With or Without You Read Online Free PDF Page B

Liv frowned at the phone console, wondering if the line had disconnected. ‘I’m sorry, Liv,’ he said at last, ‘but the part’s gone to Sadie
Roberts.’
    Liv reached out and held her hand over the speaker for a second as she digested the news, fearful for a moment that she might start to cry. She had really felt that the role was hers. This movie
could have been the breakthrough she so desperately needed and she just
knew
that she would have been perfect in the lead role. But Sadie bloody Roberts had beaten her to it. She
wasn’t even a very good actress, thought Liv mutinously, after she had bid Jonathan a curt goodbye and hung up.
    She arrived home and mooched into the vast hangar of a kitchen, opening the cupboards one by one and suddenly feeling desperately in need of a drink. She checked the large clock and saw that it
was 10.40 a.m. Was that too early? She listened carefully to the sounds of the house and could hear Juanita’s vacuum cleaner whining from a distant bedroom. Quickly, she unscrewed the lid of
one of the bottles and took a long swig. Only as the liquid hit her empty stomach did she notice that it was the vodka she had opened. She replaced the cap with a guilty shudder and put the bottle
in the cupboard under the sink behind the cleaning products. No-one ever looked in that cupboard. Juanita had a whole utility room where she kept her own supplies.
    Liv stood up, suddenly light-headed. She needed to eat but she had no appetite. Listlessly, she put a piece of white, sliced bread into the toaster and took the Marmite out of the fridge.
Marmite on toast was like an edible comfort blanket to her whenever she was feeling low, but she only ever ate it when Danny was away, as he always moaned about the smell.
    She made herself another cup of tea and perched at the steel island in the middle of the kitchen to eat the toast, staring out of the plate-glass doors at the infinity pool glinting turquoise in
the sunlight above the dusty Hollywood Hills.
    She felt bitterly disappointed that she hadn’t got the part, but more than that, she was nervous about telling Danny. She couldn’t shake the fear that he was losing interest in her
now that she had started to drop down the Hollywood pecking order. And she was finding it increasingly hard to ignore the rumours that constantly circulated that he had been linked to a number of
his other leading ladies. ‘Ignore it, baby,’ he would laugh, whenever she brought up the subject of the latest salacious headline. ‘It’s just crappy journos trying to fill
the pages of their crappy little rags. Anyway, I’m not screwing Tatiana Brown because she has extremely bad breath thanks to that stupid high protein diet she’s on.’
    Liv would laugh then too. She loved it when he slagged off the gorgeous superstars he worked with, claiming variously that they had BO or bad breath, that they talked incessantly about
themselves or, her particular favourite, that they were thick as two short planks. Liv knew that wasn’t an accusation that would ever be levelled at her, as her first-class honours degree in
English from Oxford meant she was considered something of a freak compared with the usual Hollywood bimbos.
    But as Danny’s career continued unabated on its upward trajectory, she was spending an increasing amount of time on her own at their sumptuous, high-tech home in the Hollywood hills,
meaning that she had an increasing amount of time to get on the Internet and Google herself and Danny. She knew she shouldn’t do it. Knew she should resist the temptation. But it was becoming
like a drug and she found herself unable to kick the habit.
    Liv managed two bites of her toast. She looked again at the clock. It was still only eleven and the day seemed to stretch out before her like a carpet of loneliness. Felix’s playdate after
school meant he wouldn’t be home until much later, and she cursed herself that she hadn’t arranged to meet anyone for lunch,