I expected better from you,’ said Perrette’s mother, Claudette, at the other end of the phone. Perrette sat at her desk in the offices of Hervé Brion and tapped her pen impatiently on her diary. ‘Maman, I have this all under control,’ she said with more conviction than she felt. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen, she thought. Her life had been carefully mapped out and up until now, all seemed to be going according to plan. But the arrival of that piece-of-trash Cinda had thrown everything into disarray. ‘I have a plan,’ was all she said to her mother before she hung up the phone. And she did have a plan. She’d spent the entire drive back from Avignon working it out, turning it over in her mind until she was pretty sure it would work – provided Gus didn’t ask too many questions. Gus wasn’t returning her calls or emails, and her focus was now on getting him back. She didn’t know if anything had happened between Gus and Cinda, but she didn’t like the changes she saw in him that afternoon.
