‘No, I just thought it would be fun to sleep in a corset,’ I replied, twisting my arms around my back and clawing at the fastening that kept the dress crushingly tight around my ribcage. Even when I sucked all the air out of my lungs, it was impossible. Rachel must have been a lot stronger than she looked. Juliette clucked her tongue and crossed the room, knocking my hands out of the way.

‘Breathe in,’ she ordered.

I did as I was told and, as she unhooked the catch and pulled down the concealed zip, I exhaled fully for the first time in about fourteen hours. No wonder I’d fallen for Evan so hard and fast, my brain had been starved of oxygen for more than half a day.

‘I can’t believe you went to the ball,’ Juliette said, almost smiling.

‘And I can’t believe you didn’t,’ I said as my organs reacquainted themselves with each other. ‘I also can’t believe you sent me out to buy you a drink and then left me on the bloody island on my own.’

‘Clearly you managed all right,’ she replied, utterly dismissive. ‘How did you get in?’

‘Never mind how I got in, what happened to you?’ Now that my blood was circulating all the way around my body instead of just changing direction when it arrived at my waist, I found I had just enough energy to be pissed off. ‘Are you even going to apologize?’

From the look on her face, I couldn’t work out if she was shocked, furious, or had just wet herself. ‘I wasn’t planning on it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t do anything to you, I don’t have anything to apologize for.’

‘Wow.’ I clutched my half-open dress to my body, my blood boiling. ‘Just wow.’

She stared daggers across the room, but it didn’t matter. I was furious.

‘You were incredibly rude to me yesterday morning,’ I said, pinning my dress in place with my armpits and counting off her offences on my fingers. ‘Then you randomly decided you didn’t want to perform at the ball even though that’s why you were here in the first place. Then you decided to leave me behind when you could have just as easily waited for me to come back. No one attempted to get in touch with me to make sure I was OK. Did you even speak to Sarah? Did you even know whether or not I made it to the hotel, or did you think I was just hanging around the Panarea docks all night for a laugh? Because it’s not funny to me, Juliette, it’s my job. It’s my life. Sarah isn’t going to give me a glowing reference, is she? No, she isn’t, and I don’t blame her. I’ll be lucky to even get a part-time job on the reception at the vet’s now.’

‘Honestly, Fran,’ Juliette dropped backwards onto her bed, ‘I don’t know if you mean to, but you’re coming off a little bit entitled.’