Freya Greene stared in wonder at the glorious sight of Rome Lancaster naked from the waist up. They were experiencing the first really hot day of the year with temperatures apparently hotter than Miami. Freya spent quite a bit of time working outside during the course of her job, and she loved it, but even she hadn’t been looking forward to working outside in such sweltering conditions today. Now, however, she had changed her mind.
Freya and Rome had been working alongside each other all morning on the roof of a three-storey townhouse overlooking Buttercup Beach. They were replacing the old skylight with one of Rome’s beautiful stained glass creations. They had chatted, laughed as they always did, and then suddenly Rome had wiped the sweat off his head and stripped off his t-shirt without any kind of warning. After almost two years of working alongside him, she had seen him topless before, but not as many times as she would like. And as winter had dragged on into a relatively cool spring, his wonderful body had been well and truly kept under wraps. Now it was out for her to enjoy.
He was so broad and muscular, but not from working out in a gym, just years of hard labour instead. His stomach was toned and showed the faint lines of a six-pack. His chest was smooth and hairless though there was a thin trail of dark hair leading from his belly button that disappeared into his shorts. His arms were so strong. Safe. With his dark, curly hair, soft grey eyes and dark stubble that covered his jaw, he was beautiful.
She felt a bit bad ogling her best friend like this, but if his fifty-six thousand followers on Instagram could enjoy his body then it didn’t hurt to look for a few seconds surely.
Except it had been a good minute, maybe two, and to her horror she realised that Rome had noticed her staring.
Embarrassed, she took a step back, and toppled straight off the roof.
She plummeted head first down the side of the building and let out an ear-piercing scream, but she fell only a few feet before the safety harness she was wearing kicked in and she was jerked to a halt. Rome had made a big fuss about her wearing one and though at the time she hadn’t thought it was necessary, right now she had never been so grateful for his overprotectiveness.
She swung like a pendulum for a few seconds, her heart racing in her chest as she tried to grab onto the scaffolding to pull herself back up, but it was just out of her reach and the swinging motion of her body made it even more difficult.
Rome was suddenly there, leaping onto the scaffolding from the roof, and as she swung back towards him he wrapped his arms round her back and dragged her up. She reached out to grab him too, wrapping her arms round him, which made it even more awkward for him, and as he pulled her to safety, he stumbled back himself and hit the platform with her lying on his chest, his arms tight around her.
For a few seconds, Freya felt only relief, her body roaring with adrenaline as she clung to him, but then she realised her cheek was resting on his warm bare chest; how fantastic he smelt, that gorgeous tang of the ocean, coupled with that wonderful clean sandalwood smell. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and relished in the feel of lying on his chest, feeling his heart hammering against her cheek and how utterly right it felt to have his arms wrapped round her.
‘Jesus Christ, you scared the crap out of me,’ Rome said, shattering her moment of bliss. ‘What the hell were you doing just staring into space? You should have been paying more attention.’
He slid his hand up her back to cup her neck and all words she had wanted to say to defend herself stalled in her throat. It was such an unconscious gesture, but for her it meant the world.
‘It was just the heat,’ Freya said, lamely, and then winced. She was not a girl who fainted in the heat and telling Rome that the hot weather had made her feel funny made her cringe.
‘It is getting hot up here,’ Rome admitted, begrudgingly. ‘Maybe we should take a break for a little while. Get some lunch, come back to it this afternoon when it gets a bit cooler.’
‘Sounds good,’ Freya said, though she made no attempt to move and Rome didn’t relinquish his hold on her either. She wondered, not for the first time, whether he was starting to have feelings for her too. There had been many such gestures over the last few months and more frequently over the last few weeks: little looks, comments, touches. She was so confused by it all. One minute she was convinced he had feelings for her and the very next it seemed those feelings weren’t there at all, almost as if he had simply flicked a switch and turned them off. If only she had that luxury of turning off her inappropriate feelings for her best friend.
In an attempt to distract herself from how wonderful it felt to be lying on Rome’s chest, she shifted her attention to the view. From up here she could see almost the whole of Hope Island, the tiny town with its cute little shops, cafés and windy lanes and almost all of the seven hundred and eighty nine houses. She smiled to herself at that little factoid Rome had told her and the fact that she had remembered it. Stretching out almost the entire length of the island was Buttercup Beach with its golden sands and crystal blue waters and beyond that, out in the sea were the shadows of the other Scilly Isles. Hope Island was the hilliest of all the islands and even though it was the most westerly, on a clear day you could even see the cliffs and hills of Land’s End. She squinted at the horizon which was a smudge of purple haze and tried really hard not to focus on the feel of Rome’s fingers at the back of her neck.
Eventually, when her heart had slowed and she had probably laid on him for a lot longer than was socially acceptable in these circumstances, Freya lifted her head to look at him.
‘Thank you for saving me.’
‘Well the harness did that, I just made a fumbled attempt to grab you and ended up falling on my arse. Let’s go get something to eat.’
Freya nodded and carefully climbed off him and then stood up. He stood up too, towering over her.
‘Are you OK? Are you hurt?’ he asked, his hand on her shoulder, his touch searing against her skin.
‘No, I’m fine. A little shaken but I’m OK.’
‘A little shaken? I don’t think my heart will stop pounding for several hours yet.’ He leaned forward and detached her harness from the roof, reattaching it to the scaffolding so she could climb down. It was something she was perfectly capable of doing herself but she sensed he was in protective mode now and probably wouldn’t even allow her back on the roof later that afternoon, or at least not unless she was attached to two or three safety ropes just in case.
He swung himself over the side of the scaffolding to the ladder, moved down a few steps and then waited for her, clearly wanting to make sure she could manage the ladder without hurtling to her death. She smiled at him, wanting to take care of her. Even though she hated to play the damsel in distress, there was something wonderful about him looking out for her like this.
She climbed onto the ladder with ease and, with him close behind her, they both made their way down the ladder.
Once down on the ground she turned to face him and saw his eyes were still shadowed with concern.
‘See, I didn’t die.’
‘Not from lack of trying,’ Rome grumbled, unhooking them both from the scaffolding.
She watched as he pulled his t-shirt back on and then wandered over to the van to put away their tools and lock it up. Not that anything would go missing parked in the private driveway of the house. It was very unlikely that anything would go missing if the van was left wide open in the middle of the town. Hope Island just wasn’t that sort of place. There really was no crime on the island, beyond the occasional teenager getting a bit drunk and disorderly, the crime rate was almost non-existent. Everyone looked out for each other here. It was one of the things that Freya loved about the place.
Once the van was secured, Freya and Rome walked down the drive and headed towards the high street, through the tiny lanes, past the whitewashed cottages with blue shutters or houses painted in bright colours, the little shops that sold cute seaside paraphernalia and Rosa’s where they’d end up two or three times a week for coffee, great food and wonderful chat with her friends.
‘What were you thinking about up there?’ Rome gestured back to the roof. ‘You were standing there with this big smile on your face. You looked so happy there for a while, before you tried to kill yourself. I thought that whatever it was that had made you so happy, I wanted some of it too.’
But that was the problem. He didn’t want it. Freya was in love with her best friend and it was that feeling that made her so happy. Sometimes it was hell, but a lot of the time, working with Rome, talking to him, spending time with him, was complete heaven. But despite what he’d just said, he didn’t want that kind of happiness, he wasn’t looking for love.
After his fiancée had died six years before, he had shut himself off from ever finding love again.
That didn’t stop him dating though. There had been too many women to count over the years. And after his mini brush with fame the year before, the queue of women wanting a piece of him had got even longer. But not once had anything ever happened between Freya and him. Though if he wasn’t attracted to her, why did she keep catching him staring at her in ways that went far beyond anything that could be classed as friendly?
She knew she wasn’t a typical girly girl. She rarely wore a dress, preferring jeans and shirts. She lived in her Timberland boots. Her blonde hair was short, cut in an elfin style and streaked with blue, and she had a tiny nose piercing. If Rome’s type was girly and feminine then she didn’t stand a chance.
She realised he was still waiting for an answer. ‘Just… excited to see the window when it’s in. You’ve worked so hard on this one and I can’t wait to see the owners’ faces when they see it.’
He smiled, swinging his arm round her shoulders in a way that was more brotherly than anything else. ‘I love how passionate you are about our company. You’ve always been my little cheerleader. The company wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful if it wasn’t for you.’
‘You have no idea how crazy talented you are, the success is down to you, not me,’ Freya protested.
‘The work you’ve been doing over the last few months has been outstanding,’ Rome insisted. ‘I’ve been so impressed with how quickly you’ve picked it all up. You really do have a natural talent for this stuff. The success is ours; don’t doubt yourself.’
‘Does that mean you’ve forgiven me for posting that video on Twitter?’
He laughed and shook his head. ‘I’m never forgiving you for that.’
When she’d started working for him, she’d wanted to increase his social media presence. He’d had no interest in it so she had taken care of it. Every day she would post a picture of one of his stained glass pieces or a work in progress on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and after a while it started to have an impact. The tweets would get retweeted, the Facebook posts would be shared and they’d started to see a real increase in the number of enquiries and sales. And then, the year before, she had posted a mini video of Rome working on a piece. It had been a hot day and he’d been working topless but Freya had mainly wanted people to see a different side to the company, to see how a piece was made. She hadn’t expected the reaction that it got. Within twenty-four hours, it had been retweeted over four thousand times. The comments hadn’t been about the piece he had been working on or the beauty of the stained glass as was usually the case, they’d all been about him and most of them were really X-rated. Freya had been horrified and knew that Rome would be furious so she hadn’t told him. But the sales over the next few days went through the roof and in the end she’d had to admit the truth.
He’d found it hard to believe that one fifteen-second video of him half naked would have such an impact on sales. So to prove it to him she took a photo of him, topless, holding one of his stained glass panels. The piece had sold within minutes of her posting it on Instagram and by the end of the day they had received orders for fifty more. In the next six months, profits for Through the Looking Glass had gone up by over a hundred percent.
Rome had become an mini internet sensation and, while he thought the whole thing was ridiculous and insisted that most of the time she stick to posting pictures of the pieces and not him, she had compromised that she’d post pictures or videos of him once a week under the hashtag, ‘Feel Good Friday’. She had to give the fans what they wanted.
They walked into Pots and Paints, the little pottery painting café owned by Eden, Rome’s sister and Freya’s best friend. They seemed to end up there for lunch most days. Eden would quite often join them if she wasn’t too busy but as the long summer school holidays had just started, she had been rushed off her feet the last few days.
Eden waved at them as they came in and then turned her attention back to some children as she showed them how to use the templates on the side of the mugs they were painting.
Rome walked behind the counter, served two people who were waiting for coffees and then turned his attention to Freya. ‘What would you like to eat?’
She smiled at how easily he switched from working on a roof, to patiently teaching her how to work with stained glass, to serving behind the counter at his sister’s café. Rome was solid, dependable and generous with his time and money. Some of the many things she loved about him.
‘That salmon sandwich looks good.’
Rome nodded and slipped it onto a plate for her before grabbing a bacon and brie sandwich for himself and putting it into the sandwich toaster. He proceeded to make a strawberry milkshake for her and a mango smoothie for himself and then pulled out a twenty-pound note from his pocket and put it in the till, even though Freya knew that was way too much to cover the cost of the lunch, especially when Eden insisted on feeding them for free.
Eden joined him behind the counter. ‘Did you just pay for that?’
‘Of course not; I know you don’t like me paying for my lunch.’
‘You bought this place for me, that gives you free lunch and cakes for the rest of your life.’
‘I know, which is why I always come in here. I’m not going to turn down free food. Is Clare still on holiday?’
Freya smiled at how quickly he had changed the subject.
‘Yes, but she’s back next week,’ Eden sighed. ‘Mum is going to help me for a few days, though I know she doesn’t really have time.’
‘Maybe Dougie can give you a hand,’ Rome said, nonchalantly, though Freya knew there was nothing casual about that remark. Eden had fallen in love with Dougie, who had been her childhood best friend when they were teenagers. And then he’d emigrated to America with his parents. Despite being thousands of miles apart, they’d stayed in touch and he visited regularly and that love Eden had felt for him had never gone away. He was supposed to be moving back to the island in the next few months, something that Eden didn’t know whether to be delighted or upset about. ‘When does he get here?’ Rome asked.
‘The weekend.’ Eden couldn’t hide her grin at the prospect of him coming. ‘But he won’t have time to help me. He’s only here for two weeks and he’ll be out looking at houses every day. Anyway, I’m doing OK. How are you getting on at Oakwood House?’
‘Fine, we’ll be done today. That’s if Freya doesn’t kill herself first,’ Rome said, pointedly. Clearly he wasn’t going to let it go.
Freya rolled her eyes and took her sandwich and milkshake and went and sat down in the window while Rome served up his toastie and gave Eden a rundown of how Freya had thrown herself off the roof. He came and joined her a few minutes later.
He took a bite of his sandwich and glanced out the window at the little town square and the multi-coloured bunting that fluttered in the gentle sea breeze.
‘So tomorrow is two years since you came to work for me,’ Rome said and took another bite of his sandwich.
She watched him in surprise. She hadn’t expected him to remember the date. She knew it was exactly two years. The date had been etched on her memory as it was the day she had been supposed to get married to Jake.
After finding her fiancé in the throes of passion with Lizzie, his best friend, two days before the wedding, Freya had fled the little village she had lived in with her fiancé and ended up going on her honeymoon alone, heading to the Scilly Isles where she had spent many weeks on childhood holidays.
On the day that was supposed to be her wedding day, she had headed over to Hope Island on a day trip, wondering what she was going to do with her life. She had no home to return to, no job as she had worked with her fiancé, no friends because all her friends were his friends and no idea what she was going to do next. All she did know was that she was never going to let herself get into that situation again, where her whole life had centred around the man she loved.
She had wandered into Rome’s shop and been struck by the complete beauty of his stained glass panels, pictures, mirrors, lamps and boxes. She remembered the sun glinting off the coloured glass in a way that seemed ethereal and magical, as if she had stepped into a different land. She had also been struck with what a state the studio was in, mirrors stacked behind lamps, panels upside down, all the stock in some kind of higgledy-piggledy mess. Rome hadn’t even noticed she was there, so intent on his work at the back of the shop that she had quietly wandered deeper between the shelves, admiring each piece.
Then he’d got up and left the studio, unwittingly locking her inside. When he came back several hours later, he’d found the shop had been completely reorganised, with definite sections for each of the products, which were now all displayed beautifully in the best places to catch the light. He had jokingly offered her a job and she had taken it, even though it wasn’t really on offer. Unable to backtrack, Rome had offered her a few hours a week, which had quickly extended to a full-time job. She spent the night in the empty flat above the shop since she’d already missed the last ferry off the island and never left. She quickly fell in love with the beauty of the island, the friendliness of the islanders and just how peaceful the place was. Since then, not only had Rome become her boss, he had taught her everything he knew about stained glass. But more than that, he’d become her best friend. He had saved her in more ways than one.
‘I knew it was two years, I just didn’t expect you to remember our anniversary,’ Freya teased.
‘I first met you on the fourth anniversary of Paige’s death. Sadly, I don’t think I’ll ever forget that date.’
Freya’s smile fell from her face. ‘Oh God, Rome, I’m so sorry. I never knew that date was so significant to you.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s fine. We were only together eighteen months, she passed away six years ago. I will always miss her and I think I will always carry a piece of her in here but I promise I’m not about to break down in tears because the anniversary of her death is tomorrow. I remember the day me and you met because Paige and I once had a jokey conversation about what we would do if the other died. Paige told me that she would expect me to grieve for her for a certain amount of time and then I had to move on, find someone else, fall in love again. I asked her how long would she expect me to grieve over her and she told me that as she was so brilliant and sexy and funny then four years should do it.’
Freya smiled. She’d never met Paige but, from what she’d heard, she’d been sweet, kind and had a brilliant sense of humour.
‘That day you walked into my shop, I’d been down at the graveyard and I told her that even though it had been four years, I still wasn’t over her. That nothing had changed, that it still hurt. Every day I’d wake up in our bed and I’d miss her. I’d go to work alone and sit in my studio and I couldn’t seem to snap out of it. I… slept with far too many women in an attempt to move on but none of it made any difference. I told her something needed to change and I couldn’t see what to do about it. Then I got back to my studio and my whole life changed. There you were, dusting my shelves, rearranging my shop and eating my sandwich.’
Freya laughed. ‘I was hungry.’
‘I didn’t realise it at the time, but you were the change I needed. I looked forward to coming to work, the nights that you came round to my house for dinner made me feel alive again. You’ve turned my business around, made it a huge success, and I will forever be grateful that I locked you in my studio that day. You make me laugh so much and for four years I never laughed at all. You literally saved me.’
Freya swallowed the lump in her throat, not wanting to tell him that she felt the same way. Was this his way of finally telling her he had feelings for her too? She thought back to the way he had held her after she had fallen off the roof. She remembered when he had cancelled a date the week before so he could look after her when she was ill. In fact, the number of women he dated had been getting fewer and fewer lately; he seemingly preferred to spend time with her instead. Was he finally falling in love with her too? Freya had never imagined that he would feel the same way befor. . .
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