Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

and that wretched Alicia running off with his friend had made him feel about as
worthless as anyone in his position could feel.
But I saw the way Louisa looked at him then, a strange mixture of pride and
gratitude on her face, and I was suddenly immensely glad that she was there. My
son, although we never said as much, was in the most untenable of situations.
Whatever it was she was doing, it seemed to be giving him just a small respite
from that.
There was, for a few days, a faint but definitely celebratory air in the house.
Camilla wore an air of quiet hopefulness, although she refused to admit to me
that that was what it was. I knew her subtext: what did we really have to
celebrate, when all was said and done? I heard her on the telephone to Georgina
late at night, justifying what she had agreed to. Her mother’s daughter, Georgina,
she was already looking for any way in which Louisa might have used Will’s
situation to advantage herself.
‘She offered to pay for herself, Georgina,’ Camilla said. And, ‘No, darling. I
don’t really think we have a choice. We have very little time and Will has agreed
to it, so I’m just going to hope for the best. I think you really have to do the same
now.’
I knew what it cost her to defend Louisa, to even be nice to her. But she
tolerated that girl because she knew, as I did, that Louisa was our only chance of
keeping our son even halfway happy.
Louisa Clark had become, although neither of us said it, our only chance of
keeping him alive.
I went for a drink with Della last night. Camilla was visiting her sister, so we
went for a walk down by the river on the way back.
‘Will’s going to take a holiday,’ I said.
‘How wonderful,’ she replied.
Poor Della. I could see her fighting her instinctive urge to ask me about our
future – to consider how this unexpected development might affect it – but I
didn’t suppose she ever would. Not until this was all resolved.
We walked, watching the swans, smiling at the tourists splashing around in
their boats in the early evening sun, and she chatted away about how this might
all be actually rather wonderful for Will, and probably showed that he was really