But the prospect of getting up to find either seemed the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest without oxygen.

If she was back home she could’ve just called down for the housekeeper to send something up, but she was in Italy and supposed to be fending for herself.

She groaned again as she forced herself onto her feet.

How she had got to this bedroom in the first place she wasn’t sure. She didn’t even remember being shown to a room, but despite the hows and means, she seemed to have ended up in one that was hot as hell.

And she might even end up sharing with someone else, she groaned inwardly, spotting the neatly made single bed across the way.

Kim wandered blearily around the landing outside, the intense sunlight causing her even more pain as she padded downstairs and tried to make her way to the kitchen.

Finally she found it and immediately began pulling open creaky old cupboards and messy drawers in the hope of finding something to ease the jackhammer in her head.

“Looking for something?” Colette asked a moment later. She was sitting calmly at the heavy oak table nearby with a cup of coffee.

Kim hadn’t spotted her on the way in.

Her voice was ten decibels too loud, though, and she raised a hand. “Not so loud,” she moaned. “My head hurts.”

“I have some aspirin in my bag upstairs,” the younger girl offered, getting up. “I’ll get them. By the way, you snore.”

How come she’s so sprightly this morning? Kim asked herself as she settled down at one of the wooden chairs beneath the large rectangular table.

Especially when yesterday her first impression of the English girl was that she was afraid of her own shadow. Unlike the Irish one, who looked like she wanted to beat hers (and everyone else’s) up.

And seriously, who made their bed so perfectly like that? Kim groaned inwardly.

Though on the plus side, at least she kinda knew her roommate.

She closed her eyes and laid her head down on the heavy wood, hoping to ease the throbbing.

“Here you go,” Colette announced a few minutes later as she placed a pack of painkillers on the table before her. “Are you hungry?”

“Ugh. I don’t think I could eat.”

“Well, I could,” Annie piped up. Kim hadn’t even realized she’d come in either.

“How can you both sound so cheery when I feel like a train wreck?” she grumbled in annoyance as she ripped open the blister pack of painkillers. “Thanks.” She looked up gratefully at Colette, who’d also put a glass of water down in front of her.