Page 132 of Worth Every Moment

I cried for two weeks straight. Didn’t leave the house. Cancelled all my appointments and photo shoots. I pissed a lot of people off.

Even now, on day sixteen, I still feel like shit as I curl up on my sofa with a tub of dairy ice cream.

Bang.

The thump on the door is so loud that the spoon I’m holding clatters to the floor.

“Erica! Let me in.” Mum’s shrieks sail through the apartment, and my hackles rise. I’ve ignored every message she’s sent to me since the wedding, deleting them all without reading them. I don’t need to hear her sayI told you so.

Bang.

But I can’t avoid her any longer. I slop off the sofa like I’m made of jelly and slouch to the door, peeling it open.

Mum stalks in, doing her usual scan of my appearance, which brings her up short. “I was going to tell you that you need to leave the house, but if you look this bad, perhaps it’s wise that you don’t.”

My heart is broken. Can’t you see? Don’t you care?

I shuffle back towards the kitchen without granting her a response, but Mum is quick to follow.

“I told you he’d destroy you. I knew it. If only you’d listened to me.” She dumps her huge designer handbag on the island as though she’s moving in. “What are we going to do now?”

We?

There is no more fuckingwehere.

“Weare going to do nothing,” I say. “I’m going to get up tomorrow and go to work. They’re expecting me on set.”

Mum bristles. “You’re still doing this movie thing then?”

“I am. And I don’t care what your opinion is on the matter. It’s no longer relevant. I don’t want anything to do with you.”

She presses a hand against her décolletage. “Erica. How can you say such a thing? We have the business to think about. The company. The—”

“I don’t want to be in business with you. I’m going to sell my half.” I haven’t thought this through, but my body is vibrating with rage. I put my heart and soul into that company. I don’t want to give it up, but to extricate myself from Mum and sever all ties feels like the right thing. Without the company, she has no hold over me.Freedom. As much as it would break my heart to do it, I will. “I’ll ring up Arthur Knatchbull and make him an offer—”

“You think a man like that will have time for you?”

Irritation sparks behind my ribs. “The way he had time for you? When you took him my portfolio? When you orchestrated my big break?” Mum’s expression turns wary. “Oh, yeah. I know it wasn’t you. I met him at the wedding and he told me he’d never met you. And you know what else? He told me it was Seb who convinced him to choose me.Seb. Not you. You lied to me. All this time, you claimed it was your doing, when it was him. You said Seb was awful, too dreadful to be seen with in public, and really, he’s the only reason I’ve got this far. And he never tried to claim the glory. He did it quietly, without making a fuss. In all the years he’s been my friend, he never once tried to take any of my success from me or claim it as his own. Not one time did he throw that in my face. And he could have. He—”

“Erica, wake up. He doesn’t care about you. If he did, he wouldn’t have humiliated you the way he did. You’re nothing to him.” She sighs. “At least you didn’t sleep with him. That’s one blessing, I suppose.”

The air fills with an energetic charge that raises the hair on my arms.

“Why do you think I didn’t?”

“Because that’s not something we’d ever do.”

“Who the fuck is this ‘we’ you keep referring to?” My voice trembles, my rage barely controlled. “There is no ‘we’. There is you, and there is me. Separate. And I did sleep with him. He popped my hymen like a fucking cherry. Blood everywhere. And after that, we did it again. And again. I had a lot of sex with Seb. And Ienjoyedit.”

Mum pulls herself up tall, sneering down at me. “Good for you.” Her voice is like ice. “But that doesn’t mean he cares. I have no idea why you’re still defending him.”

Because I love him. I will always love him. “I know you think men are animals and all they want is sex, but they aren’t. They’re human beings with thoughts and feelings and a history that explains why they do what they do. And Seb is a good man. At his core, he is good. His heart—”

“He dragged your name through the mud.” Mum glares at me. “Why did he do that? What explanation could he possibly give?”

My throat chokes up.I don't know why he did it. If Mum were a different mother, I could fall into her arms and weep for everything I’ve lost. For Seb, and for our imagined child that I wiped away on a piece of tissue. For the humiliation. For the fact I hate him as much as I love him, and part of me agrees with her and now it feels like I have nothing at all.

But I can’t tell her any of that, because she has no sympathy. She can’t see me in a way that means anything. I’m little more than a puppet to her, and when she can’t control my strings, I’m worthless.