Page 116 of Perfect Three

Had her daughter made her choose between the men she loved so dearly and her darling grandchildren?

Getting to her feet, she climbed the stairs to her room and threw herself on the bed.Lucy cried again and then couldn’t stop.At some point, she must have cried herself to sleep because when she woke it was dark.

She got up and used the toilet.Climbing back onto the bed, Lucy saw it was nine-thirty.She curled into a ball, her pendant clutched tightly in her hand, and hugged her pillow.

It felt like her life had ended.She couldn’t believe how much agony wracked her body.Pain in the back of her throat from her sobs added to her misery.She closed her painful eyes and slept again.It was six-fifteen in the morning when she woke once more, the house so empty when she went downstairs after showering.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Lucy spent that day, and the next few, as if in a dream.She was barely conscious of anything she did.It was as if she was a robot—everything was automatic.She went to work, somehow managing to act like nothing had happened.The only good thing was this job finished up on Friday.

Early on Thursday evening, she drove over to see the twins and wish them happy birthday.She completely ignored Allison, speaking only to Geoffrey and the children.But she didn’t stay long, using the fact she had a headache as an excuse to leave early.

Somehow, she managed to get through the weekend.

The ache in her heart wouldn’t leave her.There was a knife twisting and turning in it, gouging her insides into tiny broken pieces.

She stuffed herself with chocolate and biscuits, then didn’t bother eating for a few days.She refused any temping jobs and told Jake she wouldn’t be available for a while.Continually tired, all Lucy could do was cling to the pendant around her neck as she tried to make it through each hour, each day.

Sleep became her new lover.It beckoned her all the time.But it was a false lover, sending her dreams of her men, of their love, spiraling her deeper downward.

Days merged into one another and Lucy was shock when she discovered tomorrow was Christmas Day.

It was the worst Christmas Lucy ever had.Lucy imagined she acted in a play on stage.Nothing at all seemed real.She did things without thinking.Lunch was spent with the children, but even watching their excitement as they opened and played with their gifts couldn’t break through the frozen shell where her shattered heart was.She broke down again that night when she found the gifts she’d bought last month for Jack and Sebastian.

By the end of the third week, she had lost weight and knew how awful she looked.Lucy couldn’t remember when she’d showered last.So many times, she’d pick up the phone to call her men only to realize if Allison found out she’d ban her from seeing the kiddies.

There was no way she could live her life like this.

Geoffrey hadn’t been able to change Allison’s mind.He confided to Lucy that when he pressed the matter, she had threatened to take the children and leave.Regretfully, he told Lucy he had to stop before the marriage became irreparable.Lucy understood his position and told him so.She loved him as if he were her own son.She understood his worry for her, but there was nothing she could do about it.

In a moment of clarity, shehadtackled Allison but to no avail.The result only made Lucy more depressed.In the end, Lucy decided she would continue ignoring her and try to enjoy her grandchildren—but even that enjoyment was tarnished.She told Allison that as far as she was concerned there could be nothing between them.

Hundreds of times through every day she would grip the tiny pendant.It became an obsession, to hold it, to continually check it still hung between her breasts.It was her lifeline, Lucy’s only link to the two men she still loved so dearly.

All her adult life she’d cared for others, she’d pushed her own happiness aside.And now when she finally had a chance at true joy, it had been snatched away from her.

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