The Billionaire Takes a Bride

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.