Page 20 of Born To Be Bad

“Ah,” I reply. “Now I’m a distraction, am I?”

“Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “Everything else is a distraction. You are the headline act.”

CHAPTER 13

Kotic

ALISTAIR

We both shower and make our way downstairs. I’m in the mood for champagne—an especially expensive bottle. Baby Alex is still asleep. I stand and study him for a moment, making sure he’s still breathing. His chest rises and falls, and I am reassured. I pull the blanket over his legs where he has kicked it off. I wish I could look at him without seeing Mariya, but she’s there every moment we’re together. A ghost watching over her son. I wonder if I’ll always be haunted by her.

I grab a vintage bottle out of the fridge and reach for two flutes.

“Ooh,” purrs Ivy behind me, stroking my ass. “What are we celebrating?”

“The fact that you’re on the pill,” I joke. Kind of.

“Ha ha.”

“Although,” I say, gesturing at sleeping Alex, “I don’t know why people always say how much work babies are. I mean, look at him.”

Ivy laughs. “Oh, you billionaires. Such a warped sense of, well, everything.”

I grab her and pull her body towards mine, kissing her. God, I love her. She’s so fucking delectable.

“We’re celebrating being alive,” I say. “We’re celebrating multiple orgasms, magical pussies, and women kind enough to take in someone else’s baby because I fucked up.” I open the bottle with a muted popping sound and pour us a glass each. “We’re also celebrating getting our siblings back. Jamie waking up, and Ariana returning from the dead.”

Even though she tried to kill us.

Ivy touches her glass to mine. “Any news on Ariana?”

“Not yet, but that’s why we’re having dinner tonight —a family meeting to discuss the way forward.”

“Just to be clear,” says Ivy. “You don’t want to talk about kink at the dinner table?”

I chuckle. “I love talking about kink at the dinner table. Just not when it’s my mother’s dinner table.”

“Fair enough,” she says, shrugging and taking another swig.

We’re quiet for a moment, lost in our thoughts.

“I still can’t really believe what happened with Ariana,” says Ivy. “And she’s not even my sister.”

I square my shoulders and clear my throat. “The important thing is that she’s alive,” I reply. “The rest is fixable.”

My phone rings. I decide not to pick up until I see the caller ID. Blackwood.

Ivy gestures for me to go ahead.

“Blackwood.” I am curt. “I’ve just opened a perfectly chilled bottle of 2012 Dom Perignon. This interruption had better be worth it.”

“I see I’m still in the dog box, then,” he replies.

“At this stage, I trust Bijou more than you … and she pees on the carpet.”

“Ouch,” he says. “Trumped by an incontinent French bulldog.”

“I’ll take incontinence over incompetence any day of the week.”

---