Now, it seemed, she had sacrificed herself to a man who had no real ambition, and who was happy to stay at the bottom rung of the ladder of life. He actually thought that their son would make them happy – that having a second child made them some kind of family! And perhaps they would have been if he had reached his full potential. But he hadn’t – James had lied to her, he had told her he would make something of himself, he had promised her he would give her the world. Instead, he had let her down spectacularly, while her little sister had snagged herself a fucking real grafter. A grafter she had actually been attracted to. How was it that fucking Celeste, that fucking stupid, senseless, brain-dead idiot, was swanning around with Jonny Parker, like she was important or something. Celeste! Who was another fucking moron, who had the brains of a gnat. Who had no personality to speak of and no looks either really. Nothing to write home about anyway.

Cynthia looked in her bedroom mirror. She saw herself as a stranger would see her, looked at herself without any bias whatsoever, and she knew she still looked good. She had been lucky – most women after two children looked exactly like they had given birth to two children. She didn’t; there wasn’t a mark on her. That pleased her, because she knew that she would have to look around at some point for another husband.

Because there was no way she was going to stay in this marriage, no way she was going to waste herself on someone as pathetic as James.

Chapter Twelve

Celeste was happier than she had ever been, since Jonny had asked her to marry him. And it was obvious to anyone who knew her. She was genuinely thrilled at the direction her life had taken. As she looked at Jonny sitting at her mother’s dining table, she felt the happiness well up inside her. Her love for him was so strong it was as if she could hold it in her hands.

She knew that Jimmy was thrilled for her; he was a really nice man, too good for her sister of course – not that she would ever say that out loud. But Cynthia somehow made you think awful things about her. It was as if she was only there to make you dislike her. She dumped her children here, at her parents’ house, for weeks at a time. Not that she minded; in fact, like her mum and dad, Celeste actually felt happier when the kids were there, because Cynthia didn’t seem to care about them really.