the thing. “It’s also soft.”

If there was ever an odd couple, it was Bernadette and Sebastian. They were the epitome of opposites and yet they worked. She was all buttoned-up and he was much more of a free spirit. Bernadette was more like me. We created, followed, and enforced the rules.

Sebastian broke them.

I was still getting used to the new version of Sebastian. My playboy brother was no more. The professional model that spent his days chasing supermodels was a changed man and that was all because of Bernadette.

The two made a good team. They had several very successful promotional campaigns under their belt for the family company, Blackwell Couture. Sebastian’s creative genius was reined in by Bernadette but she never killed his visions.

I got myself a cup of coffee from the machine and sat in the waiting room with my brother and Bernadette. While they chatted, I pulled out my phone and pulled up a contract I needed to review.

“Are you working right now?” Sebastian asked. “Seriously? Dude! Our nephew or niece is coming into the world!”

“Sebastian, does it look like I’m pushing a human out of my body?” I asked dryly. “Do you think Elizabeth or Adrian give two shits what you or I are doing right now at this very moment?”

“You’re very cynical,” he replied.

I rolled my eyes and looked at Bernadette. “Maybe you can explain what cynical means.”

“Don’t be a dick. Put the phone away.”

“Adrian is occupied,” I said. “He’s going to be occupied for the next couple of weeks. That means someone needs to step up and fill his shoes.”

Adrian, our oldest brother, was the head of the company. Had been for almost three years, ever since our father very literally dropped dead at his desk. The desk Adrian now occupied.

We’d learned to step up and help one another.

There were four of us to fill my father’s shoes, and even then, it still felt like we couldn’t fill the gap sometimes.

If only he would have let us do more before the job killed him.

He worked himself to death building the fashion empire we now ran.

If he’d loosened his hold on control just a little, we might have been ready to step in earlier and give him a breath of retirement.

Perhaps the job might not have killed him.

Adrian had stepped into the CEO role, and for that first year, we all worried he was going to follow our father into an early grave. And then he met Elizabeth. She pulled him into the land of the living.

And now they were having their first baby.

Bernadette’s phone vibrated on the armrest. She snatched it. “Mimi and Dash are heading up,” she said. “She was worried they missed it.”

My mother and younger brother strolled into the room a couple minutes later.

Mom was carrying a black Blackwell Couture gift bag bursting with tissue paper and an embossed envelope.

Her skirt swished around her ankles as she hurried over and embraced Sebastian and me, then Bernadette.

The women shared an excited giggle and jig.

Dash glanced at me, then Sebastian, then the pickle, and back at me. I shrugged.

“I swear, there’s always traffic when you need to be somewhere,” Mom said.

“It’s not like they give the baby back if we’re not all sitting in the waiting room,” I said.

“Stop,” Mom chided and clasped both hands under her chin. “This is a big moment. My first grandchild.” She looked at Bernadette and smiled. “And I can’t wait to meet my second grandbaby.”

That got my attention. “You’re pregnant?”

“No!” Bernadette said quickly.

Mom just laughed and patted Bernadette’s hand. “I mean eventually.”

“Mom, please,” Sebastian groaned. “We told you we weren’t trying until after the wedding. We have two shoots scheduled over the next six months.”

“I know, I know,” she said.

“What’d you bring the baby?” Bernadette asked.

Mom’s face lit up and she pulled some tissue aside to reveal silky black fabric. Bernadette leaned forward, eyes brightening. Mom spotted the glint in her eye and beamed. “I worked with Annika to create a little something special.”

Annika was our head seamstress. She created gorgeous formal gowns that aligned with our luxury designer brand, and her talents were incomparable, but I doubted she had any strengths designing for literal infants. Babies couldn’t wear gowns.

Right?

Mom pulled out a little black thing with shiny gold letters, BLACKWELL ORIGINAL.

“Oh my god!” Bernadette cooed. “Look at that!”

“I had two made. I like the black, very Blackwell, but I also had her make a pink one just in case. And look at these.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a pair of shoes. Were they really shoes? Did babies wear shoes? If so, why? Where? Was that good for their toes?

Why the fuck am I thinking about baby toes?

“Those are so cute!” Bernadette took the shoes and examined them.

“They’re Italian leather,” Mom said. “Hand-stitched.”

“That gives me an idea,” Bernadette said. “You guys should totally think about a baby line.”

“I have a feeling Elizabeth will be all over that,” I said.

Elizabeth was a relatively new designer, but she’d already made her mark on the world. Adrian gave her the platform and she took the ball and ran with it. Her first line was what got Sebastian and Bernadette together.

“We’ll have to pitch some ideas,” Sebastian said.

He held both hands up like he was creating a screen between his fingers.

“I can see the promotional shots already. Four babies in bespoke suits. Black silk, with pocket squares with velvet floral textures. One baby swirls a bottle while the other studies a legal document with a soother in his mouth and—”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said a little more sharply than I had intended. “We already have a lot of new projects being developed.”

Sebastian had moved away from modeling and into the role of creative director. He took it seriously and I could admit he was good at his job. Really good. The campaigns he came up with were fresh and did well. But billionaire babies? Nah.

Sebastian didn’t seem bothered by my tone. He was used to me.

“I’d love to help Elizabeth,” Mom said, shaking her head at Sebastian. “I think that was an in-your-head-only idea. But Elizabeth could run with a baby line.”

Sebastian and I exchanged a quick look. Losing our father had hit our mother the hardest. She had picked up and carried on and anyone on the outside looking in would think she was fine, but that was because she felt she had to be. She was fine in the sense she wasn’t curled up into a ball.

It had been about two years since Dad passed away, and for the past year, she had been throwing herself into new projects. She was volunteering a lot more. Sitting in on meetings. Searching for something we all worried she could never find because it was gone.

Dash sat in the seat next to me. “You should come up some ideas, Mom,” he said. “You used to design stuff here and there.”

She nodded like she was considering it.

I leaned away from my little brother. “You smell like a brothel.”

“Have you ever been in a brothel?” Dash retorted.

“Absolutely not.”

“Then you don’t know that I smell like one.”

“Okay, you smell like you’ve been rolling around the perfume counter at Bloomingdales. It’s not a good smell.”

“He’s right,” Bernadette said. She waved a hand in front of her nose. “Tell your girlfriend one or two squirts of perfume is more than enough.”

“As if he would have a girlfriend.” I scoffed.