Page 40 (1/2)
Liar!
She glared at her wan face in theher despondency, and it had nothing to do with a lack of sunlight
‘No, it’s not for Out Of The Box,’ said Carly ‘It’s personal—for you’
‘Is it fro care-parcels of ho city would corrupt her into a fast-food lifestyle saturated with agri-chemicals
‘No, it’s another one of those…’
Veronica froze, her heavy heart squeezing in her chest She should just go—her appointment ith a new client and she didn’t want to jeopardise her chance of an order by arriving late for their
Nevertheless, fiveout a perfectly crafted, reen tissue
‘Oh, isn’t he cute?’ gushed Carly, who had been hovering with cheerful nosiness Fresh out of university, she was a great worker, full of ideas and a ith the co that Veronica had given up trying to preserve a businesslike distance between employer and employee ‘Now you’ll have someone to put beside the lamb, and keep the old shepherd and his sheep company What a pity it’s only October—I wish it was Christether!’
‘Don’t wish the Christers surine ‘We still have an awful lot of work to get through before we’re ready to ship off an avalanche of simultaneous orders…’
She turned the figure upside down to see the distinctive h she didn’t really need to look She knew it came from Sénanque, as had each of the other five santons she’d received irregularly through the post over the past eight weeks
She put the shepherd-boy back in its box with tre to do to her?
All the packages had arrived bearing a UK postnature, but there was never any note inside so Veronica had no way of knohat kind of y it was a wretchedly cryptic one Maybe it was just his way of rubbing her nose in her cowardice, but she had felt that his decision to leave for Avignon with Elise Malcolm in the middle of Zoe’s party had been a fairly definitive statement of his priorities!
She snatched up her briefcase and slid in the laptop, and the glossy brochures and order forms, in case her potential client turned out to be electronically impaired She had initially made a rule that, for the corporate side of the business, she wasn’t going to pitch for business with companies that had less than twenty-five employees, but experience had quickly shown her the error of her ways Many small companies valued their personal touch with their staff, and were er organisations, and, besides, hungry s firs, according to her research, was a sement coovernanisations, as well as links with offshore promotions
Picking up her handbag, she shot a furtive look at her assistant’s back before tucking the new santon into the side pocket Her personal talisman, a little piece of Luc to carry with her…
As she shot out the door her eye was caught by the card propped up on the credenza It had arrived the day before and she was still dithering about it—another re teeks in Provence: a totally unexpected invitation to Sophie’s twelfth birthday party the folloeek