She grabbed a daytime dress, an evening dress, a couple of T-shirts and some Capri trousers which she prayed still fit.

Hours sitting by a hospital bed eating sweets had done nothing for her waistline.

Chapter Two

Shannon

Shannon had been begging Kate to visit her in Paris for the last year. Why, oh why did she have to pick this weekend?

She’d missed Kate’s call due to an urgent need to vomit the contents of her stomach into the toilet. If only this had been self-induced by a wild night out. Ironic that the last time she’d clung to a toilet quite like this had been her first week in the UK after arriving as a fresh-faced Yank who couldn’t hold her ale. At least, that’s what Kate had called her as she’d held back her hair and laughed. They’d been ‘mates’ ever since.

Dragging herself away from the comforting coolness of the bathroom tiles, Shannon crawled back to the bedroom. There were six territory managers coming for a sales conference today and she was supposed to be the friendly face that put them at ease whilst organising everything within an inch of its life. Very much like a jovial duck, she had to be serene on the surface, paddling like a madwoman underneath. How the hell was she going to do it?

The mirror confirmed that her face wasn’t looking friendly so much as frazzled. She dragged the hair band from her ponytail. It had been a good idea to leave a pile of them in a pot by the toilet for puking purposes. Chunks of carrot did not coordinate well with rose-gold highlights. She rubbed at her face to generate a bit of colour. Did she have time to reapply her make up? Probably best to get dressed first in case there was another wave of stomach lurches. She paused and put a hand to her stomach. Was that another one coming? No, she was okay.

Sitting on the side of the bed, Shannon tried for the second time to put on pantyhose, managing to get her feet in before flopping forwards as she summoned the energy to pull them up. How could she be so exhausted when she’d only been awake for thirty minutes? She felt across the quilt to where her mobile was and listened to Kate’s voicemail, upside-down. The surprise made her sit back up.

Wow. Kate was coming. And on her own. On any other weekend Shannon would have been psyched to have Kate just turn up like this. It was the kind of thing the old Kate would have done. They’d done some totally crazy stuff back when they’d worked together in London. Once, they’d gate-crashed a really posh New Year’s Ball. It had been a huge deal in a marquee, with free champagne and waiters laden with canapés. There were so many people there, they’d thought they’d never be discovered. Everything was going well until Kate whispered to the man she was dancing with that they hadn’t actually been invited. ‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘It’s my party.’

Shannon lay back and wriggled the pantyhose up over her hips. A couple of weeks ago it had been still warm enough to go without them – and her legs tanned at the first sight of sun – but now autumn had brought a cool breeze.