“She met your mother at a restaurant. Your mother was incognito. Hat and sunglasses. No camera. They talked for . . .” He paused and flipped through a tiny notebook. “Seven minutes. Then Chelsea left and came home. She didn’t seem happy.”
His damn mother. He was going to wring Mama Precious’s plastic-surgery-sculpted neck. God damn her for interfering. Of course it had something to do with her. He’d been so stupid to not see it early. “I take it back,” Sebastian said thickly. “You’re still on the payroll. Consider yourself on vacation until I call you again.”
Rufus nodded. “Anything else I can do for you?”
Muzzle my mother so she never says another word? “I’m good.”
He wasn’t really. Nothing in Sebastian’s life qualified as “good” at the moment.
But he was going to fucking fix it, so help him. And he was going to start with his interfering mother.
* * *
By the time Sebastian had showered and dressed, his hangover was mostly gone. He didn’t bother to wait for his driver to arrive, but instead took a taxi to his mother’s building. The anger he’d been sitting on was slowly building, until Sebastian felt as if he’d erupt the moment he saw her.
If she’d hurt Chelsea somehow, he didn’t know how he was going to act. He tolerated his mother’s strangeness because she was family and he loved his father and his siblings. But the more entrenched his mother became in her show, the less he liked her.
This could break their relationship entirely. He didn’t care that his ancient father still adored his much-younger and fame-obsessed wife. If his mother had caused him to lose Chelsea for good, he was going to lose his shit. He really, really was.
Sebastian slammed into his mother’s penthouse, not bothering to knock. He ignored the “FILMING—QUIET!” sign on the door and stormed in. “Mother? We need to talk. Now.”
His mother looked up from getting her nails done. Her friend Betty was seated next to her, and a manicurist sat between them, a case of nail polish bottles in front of her. Cameras filmed them as they sat on the sofas, no doubt dishing gossip about someone who had pissed them off lately.
And it had better not be Chelsea, or he was going to be guilty of suing his own mother.
Mrs. Cabral pulled her hand away from the manicurist and blew on them. “Nugget, we’re filming. This is going to have to wait—”
“It’s not going to wait. I need to know what the fuck you said to my wife.” His nostrils flared with anger, and it took everything Sebastian had not to launch himself at her and shake the truth out of her.
She paled. Looking away, she waved her hands at the cameras. “Stop filming. Stop. Let me up.” She detangled herself from the deep sofa and both Betty and the nail lady moved out of her way. Mrs. Cabral stood, straightened her white pantsuit, and then headed out of the living room area and waved for Sebastian to follow her. Still seething with rage, he did so.
Instead of heading for the kitchen, she headed into his father’s study and shut the doors behind them. “Listen, Nugget, I know you’re mad—”
“You cannot even begin to know how mad I am,” he said, voice hoarse. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What the hell did you say to my wife?”
She gave him a cool look. “Did she not tell you? She’s not good for you, darling. Between encouraging your doodling and then this newest, I really don’t think—”
“I don’t give a shit what you think, Mother. I love her. I love her and I want her in my life. Now tell me what you’ve done before I lose my mind.”
“So she’s gone?”
“Left yesterday. Refused to tell me why. Says we’re done. I know you’re responsible. Now spit it out.”
“She’s not right for you, Nugget—”
He remained calm, even though he wanted to utterly lose his mind. “So help me, Mother, if you do not spit it out right now—”
“She has a sex tape,” his mother hissed. “An incredibly vulgar, awful sex tape.”
That . . . wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. “What are you talking about?”
“Your precious, sweet little bride had sex with some man on camera. She allowed him to do all kinds of nasty . . . things to her.” Her mouth pursed distastefully around the words. “Someone sent the footage to me to blackmail the Cabral family. They were going to release it unless I paid them an enormous amount of money. I took care of the situation and suggested she get out of your life so there’s no reason to blackmail.” She blew on her nails. “I see now that she’s a sensible girl after all. I—”
“Mother. Stop. Talking.” Sebastian had to walk away, or he was going to be sick. He paced around the room, his mind in utter agony.
It wasn’t a sex tape. He knew that. Someone had filmed her rape and was now trying to blackmail his family over it. It was utterly sickening. He wanted to vomit at the thought of that tape being out there, and someone threatening to release it.
And then he wanted to put his fist through a fucking wall. Someone had violated his Chelsea and taped it? And they were walking around free?
It’s not that I can’t tell you about it. It’s that I won’t.
He’d tried to make her talk about the worst moment in her life, and she’d been hurting too much to do so. And then he’d turned it around and made it about him. He’d been hurt that she wouldn’t share. Of course she wouldn’t fucking share. It was a damn nightmare.
He grabbed the sculpted centerpiece from the dining table and flung it against the wall. It shattered with a crash, raining glass down.
“Nugget! What on earth—”
“Damn it,” Sebastian seethed. “Do you know what you’ve done, Mother?” He pictured Chelsea, and her blank, shattered expression from the other day. He couldn’t imagine the agony she was going through.
She’d left because she’d wanted to protect him. The irony made him sick. Chelsea was the one needing protecting, and he’d brought her into a family that was determined to destroy her.
“I’ve been trying to save this family, that’s what I’ve done.” Her tone was defensive. “Whatever you may think of my actions—”
“That is a video of a crime,” Sebastian bit out. “Chelsea was drugged and raped three years ago and left in the garbage. She still has nightmares. And you fucking flung it in her face.”
Mrs. Cabral sucked in a breath. “What?”
He told her an abbreviated version of Chelsea’s story. Of her nightmares and inability to sleep with the lights off. He didn’t want to tell her, but the dawning horror on his mother’s face felt too good to not rub it in a bit more.
She sat down weakly in one of the chairs, staring at the table. “Oh, Sebastian. I didn’t know. I just assumed . . .”
“Did you watch the video?”
“Not much of it. It was vulgar.”
“Did she look like she was voluntarily participating?”
Mrs. Cabral pressed a hand to her mouth.
That was enough of an answer for him. “I cannot believe you didn’t come to me with this, Mother.”
“How was I supposed to know? He blackmailed us. Imagine what would happen if it got out.” She shook her head slowly. “I said such unkind things to her. Oh, I’ve messed up, Sebastian. I don’t hate her, you know. It’s just a story line for the show. I’m supposed to start liking her next season—”
“Find a new fucking story line, Mother. Ditch the cancer story line, ditch the hating-your-son’s-new-wife story line. Ditch it all. Better yet, stop living your life through your television show, all right? Be there for Father. How much longer do you think he’s going to be around?”
“That’s not fair.”
“What, using the truth? I realize you’re not too familiar with it, but life isn’t scripted, Mother. You can’t do something like this and expect there to be no consequences.” He shook his head, wishing there was something else nearby he could throw. A chair, maybe. “Chelsea is the most beautiful person I know, inside and out, and you’ve got no idea of the harm you’ve done.”