The Billionaire Takes a Bride (Billionaires and Bridesmaids, #3)(42)

Lisa began to sob theatrically, taking one of the napkins from the table and dabbing at her face. Gretchen’s eyes got even wider and she continued to chew, fascinated.

“Did you know we were together when you stole him from me?” Lisa asked, her tearful voice sad and small. Her over-inflated lips were hot pink and looked ridiculous on her narrow face. They matched her skin-tight bandage dress, though.

“Actually, Sebastian told me he hadn’t seen you in two years.”

“He lied, he was with me last night.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible, since he was in bed with me,” Chelsea refuted. Sure, most of their time in bed together last night was a pillow fight and nothing sexy, but she was starting to get annoyed at the sob story that Lisa was trying to spin for the cameras.

“Oh, snaps, this is getting good,” Gretchen said, forking another mouthful of salad into her mouth. Her gaze went from Chelsea to Lisa again.

Lisa’s face was blotchy and her lashes were starting to clump. “He was with me—”

“He wasn’t, so why don’t you try another tactic? Or am I going to have to endure more of this good-cop-bad-cop thing you two have going on?”

Both women bristled.

“Now listen here, whore,” Mrs. Cabral began. She leaned in and her little dog yipped. “Let me tell you—”

“No, let me tell you something,” Chelsea said, getting to her feet. “You interrupted a lunch with a friend of mine so you could film a scene for your show. You want a scene? Don’t call me a whore. I’m your new daughter-in-law and you’re going to have to put up with my ass every holiday until the end of time, so you’d better get f*cking used to it. Now unless you want me to start calling you ‘Granny,’ you’ll quit with the name calling.”

Mrs. Cabral gasped. So did a few people at nearby tables. Someone tittered.

Actually, it was probably Gretchen tittering.

Chelsea opened her wallet and threw a few twenties down. She slung her purse over her shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse us, my friend and I are going to finish our shopping trip.”

“That’s right,” Gretchen said loudly as she stood. “We’re going to the sex store.”

Lisa burst into new tears.

Mrs. Cabral stood up, seething. “You’re not worthy of calling me Mama Precious.”

Chelsea kept her expression calm. “That’s good, because I didn’t plan on it, Mrs. Cabral.”

“I want you to divorce Sebastian. You’re not good enough for him.”

“It’s not about what you want,” Chelsea said. “It’s about what Sebastian wants.” She grabbed Gretchen by the arm and all but dragged her out of the restaurant.

By the time they made it out to the street, she was seething. And, okay, a little hurt. Who did that woman think she was? How dare she dive-bomb Chelsea and try to get a scene on camera for their stupid show?

And worst of all, she thought Chelsea wasn’t good enough for Sebastian? That stung, mostly because Chelsea worried about the same thing.

She was a girl who brought nothing to the relationship but a f*cked-up head and an inability to have sex. Didn’t Sebastian deserve better than that?

On that front, she worried that Mrs. Cabral was right. Maybe he would have been better off with Plastic Lisa.

“Come on,” Gretchen said, tugging Chelsea down the street. “I see that rage-face you’re making, and you know what would fix that?”

“Chocolate?”

“Well, I was going to say ‘handcuffs at the sex store’ but I’m down with chocolate.” Gretchen brightened and steered her toward a bakery.

“What about your diet?”

“I’ll start it again tomorrow.”

*

Several hours later, Chelsea returned to the town house with a few bags of purchases. She had sexy lingerie, a vibrator, handcuffs, and flavored lubricant. It had taken everything she had to convince Gretchen not to buy her one of everything so she could “explore her feelings.” Really, she just wanted to throw all of the stuff back into the bag and chuck it.

But she had to try and work through things, didn’t she? She owed Sebastian that much, she supposed.

You’re not good enough for Sebastian.

Damn it. Now she was going to see Mrs. Cabral’s sour face in her mind every time she thought about Sebastian. She pulled out the handcuffs and considered.

Was Gretchen right? Was she going about this all wrong and needed to explore fetishes? Did she need to masturbate more? Did she need to reawaken herself before she could expect Sebastian to “awaken” whatever it was that was dormant inside her?

She sighed, frustrated, and hid the purchases in the top drawer of the dresser. Why couldn’t she just kiss a man like a normal girl and hope for the best?

The thought bothered her even as she headed up to the spare bedroom she’d set up as her soap-making shop. Normally she was excited to get a few designer soaps from other stores. She studied the ingredient list and the scents, and tested the texture of the soap and how long the lather and the fragrance lasted. But today, she was distracted. Soaps held no fun for her.

She kept thinking about Sebastian. And she kept thinking about her “problem.”

Sebastian was probably downstairs in his study. He spent a lot of the daytime hours in there, sketching and listening to music. Even now she could hear classical music strains through the walls, at odds with the Spin Doctors CD she had in her player at the moment. Sometimes they went out to the park together and people watched, and she relaxed while Sebastian sketched.