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.”

She pulled a jeweled box of Kleenex close to her and began to dab at her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I only wanted what was best for you.”

Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose. It’d do no good to keep railing at his mother. He needed to figure this out and get things moving. Start making headway to getting Chelsea back. First off, though, he needed that damn video. “Do you still have the file?”

Mrs. Cabral clutched her pearls. “Are you going to watch it?”

“Fuck, no.” The thought made him ill. “I’m going to take it to the police. I want that sick fuck arrested.” His fists clenched, over and over again. He imagined the asshole in front of him, and pictured punching his smug, grinning face.

His poor Chelsea. God, how utterly betrayed and violated she must feel at the moment. He had to fix this for her. Even if she never wanted to see him again, he had to make this right for her. It was his fault she’d gotten mixed up with his family in the first place. If she hadn’t, would the tape have ever surfaced? Her pain could stay buried and she could have gone on with her happy life, skating with her friends and making her soaps. Participating in Gretchen’s wedding.

He didn’t deserve to have her.

“Going to the police—that’s good, Sebastian,” his mother said encouragingly. “They’ll know what to do. But once this man knows the information is out there, won’t they come after us?”

“I don’t know, and don’t care.”

“Whatever you think of me, your father doesn’t deserve to have his family smeared through the mud.”

Sebastian ground his teeth. She was good at aiming where you were weak, his mother. “What do you propose?”

“You’ll have to keep quiet about the video until the police have captured this man. I’ll come up with something else that will distract the tabloids.”

“Like what?”

She gave him a sly look. “I’ll enlist Lisa. She wants to be famous and doesn’t care how. You leave it to me. We’ll have a new story for the tabloids and one that will scare your blackmailer into silence for a little while.”

He nodded. “You do what you need to do. I’ll go to Austin and get Chelsea and let her know—”

His mother put a hand on his arm. “Wait, you can’t do that.”

“What do you mean?” Knowing Chelsea was in pain and hurting? It gnawed at him like a wound. He had to let her know he didn’t care about the tape. That he loved her and still wanted her, and that his mother had been wrong. That she could come back.

That he could hopefully fix this for her, even if only a little.

“You can’t contact her. Whoever’s blackmailing us is clearly following the family’s footsteps. If you go hauling off after her, they’ll know something’s up. If we say we’re going to the police, you might never catch them. The best thing you can do is go about as if things are normal.”

“But Chelsea—”

“Is in Austin, like you said. And I haven’t received any updates from the blackmailer, which means that they’re watching you and not her.” She gave a small shake of her head. “You’re going to have to act as if nothing is going on.”

Every fiber of his being rebelled at the thought. He wanted to protect Chelsea, to keep her from further harm. To enfold her in his arms and let her know everything was going to be all right. That he’d never let her get hurt again. To leave her in Austin, in pain and hurting . . . it went against everything he was. “She deserves to know.”

Mrs. Cabral waved a hand. “Then tell her. Go run to Austin and tip off the blackmailer, and kiss good-bye any chance you’ll ever have of getting her justice. You think this person is going to sit around and wait for the police to come get them if they find out you went to the authorities?”