Bella Roussel looked up at the tangerine sky as the sun set into the sea over Hope Island. She could look at that view a thousand times and never get bored. It never failed to make her smile either. Growing up on the tiny island she knew plenty of people that were immune to the beauty of the place – many of her school friends had grown up and moved away – but she was sure she would always love it. The Isles of Scilly were absolutely among her favourite places in the world. Even the fact that she was going home to a bowl of porridge for her dinner for the tenth meal in a row couldn’t dampen her spirits.

She turned into her road. Blossom Grove was a horseshoe of cottages in every colour of the rainbow facing out onto a little green. All the cottages were named after their house colours and with names like Sapphire, Emerald and Ruby Cottage she felt like she was living in a treasure trove. She loved this part of the island. Lots of new houses had popped up on the far side over the last few years, all uniform, red-brick identical houses with no soul, but here on her street were all the old houses that had been there for hundreds of years. They had lumps and bumps, uneven roofs, large windows and cobbled paths, some were thatched, some had slate tile roofs, but all of them were cute and characterful.

Blossom Grove was the most expensive part of the island, mainly because of the panoramic views from the top of the hill of the harbour, the long beautiful Buttercup Beach and the sea beyond. The only way she could afford the rent was because her uncle was the landlord. Even though Finn had assured her the rent was a fair amount, she knew in truth it should be double or even triple what she was paying. She hated the thought that he was losing money because he was renting to her. She knew he didn’t need the money. But the fact that he was family and she had just missed her rent payment for the first time made it worse.

It was a temporary measure, a little setback. And as of Monday she was going to get a fantastic new job working for the Umbrella Foundation. Yes, she had a panel interview to get through, and yes, the company was notoriously picky when it came to employing new staff, but she was absolutely the best person for the job and she would just have to prove it to them. Then she could pay back her uncle, hopefully before he noticed, pay off any other debts too and she might even be able to get some decent food in for once.

Mr Kemble from Jade Cottage waved at her as she walked past and she somehow knew there’d be some kind of cake from him sitting on her doorstep when she got there. Although no one, not even her family, knew of her dire financial situation, the cakes had started appearing a lot more regularly lately, as if somehow he knew that she didn’t have a penny to her name.

Dorothy from Indigo Cottage came running out of her gate as Bella passed, no doubt rushing off to play bingo at the local town hall or some other pressing social engagement.

‘Hello Bella, how are you doing? I haven’t seen you in a few days.’

‘That’s because you’re always so busy,’ Bella laughed. ‘You have a better social life than most of the people on this island.’

‘It’s good to keep busy, you can’t just stay in your house every night with your books.’

‘I like my books, they take me on adventures, introduce me to dashing heroes, fly me to foreign lands.’ Books also didn’t judge her or pick on her for being different. They were loyal, steadfast and always made her feel happy.

‘You need to be having adventures of your own; meet a nice young man.’

Bella smiled. Most of the people on the island wanted to see her married off. As far as they were concerned she needed a nice man to look after her, but Bella was more than happy on her own. She’d had a few boyfriends over the years but nothing serious. Relationships were just another way for Bella to get hurt and she would prefer to keep her heart intact.

‘Anyway, must dash,’ Dorothy said. ‘I have a salsa lesson starting in ten minutes. If I don’t see you before, good luck with the job interview on Monday.’

Bella stared at her in surprise. The only people she had told about her job interview were her family but somehow Dorothy had found out. Despite growing up on Hope Island, she’d never get used to how much everyone knew about everyone else’s business. There were around one and a half thousand people who lived on the island but many of them had changed over the years; a lot of the younger crowd had grown up and left, new people had moved there and, though she knew most of the people of the town by name, she’d never had any interest in who was dating who or what people were up to. Clearly the same couldn’t be said about the islanders and her business.

Dorothy bustled off down the hill before she suddenly turned back. ‘I hear the boss is a bit of a dish so maybe you could wear that pretty green dress to the interview. You never know, he might just sweep you off your feet.’

Bella shook her head affectionately. Dorothy wouldn’t be happy until she had a ring on her finger and probably five kids running around her feet.

She turned back towards her home. The little cul-de-sac looked idyllic and peaceful in the setting sun. The neighbours all took great pride over their gardens and everything was in its place, from the rows of terracotta pots brimming over with daffodils and tulips, to the hanging baskets that were a tumble of red daisy-type flowers. The blossom trees were just starting to bud and the box hedges were pristinely shaped. Bella felt almost untidy walking into her road in the clothes she had worn volunteering at the dog home that day. With her dirty jeans, tatty Converse and stained red hoodie, she stuck out like a sore thumb, but the neighbours fortunately loved her so she knew she got a pass.

As she walked up the hill, it took her a moment to realise there was something out of place in her little haven, as her eyes fell on the man huddled in a blanket outside her Strawberry Cottage.

She walked closer, noticing he looked even tattier than she did. His stubble was clearly three or four days old, his jumper had more holes in it than Swiss cheese and the blanket was filthy. He had a woolly hat pulled down over his head, shielding his face from hers, but she could see he was young, maybe around her age, and the hands that were clutching the blanket were large and strong. He had a sleeping bag with him and a rucksack and he clearly intended to spend the night there.

Bella frowned in confusion. Hope Island didn’t have a homeless problem and that wasn’t a naïve opinion; in all her twenty-seven years living on the island she had never seen a homeless person on the island before. And if he had somehow managed to get stranded on the island and had nowhere to stay for the night, why wasn’t he down in the little town where there were shops and cafés that were open until quite late? Rosa’s café was open throughout the night because of the fishermen who returned home in the very early hours of the morning. Rosa certainly wouldn’t turn anyone away who needed a free meal or a place to hang out until the next ferry left to go back to the main island of St Mary’s at five in the morning.

He looked up at her as she approached and she was struck by his deep indigo eyes. There was something about him, something so familiar, though she knew they had never met.

‘Do you have any spare change?’ he said as she stopped by her gate.

‘No I don’t,’ Bella said, honestly.

‘Right.’ He turned his attention back to the floor, clearly not believing her. If only he knew.

‘No I really don’t,’ Bella said, hating that he thought she was a liar. She never lied. She grabbed her purse from her bag, opened it up and tipped it upside down. Nothing came out. She gave it a good shake for extra proof and a smile twitched on his lips.

‘OK, OK, I believe you.’

He looked so forlorn and dejected and her heart went out to him.

‘Are you OK, do you not have anywhere to stay tonight?’

‘I don’t have anywhere to stay any night, tonight is no different,’ he said, simply.

‘Oh no, I’m sorry.’ She looked around. Hope Island was such an unusual place to pick to spend the night. The cost of the ferry from the main island of St Mary’s was not cheap. Why would a homeless person pay that just to sleep on the streets here? ‘What are you doing here on Hope Island, how did you get here?’

‘I came over to try to get work. They were looking for staff at the docks. I didn’t get the job. Now I’m stuck here until I can raise enough money to get the ferry back to St Mary’s.’

‘Well, you can’t stay here tonight,’ Bella said, gesturing to her gate.

He sighed and then got to his feet, grabbing his bag, and she realised how tall he was, towering nearly two feet above her tiny five-foot frame. ‘Of course, sorry, you don’t want trash outside your door.’

He made to leave but she grabbed his arm, her fingers making contact with solid muscle underneath all the layers.

‘I meant that the wind rips over this hill like a hurricane and with the cold night temperatures, you’d freeze to death. Why don’t you come in, you can sleep on my sofa tonight and then tomorrow I’m sure if you explain the situation to the ferry captain he would let you travel back for free. Bob is lovely; he’d never leave you stranded out here.’

He stared at her incredulously. ‘You’re inviting me in? To stay?’

‘Of course. I don’t have much food to give you, but there’s probably some cake on my doorstep and I have a log burner which gets very cosy; you’d be very warm.’

She walked up her path to the front door and, as she fumbled in her bag for her key, she knew he was still watching her from the gate.

* * *

Isaac watched her root around in her bag and a jumble of tissues, old receipts, hair clips, a tattered old book, a ferry pass, a scarf, a hat, sweet wrappers, and a broken umbrella all appeared as she tried to find her keys.

Her long red hair was tied back in a ponytail, she had a large smudge of dirt across her cheek that she either didn’t know or didn’t care about and the baggy clothes she was wearing were shapeless, but there was something very pretty about her. Her eyes were huge and an unusual shade of clover green and she had a sweetness about her that made him smile.

He had been doing this for over three years and not once had he ever been invited in to stay at someone’s house. He had been told to get lost, had the police called on him, had stuff thrown at him, occasionally some people had given him food, but never this.

The girl clearly had no regard for her own safety and that alarmed him. Maybe growing up on a small island had made her naïve to the dangers of the world. Part of him wanted to refuse her kind offer just because he didn’t like the idea of her putting herself in danger like that, but here was the perfect opportunity to get to know her better and that had been the whole point of camping outside her door in the first place.

He stepped up behind her and she flashed him a bright smile. ‘I’m Bella by the way,’ she said, though he already knew that.

‘Isaac,’ he said instinctively just as a motorbike zoomed past at the end of the road, piercing the quiet of the island with an ear-splitting roar. He cursed himself; he always gave a fake name if anyone asked and his real name had just fallen from his lips.

‘Sorry, did you say Zach?’

He grabbed the opportunity with both hands. ‘Yes, I’m Zach,’ he lied.

Bella accepted this and let him into her home, scooping up a small Tupperware container as she stepped inside. She closed the door behind him and he felt like he was crowding her in the tiny hallway; she was almost half his size and for the first time he saw a glimmer of fear at having him so close. He tried to back up but was met with a solid wall behind him.

‘You could have a shower if you want,’ Bella said, discreetly taking a step away from him. He knew he didn’t smell, having had a shower in his own home that morning, and he cursed that their close proximity would probably lead her to smell his body wash and deodorant. He really hadn’t thought this through. ‘I have some clothes upstairs you could change into. An old boyfriend left some things here; I never did get rid of them. They might be too small for you as you’re so big. . .’ she trailed off, embarrassed, and he had to suppress the smirk when her cheeks flamed red. ‘But they’re clean and dry and don’t have holes in.’

‘That would be great,’ he said. He needed a few minutes to decide how he was going to play this and what he could say to her safely without giving the game away. Normally, people who were kind enough to give him food didn’t hang around to chat with him for too long. Now he had a whole evening ahead of him probably filled with probing questions and he needed to work out how he was going to answer them.

‘Top of the stairs and the bathroom is the first door on the left. Clean towels are in the cupboard. I’ll be up shortly to dig the clothes out for you.’

‘Thank you.’

She smiled again, her whole face lighting up, and he stepped past her and went upstairs. He closed the bathroom door and leaned against it with his hands. This was a mistake.

As CEO of the Umbrella Foundation, one of the leading homeless charities in Britain, he wanted to make sure that everyone who applied for a job with the foundation had compassion for the homeless and held that at the heart of every decision they made at work. Being the CEO of two other big technology companies meant that lots of people used the Umbrella Foundation as a stepping stone to get into the other two companies or to get to him. He wanted to make sure he had the right people working for the foundation so he always tested them like this to see what their reaction was to having a homeless person right outside their door. A lot of his colleagues thought it was madness, but it was important to him. It also helped to remind him what the homeless population went through on a daily basis, the judgemental attitude, the abuse and how hard it was for them. It was very easy to forget that sometimes when he was living in his large house overlooking the sea or in his old penthouse apartment in London.

He had read Bella’s application and liked what he saw. He had expected that she would be one of the few to give him money or even food. He hadn’t expected this.

He would talk to her; this was the best chance to get to the bottom of what happened at her old job because, having met her, he somehow knew she would be the last person in the world that would embezzle thousands of pounds’ worth of money.

* * *

Bella poured the last of the porridge oats into two bowls and sighed. She had worked out she had enough to last her until Sunday for breakfast and she could always invite herself round to her sister’s house for dinner. Eden wouldn’t mind and then she had the interview on Monday. Quite what she would do once the interview was over she didn’t know. Even if she got the job she wouldn’t be starting straight away and then she would have to wait a month until her first pay cheque arrived. But at least if she knew she had guaranteed money coming in she would feel better about getting a loan off Eden or Rome.

She hadn’t liked to ask before; their family had already given her so much. But things were starting to get a bit desperate. Right now she couldn’t even face them. She had avoided the Friday family dinner the night before with some lame excuse because she knew the conversation would inevitably turn to work and her finances and she couldn’t bear to see the looks of sympathy and offers of help. Her sister Eden would come up with a hundred different plans to help her out, every one as flighty and ridiculous as the next, while her brother Rome would be more practical and throw money at her, telling her that she never needed to worry about paying him back. Her aunt and uncle would probably insist she move back in with them, ‘just until you sort yourself out dear, then you don’t need to worry about money’, and then they’d proceed to fatten her up with home-cooked meals, cakes and delicious puddings. And while that sounded wonderful and a huge part of her needed that unconditional love right now, she valued her independence above anything else. She was already humiliated enough over her last job ending so spectacularly badly – not being able to get another job and being destitute was something she would prefer her family not to know about.

She heard the shower start upstairs and the noise of the pipes made her jump. She wasn’t used to having someone in her space. She liked being on her own and now suddenly she had invited a complete stranger into her home to stay the night. What was she thinking? Rome would have a fit if he knew. He was so protective over her, they all were, and this would not sit well with him.

Right on cue there was a knock on the door. Somehow she knew it would be Rome. He had texted her earlier and she hadn’t replied. She had been going to come up with a suitable response later that night, but clearly he wasn’t going to wait. How on earth would she explain the strange man that was currently probably stark naked just a few feet from where they stood? Rome had most likely come round to see why she had missed dinner the night before. She could make some excuse. She only hoped he didn’t know that she had missed her rent because she had no excuse for that. Another knock came on the door; clearly Rome wasn’t going to just go away. Bella stared at the bowls of porridge and was quickly shoving them inside a cupboard when he knocked again.

She went to the door, plastering a smile on her face before she answered. She could pretend everything was normal.

‘Rome,’ she said, her cheeks aching from the huge smile as she subtly blockaded his entrance into the house. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

There. That was normal and not at all obvious that she had been hiding in the kitchen hoping he would go away.

Though Rome didn’t look convinced.

He stepped forward, all six foot five of him, towering over her as he moved to give her a hug.

‘Hey Bella,’ he kissed her on the cheek. ‘We missed you yesterday, is everything OK?’

‘Of course.’ She leaned into him, glad of the comfort for a moment and as she wrapped her arms round him, he used that moment of weakness to slip past her into the house.

Damn him.

She watched him as he took his coat off. Rome Lancaster was tall, muscular, athletic and could easily have walked straight off the catwalk. All the Lancasters were ridiculously good looking with their dark hair and blue eyes. As a Roussel, she had somehow missed that gene.

She heard a clonk upstairs and Rome looked up, following the noise.

‘I was just going out actually,’ Bella said, loudly, trying to distract him. He turned back to look at her, his eyes casting down to her bare feet. ‘Well, in a few minutes.’

‘That’s alright, I won’t stay long. I just wanted to make sure you were OK.’

‘Of course I am,’ she said, breezily. ‘What makes you think I’m not OK?’

He cocked his head slightly in that way he had when he was studying someone. He had that way of commanding honesty from people. Fortunately for her, she was immune to his powers.

‘Well, let me see, you look like you’ve lost a ton of weight, you cancelled dinner plans last night because you were supposedly out but I stopped by on my way home and you were fast asleep on the sofa. Your voice has that note of desperation and bravado to it as if you are pretending everything is just fine and you missed the rent on this place yesterday for the first time in… well, forever. So are you OK?’

She felt herself deflate, the smile fading from her face. He knew her too well.

‘I’ll get Uncle Finn his money; you don’t need to worry about that. I’m just having a tiny setback.’

He stared at her. ‘Do you honestly think I’m here because of the money? I’m worried about you, we all are.’

‘You don’t need to be. I’m fine,’ Bella said. All her family fussed over her and though she knew it was out of love for her she did find it a bit suffocating sometimes.

He strode into the kitchen and opened the fridge, which was completely devoid of any food. He started opening cupboards and they told the same story.

‘I haven’t had a chance to go grocery shopping for a while.’

He turned to face her, his arms folded across his chest. He looked furious. ‘What’s going on, Bella?’

She sighed. ‘I may have lied when I said that I was still working for Magic Wishes. The company went under after Clara’s embezzlement went public. No one was willing to donate money to the charity any more and I don’t blame them.’

‘That was three months ago,’ he said, his voice getting louder as he clearly got more angry. ‘What have you been doing for money since then?’

‘I’ve struggled to get work ever since. I think a lot of people think that I had something to do with stealing the charity’s money; that somehow I knew what Clara was doing.’

‘That’s bollocks. Everyone on this island knows what kind of person you are and would never think you are capable of doing something like that. You are one of the most honest, genuine people I’ve ever met.’

Her heart filled with love for him. He never doubted her for a second. Tears filled her eyes at his unwavering love and loyalty.

‘So are you telling me you’ve not had any money coming in for three months?’ Rome almost shouted.

‘I’ve had savings, I’ve been OK.’

He spotted the packet of porridge. ‘You’re having porridge for dinner.’

‘I like porridge,’ Bella lied. She would be glad if she never had to see another bowl again.

He looked around her lounge. ‘You’ve sold your TV and your stereo?’

‘Admittedly things have been a little bit tight lately.’

‘Why didn’t you come to us?’ Rome shouted. ‘You should have come to me. I would always give you money, you know that.’

‘I don’t want your money Rome, you work bloody hard for that money,’ Bella shouted back.

‘And it’s mine to do with what I want and I would much rather spend it on my family than buy material things that hold no value. I think you should come and stay with me for a few days. I can help you, at least until you get back on your feet. And I’ll make damn sure you eat something better than bloody porridge.’

God, that was the last thing she wanted.

‘I’m not moving in with you. I’m fine here.’ Bella dashed angry tears out of her eyes.

‘The hell you are.’

A cough at the door of the lounge drew both their attention. There was Zach, completely wet and naked apart from a towel wrapped round his waist. Without his hat, she noticed the blond curly hair that was swept back from his face.

Good god, he was glorious. He was so big and toned. His stomach was sculpted and he had that delicious V-shape that disappeared just below the towel. His chest was smooth and he had a tattoo that curled from his chest and over his shoulder, a black curly pattern that looked like it might be Celtic in origin.

He was literally dripping and Bella suddenly had an overwhelming desire to lick him dry. Any coherent thought had been wiped clean from her mind.