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By the time she got to her bedroom, Jasmine was overcome with tiredness. Her earlier overindulgence in champagne had left a sour cloying taste in her mouth and made her drowsy. Taking the Schiaparelli gown off carefully and placing it on its padded hanger, she decided to lie down on the bed for a few minutes before changing into her blue dress and going back to join the throng.
She woke from a deep sleep, lying on top of the sheets. She’d been dreaming. A baby, tightly wrapped in a papoose and left in her studio, evidently starving. She picked it up to cradle. Pointy teeth. Glowing red eyes. She dropped it in alarm and it scuttled away on four legs into the undergrowth, sideways like a crab.
Someone was shaking her. ‘Wake up, Jazz. Party’s over but we have to talk. I can’t possibly s
