Maybe she was still out buying soap supplies.
When his car pulled up, he instructed the driver to wait. “No idea how long this will take, so stick around.” He got out of the car and noticed a few others were parked. Those must have been the other men. Not for the first time, Sebastian wondered why they were having a groomsmen meeting in person when it could have been just as easily solved by a few phone calls or text messages. Or emails. Was the wedding called off? He’d seen Hunter earlier today and he hadn’t indicated any trouble.
Odd.
He said a quick hello to Hunter’s elderly butler and headed up the stairs to Hunter’s office. The door was open, and he knocked quickly, then entered. A few other men were there already. Asher, Cooper, Levi, and Hunter.
Hunter gestured at one of the chairs across from his desk. “Sit. We’re just waiting on Magnus.”
The other three men gave him wary looks as he sat down. “What’s this about?”
“I’ll explain soon enough.” Hunter’s expression was grave. Then again, he was usually somber.
Sebastian shrugged and checked his phone, looking for a missed text from Chelsea. She normally answered fast. Nothing again. Huh.
The men waited in tense, uncomfortable silence as Hunter continued to work on his computer. A few minutes later, though, Magnus entered, a big, strapping man with an equally perplexed expression on his face. “Hello, boys. Surprised to see you all here.”
Sebastian shot him a curious look, but glanced back down at his phone again. So did no one know what was going on? And why wasn’t Chelsea answering him?
“Good. You’re here.” Hunter’s gravelly voice distracted Sebastian away from his too-silent phone. “I asked you all to come here today because you are all good friends and business associates of mine. I’ve asked you to be in my wedding. I trust all of you. And you know that Gretchen is the woman I love and intend to marry, and she has her heart set on a big wedding with lots of pomp and circumstance. And because I can’t refuse her anything, I’m going to give her the big wedding she wants. Which is what brings me to today’s meeting.” For a moment, he looked pissed. “Quit sticking your dicks in the bridesmaids.”
Sebastian couldn’t help it. He snorted. That was one rule he wasn’t going to listen to, because he was married to Chelsea.
He could finally touch his girl all he wanted, and it was fucking heaven. A proud smile curved his mouth, and he pictured her, in bed, waiting for him, roller skates on her feet. God, she was sexy.
“One of the women is dropping from the bridal party, and my wife-to-be is extremely upset. Gretchen has been frantic all day, and I told her I’d take care of it.”
“Guilty as charged,” Asher said. “I’m fucking Greer, and I’m not going to stop. And no, it’s none of your business.” He adjusted his cufflinks, and then added, “I’ll talk to her. I didn’t know she was threatening to drop out of the wedding.”
“Greer’s not the one threatening to drop,” Hunter said drily. “Though now I see we have another problem. Chelsea is the one wanting to leave the wedding.”
“What?” Sebastian stiffened, his body becoming alert. His cold expression flicked with surprise. “Chelsea?”
“Et tu, Brute?” Hunter said, voice gruff. “Both of you, either make those women happy or break it off cleanly so Gretchen’s plans aren’t spoiled. Understand?”
That had to be wrong. Had to be. Why would Chelsea ditch the wedding? She was already making plans for rose-scented soaps. It didn’t make sense. And why wouldn’t she answer her damn phone? “If you’ll excuse me, I have to make a phone call,” Sebastian said, rising to his feet in a fluid motion. He gave Hunter a stiff nod and disappeared out of the room.
In the hallway, he called Chelsea.
It went straight to voice mail, which meant she was screening his calls, and she specifically did not want to talk to him. What the hell? It wasn’t like Chelsea—happy, brave Chelsea—to be passive aggressive and pick a fight. Something else had to be wrong, and worry made his heart pound. When it came to Chelsea, he felt incredibly protective. Was Rufus with her?
He immediately called the bodyguard. “Where is my wife?”
“She is at home, sir.”
“Is something wrong? She’s not answering her phone.”
“I didn’t ask. Should I ask?”
“No. I’ll be home shortly. It’s fine.” Sebastian hung up and didn’t care if it was rude or not. He just needed to get to Chelsea as soon as possible.
He all but sprinted out to his waiting car.
* * *
When Sebastian got home, the house was silent. “Chelsea?” he bellowed, then raced up the stairs to the bedroom.
She was there, packing, her movements wooden as she folded a T-shirt and then stuffed it into her bag.
“What’s going on? What are you doing?” Sebastian wanted to grab her and shake her—or pull her against him—but he didn’t want to trigger bad memories for her. “Chelsea? What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, her eyes curiously dead. The sparkle of fun and vivacity was completely gone. “I think it’s time we called things off, Sebastian.”
His chest felt tight. “Called what off?” Just this morning, she’d slipped into her uniform and woken him up with a blow job and giggled the entire time. He’d thought about that all day. What had gone so wrong between now and then? “Us?”
She nodded. “Our marriage. It’s not working. It was supposed to end up being beneficial for both of us, and when it stopped, we said we’d stop it, right? So I’m bailing out.”
“Why?” He moved forward, touched her cheek. It was wet and flushed, as if she’d been crying. His heart felt as if it was being ripped out of his chest. “Fuck, Chelsea, talk to me. Whatever it is, we can work through it.”
Her lip quivered, but her expression remained strangely dead. She shook her head and pulled away from him. “No, we really can’t.”
“This doesn’t make any sense—”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and hauled it against her, then touched his cheek. Her eyes were wounded and full of pain for a brief moment, and then flickered back to that carefully dead state again. “I wish I could be the wife you need.”
Fuck it. He grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. “Chelsea, I love you. Fuck what I said about this relationship being a fake. I love you. I fell in love with you the first time we kissed. I want to be your husband. I want you to be my wife. Don’t do this. Don’t leave. Let’s talk. Please.”
She bit her lip, and her entire body trembled. For a moment, hope rekindled. If she was hesitating . . .
But no, she shook her head. “I can’t, Sebastian.”
“At least tell me why.” His voice was anguished. His entire world felt like it was ending. It was clear she was miserable and suffering. Something had happened to her, and she wasn’t letting him in. “Tell me why you’re doing this.”
She held her bag closer and pulled out of his arms. “I don’t want to.”
“You can’t?”
“I won’t,” she corrected, and gave him a faint smile that seemed ironic compared to the tears that shimmered in her eyes. “Good-bye, Sebastian.”
Stung, he let go of her. She was choosing not to share with him? Whatever it was that bothered her, she didn’t want to share it with him? She was clear about that. It wasn’t that she couldn’t share it. It was that she didn’t want to.
She didn’t want him in her life.
And god, that fucking hurt. “I love you, Chelsea,” he said again, voice hoarse. “Please. Don’t do this to me. To us. To what we have.”
She shook her head again and moved past him. “I have to go.”
“Where are you going?” Was she going to deny him that, too?
She continued down the stairs. “To Austin. To stay with Pisa for a while, until I figure things out.”
“Can I come see you? So we can talk? So—”
“No
,” she said quickly. “Sebastian, no. Please. Let’s just end it right here, okay?” Chelsea glanced up at him from the bottom of the stairs, and she looked so fragile and sad that he wanted to hug her against him and make it better for her.
But she didn’t want that. She didn’t want him.
And that was like a knife in the heart.
He raised a hand to tell her good-bye, but she was already gone. He thumped down on the top of the stairs, stunned, and wondered how a perfect life had gone so wrong so fast.
* * *
She didn’t love him.
Sebastian was shocked at how much the realization hurt. He’d thought that Chelsea was happy in their relationship. That what had started out as friendship and a fake wedding had turned into a helluva lot more. She was proud of him, he’d thought. She loved his art. Loved hearing him talk about sketches. Loved playing with his hair when they watched a movie, or tugging him along after her when they skated in the park.
He thought she’d enjoyed his company, his body. His life. His love.
After all, wasn’t it obvious that he loved her? It was in everything he’d done, everything he was. Chelsea was the inspiration of all his sketches. She was in his dreams at night, in his daydreams during idle times, and he lived for the sound of her laughter. He’d have done anything for her.
And she’d left him. With no explanation, and a simple refusal to talk.
That refusal wounded him more than anything else. That no matter what they had, there was no trust. No friendship. No love.
It had all been on his side, and it apparently didn’t matter to her. Agonized, he buried his head in his hands and remained at the top of the stairs for what felt like hours. Every bone in his body wanted to go after Chelsea. The only thing stopping him was that she’d made it quite clear that she was done, and she didn’t want any more. She didn’t want anything to do with him.
And he loved her so much it hurt.
Staggering to his feet, he realized that at some point, it had become night. He’d been sitting on the stairs for hours, gazing off at nothing. Thinking of Chelsea and how he’d lost her . . . without even knowing what he did wrong. Was there someone else? God, the thought was like a knife in the gut. Was it that she was better now? Had Sebastian “fixed” her so she could go back to someone else?
Fuck, he needed a drink.
He slammed down the stairs, heading for the bar in his formal dining room. Neither one saw much use, because Chelsea didn’t drink, so he abstained as well. Now? Fuck it. He was going to get rip-roaring drunk and wash the pain away with some Maker’s Mark. He opened the bottle and skipped the glass and drank straight from the neck. Two swigs of burning whisky later, he turned and glared at the room. Address labels were neatly stacked on one end of the table for Chelsea’s business. With another angry swig, he shoved the papers to the floor.
And then he felt like a petulant little boy. With a sigh, he set the bottle down and carefully picked up the papers. Fuck. Just . . . fuck.
He drank and moped for most of the evening. He left the dining room and went to the living room instead. The Notebook was still sitting on top of the Blu-ray player, and he turned it on. His jaw clenched and he drank more whisky and watched the shittiest, least manly movie ever, because it made him think of Chelsea.
And he wanted to be with her in spirit, if not in person.
Chapter Twenty-four
Something banged loudly, startling Sebastian awake.
He lifted his head, peering around. The Notebook’s DVD menu was looping on the TV. He was sprawled facedown on the couch, and he’d left a puddle of drool on the designer leather. The bottle of whisky was on the coffee table, only a sip left.
He grabbed it and drank the rest of it down anyhow. Fuck it.
The banging returned, and Sebastian sat up. Someone was banging at the front door.
Chelsea?
Staggering, Sebastian wobbled toward the door. Sunlight was flooding in from the windows, and his head throbbed. His mouth felt like he’d been licking garbage all night. He made it to the front door and pressed his hands against the heavy wood, then gazed out the peephole.
Rufus stood on the stoop, a disapproving look on his big, heavy features.
Fuck. Not Chelsea. He opened the door a crack and winced at the sunlight, his eyes mere slits. “She’s not here anymore. I’ll have my lawyer cut you a final check. Thanks for your services.”
The man’s heavy brows raised. “She left you?”
A bitter smile curved over Sebastian’s mouth. “Guess so, huh? Lucky fucking me.”
Rufus just tilted his head. “This have something to do with her meeting your mother yesterday?”
Sebastian stilled. The taste of vomit filled his mouth, and he had to fight down bile. “She . . . what?” The words were gritted out of his throat.
“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.
The Billionaire Takes a Bride Page 21
