Christmas at the Island Hotel - Jenny Colgan Page 0,72

on the whole seemed playful. She still wasn’t 100 percent sure they should have a dog in the dining room but would leave that for another day.

“Drop them off around three-ish?” she said. “And please, do stay.”

Konstantin snuck a glance at Isla. A party. It seemed like a pretty good opportunity, even though she had been pink and nervous all round him that morning. Although she was wearing lipstick, which was new. This was also a good sign. Then she noticed him staring at her lipstick and vanished, and the next time he saw her the lipstick had gone. That was a bad sign. Or was it? He wished it was just a little easier, like with girls who knew he lived in a palace. Or did he, though? He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so excited, so alive about something. The butterflies were in his tummy absolutely; he couldn’t wait for four o’clock to come. His scones were light as air all of a sudden. He couldn’t quite believe he now cared about the fluffiness of scones, but they reflected his mood and he ran around the kitchen like a puppy when the first lot came out, insisting everyone taste one and grinning his head off.

Isla had disappeared into the bathroom and was leaning her head against the cool wall tiles. How could she have been so stupid? He had spotted she was wearing lipstick straightaway and had looked like a wolf licking his chops. Oh God, was she making a terrible mistake? Was this a ridiculous thing to be doing? What if . . . what if he just wanted to get off with her then sod off back to Norway? He talked about Norway enough, didn’t he? He would be desperate to get back there. He wouldn’t want to be in a hotel kitchen forever—look how he’d organized the statue. He’d want to be with someone like that blond girl.

She looked at herself in the mirror. He was slumming it. She knew it. He was bored and looking for a dalliance. Of course he was. Then he’d go back to one of those nine-foot blond Scandinavian girls. It didn’t matter how often Iona had told her that her dark auburn hair and brown eyes was witch coloring and beautiful. She was still five foot nothing in her stocking feet, and all circles from her round face to her curly hair, round breasts, round bum, and short legs. Her mother had once called her Chorlton, after the round cartoon character, which she hadn’t understood until she was much older, and it had stung deeply ever since, though her mother had said, “Don’t be so sensitive, darling, I’m only joking.”

But here was her dilemma: if he was only messing about, and he almost certainly was . . . she still really, really liked him. Really liked him. So what would be the harm in going for it? Just this once?

She’d asked Iona in several frantic late-night WhatsApp chats so her mother couldn’t overhear, but of course Iona had a very straightforward attitude toward all of this and firmly believed she should get off with him—at the very least—regardless.

Life is long, she had said, wise in her twenty-four years. Do you really want to look back in ten years’ time when you’re surrounded by ankle biters and your tits are hitting the floor and nobody ever even looks at you and you’ve got a mum tum and a long stare and you stay in every night with sick on you like Flora? Do you really want to look back and think, Well, everything sucks but thank GOD I never got off with that really hot bloke that Christmas but instead spent Christmas entirely by myself?

When you put it like that, said Isla weakly. But what if he only wants to take advantage of me?

Take advantage of him! said Iona, knowing Isla’s weak spots irritatingly well. Think of it as practice!

Oh, said Isla, I don’t know . . .

Well, I do, said Iona. He looks like he’d be massive fun. All that energy, for starters.

Isla squeezed her eyes shut. Even to think about him like that . . . Oh goodness, she said.

Well exactly, said Iona. That’s what you want him to get you to say.

SO ISLA HAD washed her hair, even though that was pointless, as it had to be scraped back, and curled her eyelashes and put on makeup, and she’d seen him looking at her again and