Page 133 of Worth Every Moment

I’m cutting those strings. She will never influence me again.

“Get out,” I say, pointing to the door. Mum lets out a little squeak. “I mean it,” I tell her. “And don’t come back. I don’t want your lectures or your I-told-you-sos. I don’t want your opinionsor your criticisms. I don’t want to see you at all. Consider yourself exiled.”

She huffs and snatches up her bag, hiking it onto her shoulder. “Exiled? Who do you think you are? The Queen?”

“Of my little kingdom, yes. That’s exactly what I think.”

A nasty laugh huffs out of her. “Don’t come crying to me when it all goes wrong.”

“It already went wrong, and I didn’t come to you, did I? You came here. I will never come to you with my tears. You don’t deserve them.” Clenching my teeth, I nod at the door. “Get out.”

Mum strides towards the exit, back straight and head held high. I expect her to pause at the threshold and throw a snide comment at me, some parting gift to make me feel even worse. But she doesn’t. She passes out into the hall and the door gives a soft click as it closes behind her.

Silence engulfs me, and in Mum’s absence, loneliness sinks through my skin and corrodes my flesh.

Unable to bear it, I grab my phone from where it’s plugged in on the table by the sofa and flop back onto the cushions. My ice cream has melted, so I push it away and call Amy.

After she brought me back to London, she went straight to Paris for a series of intimate concerts in an old music hall, so she didn’t witness the way I fell apart. She saw enough on the journey back from the Caribbean, and I didn’t want to pester her with more of my tears, not when she was so busy.

“Babe,” she says when she answers. “How are you holding up?”

At the sound of her voice, I break, sobbing into the phone, and for several minutes I can’t get a word out as Amy purrs comforting platitudes down the line.

When I’ve composed myself, I tell her about Mum, and then she asks about Seb. I tell her I haven’t heard from him since I told him I wasn’t pregnant.

“I’m so sorry I’m not there,” she murmurs. “I hate that he did this to you. I’ll cut his fucking balls off and flay his dick if I see him. And I’ll do it with pleasure.”

I roll my eyes, even as sobs are still heaving my chest. The image she paints is so visceral. So disgusting.So Amy. And yet the mention of Seb, even in this context, sends a fluttering thrill through me, as though his name alone could put me back together and make me whole. “Please don’t do that.”

“Sorry, babe,” she soothes, a hint of laughter in her apology. “I think he deserves it though.”

Me too.

“You need to go out,” Amy says. “Have you found someone to date yet?”

“No.”

“You have to. Get out there. Be seen. Show Seb that you’re moving on. He does not impact Erica Lefroy.”

“Okay,” I agree, but it sounds half-hearted.

“Promise me?”

I sniffle, wiping my tears on the sleeve of my hoody. “Yeah. I’ll go out with someone.”

“Someone high profile.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good. I have to go. I’ll call you tomorrow. Love you.”

When the line goes dead, I decide to change my phone number so Mum has no way to contact me. And then I eat ten cherry tomatoes in a row.

The following weeks drag by, but I stay focused. I set up a meeting to sell my half of the business to Arthur Knatchbull.He’s interested, but who knows if he’ll buy it or not. It’s small fry compared to what he normally deals with.

I hear nothing from Seb, but it’s hardly surprising given I changed my number. If he had tried to contact me, which I doubt, I wouldn’t know. It’s been hard, but it’s what I needed. A clean break. As clean as it can be when the tabloids are continually looking for juicy gossip, and Seb ditching me for Diana Marchetti at his brother’s wedding is about as juicy as celebrity gossip gets.

Theories run wild.What happened between Seb and Erica?Was Seb seeing Diana all along? Was it a publicity stunt after all?