The Irredeemable Billionaire (Muse series)

by Couper, Lexxie

  “A big…” Oh no. No.

  “He didn’t want you to feel bad or upset, but he sounded so excited about the idea,” Shelli went on quickly. So quickly the words almost tripped over one another. “He begged me to put him in the program.” She paused. Cleared her throat again. “I meant to tell you before now, but I…I forgot.”

  “Forgot.” Holy hell, why did her chest feel like an elephant had sat on it?

  “But then yesterday the organization got a call from Judge Yvonne Myers—she’s a huge supporter of the program, really nice woman—with a new big brother she wanted paired with Cody ASAP, and I remembered how much he likes movies, and how he keeps saying he wants to make movies when he…”

  Shelli’s voice petered away, replaced by a thumping in her ears. Her pulse? Whatever it was, it was louder than a freaking cannon.

  Oh no.

  The heat rushed back over her. Searing away the chill.

  “Mum?” Cody appeared in the hallway, a frown on his face, an apple in his hand. “The man is taking lots of photos of our house. I think there’s someone—”

  “Grace?” Shelli’s voice scraped at her ear. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Mum?”

  “Shelli.” Hell, was that her voice? That croaky, scratchy rasp? “I think I’m going to kill you.”

  Cody burst out laughing.

  “Grace,” Shelli said. “I was only thinking about—”

  Grace ended the call and slowly walked to the front door. Opened it.

  Sebastian—sitting on the top step, sunglasses back in place—grinned up at her. “About bloody time. I could really do with a cuppa right about now.”

  “Big brother,” she said. Or maybe she croaked it?

  “Big brother.” His grin turned sheepish, and yet at the same time it was somehow Sebastian Hartish—the grin of a man who thought he was awesome. The patented Sebastian Hart grin that had infuriated her as a teenager.

  He straightened to his feet, brushed his hands over his arse, and then tossed a nod over his shoulder at the man with a camera lurking on her footpath. “Now, Cody Wilder’s mother…” She couldn’t miss the playful emphasis. “Do you mind if I come in? I’m kinda getting sick of having my photo taken by the bastard paparazzo over there.”

  Oh God, she’d kill for a cupcake right now.

  …

  Grace had changed since the last time Sebastian had seen her. Gone were the braces and the extra weight his mother used to refer to as “persistent baby fat.” Gone were crooked teeth and the bookish glasses that used to always slide down her upturned, freckle-smattered nose.

  Is she wearing contacts now?

  The urge to lean closer to her, to study eyes he didn’t remember being quite so green for the telltale signs of lenses almost made him bend at the waist.

  She was still short. And even though the persistent baby fat was gone, she was still curvy. The male part of him recognized and remembered the very full breasts she’d had as a teenager. She’d always tried to hide her size in loose clothes. His mother had called her slomecky. To this day, he’d never been able to find a definition for the word, but even as a kid he’d understood the context. It had made him uncomfortable every time she used it. He once even told her not to. She hadn’t listened, of course. When his mother decided on something, nothing could change her mind or ways.

  In the navy-blue paramedic uniform Grace currently wore, he could just make out shapely hips as well. He’d teased her relentlessly about her hips once.

  The memory traced a cold line up his spine. Why had he done that?

  Oh, that’s right. Harrison had mentioned how nice she looked in the dress she’d worn to the middle school dance. Sebastian—who’d long suspected his brother had the hots for Grace—didn’t stop teasing her about her wobbly hips, and foofy hair, and girly pink lip gloss until she’d kicked him in the shins and shoved him on his arse. Christ, he really had been a wanker back then. There really wasn’t any excuse for it.

  And foofy? Had he really used the word foofy?

  Her hair wasn’t foofy now. The crazy copper-blonde curls were still there but more subdued than they used to be, hanging around her face, in her eyes as if just waiting for the right time to run amuck again.

  Yeah, she’d definitely changed. The whip-smart, bitingly sarcastic, fearless Grace Ford—who’d challenged him every time they clashed—seemed as subdued as her hair.

  Tired.

  Because she was a mum?

  Where was the dad? Her husband? Boyfriend? Why wasn’t he doing something to help her out? And come to think of it, if Cody Wilder was her kid, and Cody Wilder was almost eleven, then that meant she’d been eighteen when—

  “If you’re going to stare at me constantly like I’m an insect, this is going to get weird.”

  He blinked. “I was staring?”

  She let out a sigh.

  “Mum?”

  A young boy appeared at her side, curiosity shining in his big green eyes.

  Cody. Had to be. Apart from the straight blond hair and preadolescent skinniness, he could be a mini-male version of her. Even the wire-framed glasses on his face reminded Sebastian of the ones Grace used to wear.

  Cody, the little boy he was going to play big brother to as part of his community service.

  Hell, he still couldn’t believe he’d been given community service by Judge Myers. Of course, he deserved it. He had thrown a shopping trolley through the window of Sydney’s main Hugo Boss store just so he could try on a hat.

  That was the last time he went to a bachelor party with James Dyson, Thomas St. Clair, and Harrison. The three of them were bad influences—his younger brother the worst of them.

  Bad influences, enablers, and fellow billionaires. A dangerous combination, to be sure.

  And now here he was, on his old next-door neighbor’s front step, unsettled by his reaction to seeing her after all these years.

  Life really knew how to grab a bloke by the short and curlies sometimes.

  “Hi, Cody.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Sebastian, your new big brother. Reckon you could convince your mum to let me inside?”

  Cody’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “I don’t know. She doesn’t seem happy to see you. Are you nice?”

  Sebastian laughed. Yep, definitely Grace’s kid. “I am.”

  Grace barked out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Like a root canal.”

  There was the Grace he remembered. The one that always rubbed him the wrong way.

  Wrong way? Never let you have your way, you mean?

  “Who’s the chick, Hart?”

  The coarse shout from the footpath made Sebastian grit his teeth.

  Grace raised her eyebrows. “Friend of yours?”

  “Theo Olsen. Scum of the earth. Makes his living in Australia by invading the privacy of celebrities.” He dropped a wink at Cody. “Which I am.”

  Cody laughed. Shy, a little uncertain, but a laugh all the same.

  Grace huffed out a sigh. “This is a lovely reunion, Seb, but I’m late for work. So if you’ll just go away, that would be—”

  “Go away?” Cody grabbed her hand. “But, Mum, he’s my big brother. Can’t he stay here with me while you go to work?”

  “Who’s the kid?” Theo Olsen called. “Yours?”

  Without turning away from Grace and Cody, Sebastian flipped the bird at the paparazzo.

  “Prick,” Olsen shouted.

  “Okay. We’re done.” Grace glared at the pap. “Sir, if you don’t walk away now, I’ll make sure you can’t.”

  “Mum.” Cody gasped.

  Grace rolled her eyes again. “I’m late, and I don’t have time for this kind of nonsense. Seb, I don’t think this whole situation is going to work, so if you could just go find a different cause to throw your fame behind, that would be great. Ta.”

  She began to close the door.

  “Mum,” Cody protested.

  “Yeah, Mum.” Sebastian pressed his hand
to the door, halting its progress. Why did his chest tighten every time she called him Seb? He’d never let anyone call him that in his entire life, but Grace had done so when they were teenagers to piss him off. Which it had. So where was his anger now? What was different?

  She is.

  “Please, Grace.” He hadn’t expected to have the door closed on him twice. He wasn’t a fan of it. Olsen was going to make a fortune with the photos. Shit. “Let me come in. Not as Cody’s big brother, but as me, Sebastian. You know me.” He gave her his most cajoling smile. “I’m nice.”

  The statement had the required effect. Grace rolled her eyes, shook her head, and threw up her hands. “Fine. Come in.”

  Yes. Chalk one up for me.

  “But not for the whole damn day. I have to go to work, and I’m now incredibly late. Instead of dropping Cody off at my friend’s place, I’ll call her on the way. When she gets here, you can leave. Got it?”

  He grinned. “Got it.”

  “Does he have to?” Cody frowned. “He’s funny. We can play Mario Kart and Minecraft, and all the other games you don’t like playing.”

  Grace let out a sigh and scrubbed a hand over her face. “He does. When Shelli gets here, Seb leaves.”

  Cody pouted. “Okay.”

  She pointed a finger at Sebastian. “Cody is not allowed to leave the house, he has homework to do, and he’s not allowed on any iDevice until it’s done.” She shot her son a quick mock scowl. “And don’t believe him if he says he’s allowed to eat chocolate and ice cream for lunch.”

  “Lunch?” Sebastian paused midstride over the threshold. “How long are you going to work for?”

  “Why?” A challenging light flickered in her direct stare, and she arched an eyebrow. “Not up to making lunch for you both?”

  He opened his mouth. Hell, when was the last time he’d made his own lunch? Or food for anyone else, come to think of it? When working on set, he always ate with the cast and crew from the catering truck, and when between films, he just ate out or ordered takeout.

  Cody looked up at him. “Can you cook?”

  “Sure.”

  No. He couldn’t. Not to save himself. At least, he didn’t think he could.

  Cody snagged his wrist and pulled him into the house. “Yay. You can go now, Mum. Love you.”

  Grace hesitated. Worry swam in her eyes as she swung her gaze from Sebastian to Cody and back to Sebastian again. “Please…”

  Please what? Jesus, she looked beat. Defeated somehow. It didn’t sit well on her. He remembered her feisty bite when he’d teased her all those years ago. Remembered how often she’d shut him down with sharp words—and sometimes a swift kick—when he’d pushed her too far. Where had that Grace gone?

  Rubbing at her eyes, she shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I’ve got to go. I’ll tell Shelli to get here ASAP.”

  “It’ll be okay.” He placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Trust—”

  She shook him off, glared at him, and then turned to Cody. “Homework. No leaving the house, regardless of what Hart says. And no Macca’s. Got it?”

  Cody’s mouth fell open. “So you are Sebastian Hart? Wow. I thought you were but didn’t want to ask in case I was wrong. Is that why you were asking me about him earlier, Mum?”

  She’d been talking about him? A wave of delight rolled through him.

  “No need for the smug preening, Seb.” She glared at him again. “We’ll talk about this situation when I get home.”

  And, after giving Cody a hug, she pulled the front door closed, shook her head again, and hurried deeper into the house. Away. From him.

  Squatting down beside Cody, he nudged the boy with his elbow. “She always like that?”

  Cody studied him.

  “You weighing me up?”

  Cody nodded. “You’re famous. Are you being a big brother because you want to help people or because you were told you had to?”

  Whoa. Insightful little sod. His publicist had made sure his community service was kept from public knowledge. “Why do you say that?”

  Cody pushed his glasses up on his face with one finger. “My mum’s best friend works at Big Brother. She said two types of men become big brothers. Those that volunteer because they are really nice guys, and those that don’t.” He ran a speculative gaze over Sebastian, eyes narrow. “I think you’re the don’t kind.”

  “Cody, you are so like your mum.”

  Cody’s face split into a wide grin. “Thank you. Now, want to play Mario Kart with me before Shelli gets here? Or can we make a movie? I’ve got an old iMac that’s got iMovie on it.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he headed deeper into the house.

  Chuckling, Sebastian straightened and scanned his surroundings. What had Grace been doing since he last saw her? How long had it been? Twelve years.

  Adding his shoes to the collection of little boy shoes and the one pair of bright purple slip-ons at the front door, he studied the framed photo on the console table.

  Grace and Cody at a table, a Spiderman birthday cake with nine burning candles in front of them. They were both smiling, Cody’s wide and full of excitement. Grace’s smile…

  Tired. Almost sad. But she hugged Cody with a fierceness Sebastian couldn’t miss.

  “So,” he murmured, a tight pressure wrapping his chest. “Where’s Mr. Grace?”

  He probably should have listened to Judge Myers when she was outlining Cody Wilder’s family situation. Instead, he’d been scrolling through Rotten Tomatoes, waiting for early reviews to start hitting from the press screening of his latest movie, Samantha and Dave. It wasn’t every day a director released a contemporary, gender-swapped film retelling the Samson and Delilah myth, after all.

  “Cody?” He made his way in the direction Cody had disappeared, checking out everything around him. Whoever Mr. Grace was, there didn’t seem to be any photos of him on the walls. What was the story there? “What’s your dad do for a living?”

  Arriving in the living room—an area half the size of his bedroom in his Point Piper home—he came to a halt at the edge of a sofa.

  Cody was sitting in the middle of it, staring at the television, a Nintendo game controller in his hands, another one on the cushion beside him. Not interacting with what was on the screen. Just…staring.

  He frowned. “Cody?”

  “Daddy’s dead.”

  The statement fell through the silence, husky and somehow broken.

  Oh Jesus. Sebastian wiped at his mouth. His heart thumped fast. Jesus, what did he say? What did he do? He didn’t do emotional shit like this. He cut stuff like this from his life. Had done since the second he realized people—his mother, his brother, his friends—would let him get away with it. He didn’t waste time with other people’s problems.

  Mouth dry, he swallowed. This big brother deal was…was…challenging.

  Cody’s shoulders slumped and the game controller slipped from his hand, thudding softly onto the carpet between his feet.

  Talk to him. Grow a pair and talk to him.

  Lowering himself onto the spot beside the young boy, he cleared his throat. “That sucks.”

  Cody nodded. “Yeah.”

  Silence.

  Long silence. On the screen, Mario grinned his digitally feverish grin, waiting for someone to press A.

  “My dad died when I was five,” he said softly. He hadn’t died. Not as such. Good old high school science teacher Oliver Hart had decided one day he’d had enough of his wife and two young sons and left. Just left. Started a new life in Brisbane with one of his ex-students. Six months later, he’d been arrested for supplying speed to one of his current students. A speed-dealing science teacher. So very Walter White-ish.

  That had been twenty-six years ago. Sebastian hadn’t wasted any time thinking about his father since.

  Yeah. Right.

  Cody stopped staring at the screen and looked up at him. That was good. The screen staring
had spooked him. It wasn’t right for a little kid to look so…disconnected. “Were you sad?”

  He frowned, the question surprising him. How did he answer? He really couldn’t tell Cody what he thought of his father, that as far as he was concerned, the bastard didn’t exist. For starters, Grace would probably kill him. He’d only known Grace the mother for a few moments, but there was no doubt she wouldn’t want her son exposed to that kind of brutal adult thinking.

  Scrubbing at the back of his neck with his hand, he shifted on the sofa. Cody waited, gaze unwavering.

  “I was…changed.” Changed. Talk about an ambiguous answer.

  Cody narrowed his eyes and then slumped back into the sofa, stare returning to the screen. “Yeah. I got changed, too, when Daddy got killed in the fire.”

  Fire?

  A hot knot clenched in Sebastian’s stomach. This was not the conversation he’d thought he’d be having with his assigned little brother when Judge Myers gave him Cody’s name and address and ordered him to start ASAP. He’d thought he’d swoop in, wow the unknown kid with his fame, drop as many names he could that a ten-year-old boy would be impressed by, and swoop out again a few minutes later. Easy. Simple. Short.

  Superficial. The way he kept everything in his life except his work.

  Instead, he was talking parental death with the son of the girl he used to clash with all through his childhood and teenage years. A girl who was now a woman missing the very feistiness of her youth that had irritated him so much. Strangely, that fact pissed him off. A lot.

  What the hell was he doing? What the hell did he say next? How the hell did he stop Cody from staring at the television with such desolation? And why the bloody hell was the fact Grace once had a husband filling him with an emotion he couldn’t fathom at all?

  “I bet…” Jesus, his throat was dry. “I bet your dad was awesome.”

  A small smile pulled at Cody’s lips, sending a flood of warmth through Sebastian. “He was. Mum said he was the best dad ever.”

  Sebastian’s stomach knotted more. “Tell me about him.”

  Chapter Two

  “I really am going to kill you, Shelli. I know how to do it so it looks like an accident, and I know where to hide the body.”