She batted at his arm. “Very funny.”

*   *   *

They were mostly quiet in the limo as they drove through Manhattan. At least, until they turned down a neighborhood street and Sebastian groaned, putting a hand to his forehead. Chelsea peered out the window of the limo as they pulled up to a town house, the front crowded with people and cameras.

“More paparazzi?” she asked.

“No,” Sebastian said grimly. “This time it’s my mother.”

Chelsea’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear.”

“Yeah. You ever wanted to be on TV? You’re about to be.” He sounded less than thrilled.

“It’ll be fine,” she assured him, patting his hand. To her surprise, he took her fingers in his and squeezed them. That was sweet.

He looked over at her. “I just want to apologize in advance for the upcoming shit show you are about to experience. I’ll try to get us inside the house as soon as possible.”

She chuckled. “I hold you blameless, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It does, actually.” He opened the door to the limo and she watched through the tinted window as the crowd surged toward him. Then he held a hand out for her, and it was time for her to make her appearance.

Chelsea put her hand in his and let him help her from the limo, and immediately the cameras were in their faces. A woman hurried forward, dressed in a red and black zebra-striped suit. She had a small dog tucked against her arm and her hair was cut into a stylish silver bob streaked with purple. She leaned in and gave Sebastian a quick kiss on the cheek and then a judgmental look. “Nugget, I am very unhappy with you.”

Sebastian’s hand tightened on Chelsea’s. “Mother, don’t call me that. And do we have to have the cameras here?” He gestured at the three cameras hovering over his mother’s shoulder.

“I am filming a reality TV show, Nugget. They are recording my reality.” She gestured loftily at the cameras and then narrowed her eyes at Chelsea. “Is this the hooker?”

“Jesus, Mother. She’s not a hooker. This is my wife. Chelsea.”

Chelsea couldn’t help it. She giggled again and held her hand out. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Cabral. Sebastian has told me so much about you.”

Mrs. Cabral raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “If that were the case, then he would have told you that I prefer to be called Mama Precious.”

“And I told her I’m not calling you that,” Sebastian growled. “And did you really have to ambush me at my front door? What about my privacy, mother?”

“You won’t come see your Mama Precious, Nugget. How else am I going to come see you? To think that you didn’t even invite me to your own wedding.”

“Don’t feel bad, Mrs. Cabral,” Chelsea offered. “We didn’t invite my parents, either. It was a very spur-of-the-moment sort of thing.”

“Why?” Mrs. Cabral asked, her over-injected lip curling a bit. “Is it because you’re charging him by the hour and he would have had to return to the ATM?”

“She’s not a whore, mother. I’m not paying her, and you’re insulting both of us, so stop it.”

Chelsea only giggled again. It might have been insulting, if it wasn’t so damn funny. This ridiculous Cruella De Vil–looking woman with a tiny dog was her new mother-in-law? “At any rate, I am super pleased to meet you, Mrs. Cabral,” Chelsea said, keeping her voice sweet. “You look entirely too young to be Sebastian’s mother.”

It was the truth, actually. Her face had been lifted and filled and peeled so many times that her skin was utter perfection. Despite the artfully gray and purple hair, she didn’t look a day over forty, much too young to be Sebastian Cabral’s mother.

The eyebrow rose again and she studied Chelsea. “Hmph.” She looked over at her son. “I’ll have you know that you broke Lisa’s heart. She had to find out via Perez Hilton that you got married. How do you think that makes her feel?”

“Seeing as how we only dated for a month well over two years ago and I haven’t seen her since then? I don’t know that I care.”

“You know she wanted to reconcile, Nugget—”

“Then her story line can be about how she’s going to get over that I married Chelsea.” He smiled tightly and steered Chelsea past the cameras toward the steps of the town house. “I love you, Mother, but I’m not doing this. Not right now.”

“Aren’t you going to invite your mother in to meet your new wife?”

“You are welcome to come in, Mother. The camera crew is not.” He continued steering Chelsea forward, and then paused.

There was a woman sitting on the steps of the townhouse. She looked up as Chelsea and Sebastian approached, her mascara streaking down her cheeks. She was pretty, in an exceedingly plastic-surgeried sort of way. And she stood up at the sight of Sebastian and began sobbing anew the moment the cameras started rolling.

He made a pained sound and gestured at the woman. “Chelsea, meet Lisa.”

*   *   *

So that was an awkward afternoon, Chelsea mused as she unpacked her clothing in her new room. While she’d known that the marriage thing wasn’t going to be all daisies at the beginning, she hadn’t anticipated being called a whore by her new, crazy mother-in-law, and being sobbed on by the “jilted” ex. Or rather, the woman who imagined herself jilted. And even though she knew all of it was set up for a scene to make television, she found herself sitting on the steps with Lisa, trying to comfort her while Sebastian threw his hands into the air.

She’d ended up promising Lisa a lunch date, which would probably be filmed on camera. That was fine; Chelsea didn’t care.

They’d managed to shake off “Mama Precious” and Lisa and eventually settled into the town house. Sebastian had given her the grand tour, turning on lights as he went room to room. It was thoughtful of him to remember her paranoia. The town house itself was rather sparsely decorated, with pale gray walls and a few abstract paintings and stark, somber furniture. It looked like someone’s corporate office rather than a lived-in home. At least it was well lit, with track lighting and several windows facing out into the street.

The town house also boasted several bedrooms and bathrooms, one of each which had been promised to Chelsea. She picked the most well-lit bedroom, even though it was the smallest. It had a carved cherrywood twin bed and a matching dresser and a vase of fake flowers that screamed “decorator” all over it. There was a bathroom right outside in the hall and while it was tiny, there was enough counter space for her to at least start to set up her soap kitchen. He had two kitchens in his town house, but she felt . . . weird about occupying so much space. Like she was intruding. So for now, she was setting up in the bathroom.

Even taking over one of the bathrooms made her feel uncomfortable. It was odd to set up in a stranger’s house. Especially when it was a house that was so much bigger than her last apartment. The place she’d shared with Pisa was six hundred square feet and two tiny bedrooms. This one was three floors and many, many bedrooms, along with a media room, a formal dining room, a study, and a room she wasn’t allowed to go in.

Seriously. Sebastian had shown her around the place and then declared the room at the end of the hall off limits. It was even locked and everything.

And, okay, that was creepy. She even told him that and he looked chagrined. He told her it was a private study and messy and he’d show it to her when it was cleaned up. But still.

Maybe tonight she’d push the dresser in front of her door, just in case.

But as she settled in for the night and it grew late, she became increasingly agitated. She had the lights on in her room, but the blackout they’d had in New Orleans kept coming to mind and she didn’t feel safe. What if the lights went out again? Then she’d be in this strange place with no one familiar. The thought made worry start crashing through her, and by the time she crawled into her narrow, unfamiliar bed, she was practically trembling with fear despite the cheery light flooding the room.