Bound To Be Mine Chapter 1

Chapter One
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.

Dash leaned over, giving me another unwanted whiff of the cloying perfume. “I have many girlfriends. That’s what normal single men do. They date.”

“You flit,” I said.

Dash made a face. “What the hell is that?”

“You’re like a honeybee. You flit from flower to flower. I’m surprised you don’t have a gaggle of kids. Maybe you do. Maybe they’ll show up on your doorstep one day.”

Now it was his turn to lean away from me. “Why would you jinx me like that? Whatever. At least I go out. You’re on the verge of monkhood at this point.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh yes, just what I want, dating advice from my little brother, the town bicycle. Everyone gets a ride.”

Dash didn’t even look embarrassed. “I’m just saying you might be a lot less uptight if you got laid.”

Mom sighed. “Dash, don’t talk like that in front of your mother. You’re all still my babies no matter how old you get.”

We stayed quiet until Mom started chatting with Bernadette. Then I leaned in and spoke quietly to Dash. “I appreciate your concern for my love life, but I assure you, things are just fine.”

“When’s the last time you went on a date?” Dash asked.

I would have loved to give him an answer, but I couldn’t remember. “I’ve been busy.”

“You’re always busy.”

“I’m the family attorney and head of the legal department at the company. Someone has to keep this family from being sued. Someone has to negotiate contracts.”

He snorted. “Sounds an awful lot like a monk.”

I let my attention wander back to my phone and the contract on the screen. Dash moved over to talk with everyone else. I was dimly aware of Sebastian’s laughter as he and Dash caught up. My mother and Bernadette shared all their hopes of who this brand new Blackwell child might be.

At some point in the near future, Bernadette and Sebastian would start a family of their own. With some luck, our mother would find fulfillment in stepping into her grandmother era. She would still pine for dad, but perhaps babies and children would heal some of the heartache from these last years.

Dad would want her to enjoy every second of it. To spoil the grandkids rotten since he couldn’t do it himself. That man had been all about family, and all of us were happy to carry on the tradition. Well, most of us.

Me? I would keep doing what I always did. I would work.

After another half hour of waiting, a nurse arrived and shared the good news that the baby had been born, and mother and child were healthy and ready for visitors. My mother made us all stand around waiting for another three minutes while she went to the bathroom to, as she so delicately put it, “nervous pee.”

Bernadette took that opportunity to instruct us boys on new-baby etiquette. We had to wash our hands immediately upon entering the room, and again prior to holding the baby. We had to congratulate our brother on sight and give Elizabeth praise and love and kindness after the battle she’d gone through. We all nodded along until our mother returned.

Then we went to meet the newest Blackwell. A boy. Naturally.

Elizabeth sat propped up in her hospital bed, her skin aglow with sweat and joy. She wore a robe and had a blanket draped over her crossed legs, within which her and Adrian’s son lay curled up, sound asleep. He had been swaddled in blue and had a knit beanie on his head. His features were puffy and swollen, his skin tinted purple and blue. My mother and Bernadette thought he was cute enough to cry over. I wouldn’t have gone that far, but he looked so fragile and delicate that all I wanted to do was keep the little dude safe forever.

My nephew. My blood.

I remembered Bernadette’s instructions, so before I said a word about the child, I pulled Adrian in for a hug and clapped him firmly on the back. “Congratulations, old man. The kid looks just like you.”

Adrian had dark circles under his eyes and his usually rigid posture was slouched from exhaustion. But he perked up. “You think?”

“For sure,” I said. In reality? The kid looked kind of lumpy, like he’d just gone twelve rounds in a prize fight. But that didn’t need to be said out loud. I had seen pictures of myself as a newborn, and I had looked like a worm with hair. So I would be the last person to criticize.

I congratulated Elizabeth and told her she was already the most bad-ass mom I knew. That earned a glare from my own mother, which I would atone for later, but it made Elizabeth shine like she was lit from the inside. And that felt good.

We all stayed close to the bed while Elizabeth unwrapped the gift from our mother. She cried, as did all the women, including a nurse who popped in to check on Elizabeth, and then the rustling of paper as we cleaned up made the baby wake up.

Adrian gathered the little bundle in his arms and held him proudly for us all to get a good look at him. His eyes were glassy as he looked around at all of us. “We’d like to introduce you to our son, Buck.”

Mom gasped. Sebastian, who had been wiggling the pickle in the baby’s direction, froze. Dash stiffened. Our father’s name hung in the air as a monitor down the hall continued beeping.

“I know,” Adrian said, locking eyes with our mother. “It just felt right.”

In the bed, Elizabeth sniffled. “Mimi, would you like to be the first one to hold him?”

Our mother sniffled as she accepted her tiny grandson into her arms. With shaking fingers, she nudged the blue swaddle aside so she could get a good look at him. “He’s perfect,” she whispered.

Adrian wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Our little Bucky.”

The family circled in around Bucky, and Adrian stepped back. Then he turned to me and nodded toward the door. We stepped out into the hallway.

“I need a favor,” Adrian said quietly.

“What’s up?”

“Tomorrow. The cousins.”

I nodded. “Right.”

“I’m not leaving Elizabeth’s side. Not until we’re home and settled. Cleo and Callum are flying in tomorrow and I was supposed to meet with them. They’ve got the papers ready and it’s all good to go. I know you weren’t part of the negotiations, but I need you to go in and close it. I thought we had another week, but Bucky decided today was a good day to be born.”

He was pretending to be irritated but we both knew he was flying high.

“I’ve already read the documents,” I said. “I know the broad strokes. A lifestyle brand, wedding-focused, leveraging the cousins’ design work alongside our infrastructure and reach. Smart deal. Good margins if executed properly.”

He nodded, his eyes going back into the room where Buck was letting his annoying uncles know he had lungs and he wasn’t afraid to use them. “It’s going to be a significant revenue stream. We’ve been trying to crack the wedding market for years. Cleo and Callum have the right aesthetic, and they’ve brought in a partner who’s apparently excellent. Just get the paperwork done and we’ll talk details when I’m back.”

It was straightforward. In and out.

“I’ve got it handled,” I said. “Be with your son. Take care of your wife.”

He clapped me on the shoulder gratefully. We moved to the doorway and looked in at the sight of our mother gently handing Bucky over to Sebastian. Bernadette hung over his shoulder, grinning down at my nephew with rosy cheeks and eyes full of hope. She turned her gaze up to Sebastian, and they stared at each other like they could read the other’s mind. Everyone here knew what they were thinking.

Soon, it would be their turn to become parents.

Our mother sat on the bed with Elizabeth and started running through a list of things she’d done to help her in the coming postpartum weeks, like hiring a cleaner for their house, setting them up with a meal delivery service, and offering to have a doula come in and take a couple of night shifts whenever Elizabeth needed rest.

Dash leaned against the wall and we locked eyes. He shrugged one shoulder, as if to acknowledge that he and I were the only ones left.

The only ones alone.

“Gonna hold him?” Adrian asked.

I laughed. “No thanks. He’s way too fresh out of the oven. I’ll hold him when he’s bigger than a football.”

Adrian folded his arms and leaned one shoulder on the doorframe. His head titled to one side as he fought back a yawn. “Man, you gotta try this.”

“What?”

He nodded at the scene before us. “All of it.”