With or Without You Read Online Free PDF Page A

skull. She got up and walked over to one of the over-sized, sleek white cupboards and retrieved a packet of Paracetamol. She popped two
pills out of the blister pack and put her mouth under the running tap to swallow them quickly. As she stood up, she caught her reflection in the gloss surface of the cupboard and instinctively
pulled her fingers through her messy sheet of gold, wavy hair. The eyes that stared back at her were indistinct, but their shadows occupied a disproportionate area of her tiny, heart-shaped face.
She blinked and looked away from her ghostly, shadowy self.
    Felix galloped through his cereal at an alarming speed, gulping and crunching with the energy only small children can bring to any task. As he crossed the finish line and triumphantly dropped
the spoon into his empty bowl with a nerve-jangling clatter, his head tipped upwards towards Liv with a beseeching expression.
    Liv smiled, unable to resist. ‘Go on, then. You can have fifteen more minutes playing on your computer before we have to leave for school.’
    ‘Aw, thanks, Mom, love you!’ he cried, hopping down from the table and racing towards his bedroom.
    ‘Love you too,’ Liv murmured to his retreating back, but he was gone and her words carried themselves in a circle around the cavernous space, before returning to her own ears.
    She picked up her iPhone, which was never more than an inch or two away, and checked for emails from her PA, Carrie. Sure enough, there was a message notifying her of a couple of appointments
over the next few days. She tried to ignore the fact that there were fewer appointments and requests than there used to be.
    Liv put the phone down and picked up Felix’s bowl, which she placed into the dishwasher, before putting on the kettle in preparation for her second cup of tea. She could have left it for
Juanita the housekeeper, but that was something Liv had never quite got used to; she always felt guilty just leaving stuff for her to clear away. ‘It’s her job!’ Danny would say.
He never seemed to experience the same sort of embarrassment at having staff, but Liv still preferred to do some things for herself and that included clearing away her son’s breakfast
things.
    She knew that she was an exception among the all-American moms of Felix’s classmates. Almost all of them had at least two nannies taking care of their children full-time, so that they
could either work on their latest movie role or album, go shopping or have lunch at their leisure. But while Liv had a nanny who worked for her when she was shooting a film, she already felt
terrible enough that Felix lived half a world away from his beloved dad; she wasn’t going to let him have an absent mother too.
    At the end of each school day, Liv usually found herself standing alone in the playground, waiting for Felix. The army of nannies who were also there weren’t unkind or bitchy towards her,
but they weren’t friendly either. They knew they would have nothing in common with her. Liv was a rich, famous film star, with an even richer, more famous film star for a boyfriend. She could
know nothing of their lives and they could know nothing of hers. Ironically, Liv often thought that each and every one of those nannies was probably happier than she was.
    Although she had devised ways to cope with her homesickness, it still dogged her every move and she sometimes wondered how much longer she could stay in LA without losing it completely. But
while Danny’s career went from strength to strength, there was no way he would consider relocating to London, and with Felix so happy with his LA lifestyle, she knew that for now she was
stuck here.
    Felix emerged from his bedroom twenty minutes later, looking for all the world like a true American boy, his baseball glove in one hand and his basketball in the other. ‘Remember I’m
going to PJ’s after school, Mom?’ he said in the Californian accent he had developed and which still took Liv by