Rome carefully removed the fused glass pieces from the kiln. Some of them had worked beautifully, some hadn’t. That was always the risk with fused glass. After working with glass in many different ways for too many years to count, he had a pretty good idea what worked and what didn’t, but fused glass was always a law unto itself. Sometimes a piece of coloured dichroic glass reacted weirdly with the normal glass and it didn’t melt as he thought it would but sometimes the resulting mistake was a lot better than he had intended.

The glass was still warm to the touch so he left them on a tray to cool down and returned his attention to the cut pieces of glass that he was preparing for the school mural.

Even with Freya helping him, he’d been worried about getting the piece finished in time. Now, without her there, he was going to have to work all hours to get it finished, which was why he’d left Dougie and Isaac after two beers and returned to the workshop to work on it some more.

He had been there for several hours, his back was aching and his eyes were getting tired, but as he was manning the table at the craft fair tomorrow, he knew he wouldn’t have time to do anything the next day.

He still couldn’t believe how badly it had all gone wrong with Freya. Dougie seemed to think Freya had feelings for Rome and he had thought that too, especially given how close they had been over the last few days. But if that was the case why would she quit her job and not even want to speak to him?

He tried to track back over the meal again. She had been disappointed with the orchid brooch he had given her. She had immediately tried to cover up her reaction but he had seen it. But that didn’t make sense, she loved his jewellery. She was always going on about how beautiful his brooches, bracelets and necklaces were, and had a large collection of ones he had given her or she had bought from him, insisting that she pay for them as she knew the amount of work that went into them. Why would she be disappointed by the orchid? Orchids were her favourite flower.

He was rubbish with women. He had no idea what was going on in their heads. Growing up he’d not had much experience with girls. Being so tall, even as a child, he had stuck out like a sore thumb in his class. He looked like he had been stretched he was so gangly and for some reason that meant that no one really wanted to be his friend. Apart from when they played basketball, then everyone wanted him on their team. He had taken refuge in books, spending many hours in the library reading non-fiction books about everything.

Fortunately he had grown into his body as a teenager but he never really dated. The girls who suddenly started to take interest in him were the same ones who had made Bella’s life hell when her parents had abandoned her. A fierce loyalty to his adopted sister meant he could never date any of them. But even the girls he did date, he had no idea what to say to them. Dougie seemed to have a way with the opposite sex that Rome could never achieve. He was a charmer and the women loved him. Dougie told Rome to chat to the girls like they were his friends but that was a lot harder than Dougie made it sound. None of them were interested in Star Trek, Lord of the Rings or the ancient history books he used to love to read. Girls weren’t interested in boys who could draw, they wanted boys who smoked or rode motorbikes. Equally, he had no interest in famous people and who was dating who according to the celebrity magazines the teenage girls of the island loved to read. He didn’t care about the latest fashions, which seemed to hold their attentions so avidly. Some boys would take the girls they were dating out on their parents’ boats. He’d take them down to Berry Point, his favourite part of the island to watch the dolphins and the seals, and they’d be bored after a few minutes. That set the pattern for many of his girlfriends – they soon got bored of him.

It didn’t seem to matter when he got older. Sex was apparently one thing he was good at. Who needed to endure awkward, tedious conversations when you could just kiss a girl and then take them to bed? He had spent his late teens and early twenties enjoying the physical side of relationships.

And then, at twenty-four, he’d met Paige. She was the first woman who he had clicked with on much more than a sexual level. She made him laugh. She even loved Lord of the Rings. When she had told him she was moving to London for twelve months with work, he’d known he couldn’t lose her. He had proposed to her a month after they’d first met and she’d said yes. For the next eighteen months their relationship had survived on weekend visits that primarily revolved around sex. They’d never gone past that physical honeymoon phase. As her time in London approached its end, Rome did worry whether they would be able to maintain a proper relationship once she came back to Hope Island for good. What if she got bored of him? What if sex and a mutual appreciation for Tolkien were the only things they had?

He’d never found out. She’d died shortly before she came back to Hope Island. And there had never been anyone he had remotely felt that connection with since.

Until Freya.

Freya was different to anyone he’d ever met. They’d spent two years working alongside each other every day, they’d spent almost every night together and their days off. They would talk and laugh and talk some more. He would never get bored spending time with Freya and it seemed she hadn’t got bored of him.

When he used to date other women, he’d find himself comparing them to Freya and being disappointed when they didn’t measure up. He wanted someone like Freya until he’d realised he didn’t want someone like Freya, he wanted Freya and that was problematic in itself. She was too important to lose, too important to screw it up with.

And look at how easily he had screwed it up. He’d given her a brooch that he thought she would love and now she was barely speaking to him.

He realised he was hammering the wooden frame he was making too hard, the nails poking through the other side.

‘Do you not have a home to go to?’

He looked up to see Freya standing at the foot of her stairs, dressed only in a tiny pair of shorts and a vest. Her hair was mussed up, as she had clearly been woken up, and her eyes were screwed up against the bright lights of the studio. He had never seen anyone look so sexy before in his life. He’d had no idea she had come back home. Surely that was a good sign. God, she was here and she was talking to him. Should he push her for answers, should he just carry on as normal?

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you were here. Did I wake you?’

‘It’s one o’clock in the morning, what do you think?’

He stared at her and he decided he’d just act normal. Maybe if she didn’t feel defensive or embarrassed around him then maybe things could go back to how they were before.

A thought occurred to him. Maybe he could persuade her to stay and help him and then when she was relaxed and happy working with the glass, maybe he could talk to her then.

‘Sorry. I’m just panicking slightly about getting this mural done in time. I thought I’d put a few extra hours in.” He deliberately picked up a blue piece of glass. “Go back to bed, I’ll be done soon.’

She edged closer as if she couldn’t stay away. He knew she was loving working on this project and would want to help even if she didn’t want to be with him. ‘Which bit are you working on?’

‘I’ve just finished the sky but I was thinking of making a start on the sea. I know you were going to do fused glass for that but I thought for ease I would just do larger curved pieces of silver and blue pieces and then solder them all together.’

She looked horrified at that prospect, just like he knew she would.

‘No, I’ll do the fused glass, don’t get rid of that bit, it will look amazing once it’s done. Here let me help you.’

He smirked at how easily she had caved. But he had to keep this light between them.

He arched an eyebrow at her. ‘In your pyjamas?’

‘You’re standing there with no top on, I don’t think you’re in any position to lecture me on my clothes.’

He grinned.

‘What would you do if I wandered around without a top on?’ she asked.

He dropped the hammer he was holding as that wonderful thought crashed into his mind and it narrowly missed his foot.

He bent to pick it back up. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Why is there one rule for health and safety for me but a completely different rule for you?’ Freya asked, picking up some of the small pieces of turquoise glass and layering it on top of the deep blue pieces ready for fusing.

He grabbed a silvery blue piece and started copper foiling that. ‘It’s nothing to do with health and safety, I just wouldn’t get any work done.’

She paused in her work and he cursed himself. If he’d been more awake he wouldn’t have said that.

She smirked. ‘Typical man.’

‘Hey, you upload pictures of me to Instagram every week, a lot of them are topless ones.’ He finished copper foiling the piece he was holding and placed it inside the frame. ‘I’ve seen the hashtag, “Feel Good Friday”. The implication is looking at my body makes people feel good. If anyone is guilty of sexual objectification, it’s you.’

She giggled and he loved the sound of it. Maybe they were going to be OK after all.

‘Sex sells, what can I say?’ she said.

‘So you wouldn’t object to posing half naked with one of our lamps and then we’ll see how many orders we get for it. Equal opportunities and all.’

‘I think we’ll leave the posing half naked for you, you have a much nicer body than I do,’ she said.

He stalled in his work. ‘You think I have a nice body?’

She looked at him and her cheeks coloured. Her eyes cast down his body appraising him. For a brief second, he saw her tongue slide out ever so slightly and lick her lips. When she looked up, her eyes were dark. She was attracted to him.

She shrugged. ‘You’ll do, I suppose.’

He burst out laughing.

‘The important thing is that fifty-six thousand followers on Instagram think you’re pretty hot so we’ll keep feeding their desires.’

‘I feel used.’

‘I’m sure you’ll get over it.’ She sprinkled tiny silvery shards of glass over the top of her blue layer of glass which would melt into tiny sparkles. Rome picked up the last piece in the section he was working on and started copper foiling that. ‘Did you hear there were apparently UFOs over St Mary’s last night?’

He laughed. ‘I didn’t hear that.’

‘You get all the gossip working in Eden’s pottery café. Everyone comes in there. A couple of fishermen saw them and apparently some of the islanders from St Mary’s saw them too. Golden lights in the sky that seemed to move without any kind of real purpose or direction. They were heading over in this direction and then they just disappeared.’

‘So we had aliens visiting Hope Island last night? I wish I’d known, I would have tried to sell them some stained glass windows for their spaceship.’

Freya giggled. ‘I never said aliens, I said UFOs. Unidentified Flying Objects. It could have been anything. But maybe the aliens saw your Instagram account and wanted to check out the hottie of Hope Island themselves.’

‘The hottie of Hope Island?’

Freya shrugged. ‘It could work.’

‘If you put that on any of our social media, me and you will be having words.’ He placed the piece of glass down inside the frame. ‘Right, I think I’ll leave the soldering for tomorrow as I have to be up early to do the craft fair. And I’ll stick your pieces in the kiln to be fused first thing in the morning. Thank you for your help.’

She shrugged. ‘No problem.’

She turned to walk back towards her flat but he caught her arm. She turned to look at him. ‘Come back to work with me.’

‘Oh god, I want to, I really do, this mural means so much to me but…’ she trailed off and he had no idea why. If it wasn’t the job, then it had to be him but they got on so well so what was it that made her want to stay away from him?

She picked up a piece of glass and held it lovingly in her fingers, caressing the smooth edges. ‘I know I’ve left you in a bit of trouble since I’ve left, with the school mural to finish and the other commissions. I’m not working with Eden tomorrow, her Sunday girl, Daisy, will be there so I have the day off. I could do the craft fair while you stay here and get on with the mural.’

He stared at her. ‘That would be a great help but I didn’t mean I wanted you to come back because I’m so busy, though I won’t deny I need the help. I want you to come back because I miss you. I miss chatting with you, laughing with you, working alongside you. I miss you, it’s as simple as that.’

She stared up at him and then suddenly she stepped closer, running her hand over his cheek. Desire slammed into his stomach at her gentle touch. God, he wanted her so much.

‘You’re making this so hard,’ Freya whispered before she stepped back.

He had no idea what that meant. ‘I’m not going to make it easy for you to walk away.’

She didn’t say anything for a moment before she took another step away from him. ‘The craft fair starts at eleven, doesn’t it? I’ll see you here at nine and we can go and set up together. Then you can come back here to work on the mural.’

‘OK.’ He watched her disappear back up the stairs leading to her flat. He had to figure out a way to get her to stay because losing her was not an option.