Infinitely slowly, Konstantin bent his head toward her, while she found herself, almost involuntarily, creeping up on her tiptoes to meet him; the space between them grew smaller and smaller, and she found her eyes closing as she bent herself into him . . .

“Konstantin? Konstantin?”

The voice was loud, harsh, and English, and they both immediately, guiltily, jumped apart.

Chapter 52

S queezing her hand tightly, Konstantin turned and vanished into the kitchen, not wanting whoever it was to spot them together, put two and two together, and make . . .

. . . well, four, he supposed. He smiled to himself and glanced back. Isla was still staring at him, a smile playing round her lips, those huge eyes staring at him. Christ, she gave him such a charge.

In the bright kitchen, full of people singing and carousing and flirting and eating their food, he was pleased to see, he came upon the young woman he’d met before at the statue. She leaned over to Isla—“You don’t mind if I borrow him, do you?”—smiling and showing very white teeth.

Taken aback, Isla frowned. “Uhm, no, why would I?” she said, her voice a bit shaky.

“Oh, just looked like you were getting cozy! Not surprised, such a handsome chap!”

Candace couldn’t help pushing buttons, and she was pleased to see Isla’s face fall at the thought of being obvious.

“Oh, I’m only teasing you,” she added meanly. “It’s clearly nothing. Now come with me, you gorgeous hunk.”

She threaded her arm through Konstantin’s.

“Lovely to see you again.”

Konstantin frowned. They were hardly friends. He turned round to look at Isla, but she was busying herself at the sink, desperately trying to hide her blushes had he but known it. Meanwhile, Candace was holding out her iPhone as if she was taping something.

“Listen, I just wondered how you felt about all the controversy about the statue?”

“What controversy?”

“From the council? They want it pulled down? Don’t you think it looks like another calamity for Mure?”

“They want to pull it down?!”

INDEED, IT HADN’T taken Candace much time to talk to the people around the statue who were complaining, and she certainly didn’t encourage them, no, not at all. But she might have asked them a little bit about whether they didn’t feel very let down that nobody had properly consulted the council, and didn’t this rather overrun planning, and well, what were they going to do about it, and wasn’t it a disgrace?

“It is a disgrace.” Malcy had nodded solemnly, being slightly bewitched by how pretty Candace was and failing to notice three of his granddaughters were running round the statue cheering and dancing.

And were they going to have a special committee meeting to figure out what they were going to do about it? They were, of course. The men in particular liked to look tough and decisive in front of the exceptionally pretty young woman from London. Candace was amazed. This couldn’t be going any better. Had none of them had any media training whatsoever?