The bright sunlight bouncing off the clinical white walls and reflecting back in the glare of the Mediterranean sea was giving her a headache, despite her oversized sunglasses. It had been a long flight from Chicago to the South of France, and she still did not know what she was doing here. But it was too late for her to walk away now. She clutched her cellphone in one hand, ready to speed-dial her friend Amy in case there was a problem. She had told no one other than Amy exactly why she was here: she figured they would have talked her out of it long before she accepted the airline ticket and the directions to the apartment. She would have done the same if one of them had come to her with some crazy story about a free holiday offered by someone she had never met. Or maybe she wasn't crazy. The warm breeze fluttered her sheer chiffon skirt against her bare brown legs and blew teasingly down the back of her neck, where she had tied her long, tawny mane back for the long trip.
