Gucci Mamas by Cate Kendall Read Free Book Online Page B

a year and then there were the extras: a mandatory laptop, two camps a year and a $450 blazer for starters.
    The boys’ fees were already exorbitant and increased at each year level. Then there were music lessons, sports uniforms, cadets, excursions and incursions. Sometimes she scared herself by adding all the numbers together and then her chest got so tight with fear that she couldn’t breathe.
    Sometimes Mim woke in the middle of the night with the feeling that her life was spiralling out of control. Maintaining the lifestyle was overwhelming. They were just scraping by on James’s IT income as it was. It was so important for the children to have the best start in life and every opportunity money could buy, but somehow it was all unravelling and after last night’s fight, things seemed to be getting worse.
    Ellie interrupted her thoughts again. ‘Where are you, sweetie? You seem miles away today.’
    Caught out, Mim blushed slightly, reluctant to relive the whole scene with James. She felt exhausted just thinking about it.
    ‘Oh,’ she sighed deeply, ‘James and I had a bit of a stoushlast night. It was pretty ugly and now he’s gone off to London for the week.’
    ‘Oh love, that’s awful,’ Ellie sympathised. ‘Things have been a bit tense for a while, haven’t they?’
    ‘I guess so. I suppose I just thought it was always that he was tired, or I was premenstrual or whatever, but actually I think it’s more that we’re just not connecting any more.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m really frightened about our marriage, Ellie.’
    ‘Sweetheart,’ Ellie reached across the table to take Mim’s hand. ‘You guys are such lovebirds, I’m sure it will be okay. You just have a lot of pressures with the kids, and your jobs, and James being away all the time – does he have to take so many business trips?’
    ‘Well the stupid thing is I encouraged him to change roles to the international department because it meant more money – and with Chloe at school next year God knows we’ll need it. I thought it would be best for the family. The trouble is we’re never actually a family any more because he’s always away.’ She wiped her eyes carefully on her napkin and gave herself a small shake, pulling her cardigan tighter around her shoulders. ‘Anyway darling,’ she managed a smile, ‘we’ll be fine, you know how these things seem so dreadful at the time and you think divorce is on the cards and then the next day he brings you flowers and it’s all forgotten – this will all blow over soon enough.’
    ‘You’re probably right, sweetie,’ Ellie soothed. ‘But it would be nice if he was home a bit more. Anyway, my love, I must away. You sure you’re okay?’ she questioned, fishing in her Prada sac for her Porsche keys.
    ‘Absolutely, darling, thanks for listening,’ Mim replied.
    ‘Well then, ciao, bella ,’ Ellie called as she swept out.
    On her own, Mim was seized by a wicked desire to order the Chocolate Orgasm Cake and lose herself in thepassion of the moment. Shaking her mind back to reality she allowed herself a tiny nibble at the edge of her fat-free, low-cholesterol, high-fibre biscotti. That would do for breakfast.

It was a sparkly pink princess doll, dressed in shiny satin and lace, with happy blue eyes and a smiling rosebud mouth. She was named Bettina and her smile held the promise of a special secret that she would whisper quietly to only the little girl who took her home to love and treasure her.
    Mim wanted her badly, she wanted to cuddle the doll’s squishy body to her and hear those secrets again, the secrets she had heard as a little girl and had truly believed existed just beyond her own life – in a world of uncomplicated froth and prettiness.
    She seemed a long way from those days now. Everything had become so complicated and confusing. She rubbed distractedly at her forehead again, her headache by now an expected companion.
    Mim smoothed Bettina’s shiny acrylic