EpilogueEleven months later …
Juliette awoke at three o'clock in the morning. The air in her bedroom was heavy and cloy. She unfurled herself from her duvet and watched the shadows dancing on the ceiling and the curtains flapping in the breeze from the open window. The past two nights had been uncomfortably hot, not unusual for August but still, it prevented her from sleeping. Juliette turned onto her side and then her stomach. Please let me sleep she thought, I do not want puffy eyes. But sleep eluded her, replaced instead by a growing excitement, a delicious anticipation of what the day was going to bring. But for now, she needed to lie back in dream land so she pushed all thoughts aside and thought instead of the calming effect of the sea, lulling her to sleep.
Her mind, however, was
