by Holly Martin
‘Let’s get out of here.’
She nodded and he released her from his coat and took her hand, practically marching out of the crowd as the last firework exploded in the sky and a momentary silence fell over them before they all erupted into cheers. Rome didn’t even falter in his stride.
Suddenly Cal was in front of them, blocking their path.
‘Where are you going? You can’t leave yet. They’re about to announce the winner.’
Rome gritted his teeth, resisting saying that he didn’t care. Cal had worked his arse off to get the float ready and showcase Rome’s glass work. He owed it to him to at least cheer him on if he did win.
He glanced at Freya with exasperation and she smirked at him.
The mayor was back on the podium applauding the fireworks and again thanking all those involved. Finally they got on to the judging of the floats.
‘The judges and I have deliberated long and hard over the floats this year and who should walk away with the coveted trophy. This year the standards were higher than ever but we have reached a decision.’
The mayor paused for dramatic effect and Rome resisted shouting to him to get on with it.
‘In third place is…’
Third place? Did anyone care? He just wanted to get out of there and spend the rest of the night making love to his best friend.
‘… Polperro with their basking shark float.’
There were cheers and claps and the representatives from Polperro went up to receive their flowers and wine.
Finally the claps died down and the mayor moved on to second place, while all Rome could think was if they had had left before the fireworks, they’d be back in their hotel room by now, probably hot, naked and sweaty.
‘Second place goes to…’
Rome let out an audible sigh of frustration and Freya giggled next to him, leaning into him. He wrapped his arm around her, kissing her forehead.
‘Tresco with their mermaid float.’
There were great whoops of delight from the representatives of the tiny island as they went up to collect their prizes. Finally the crowd quietened down.
‘And the judges were unanimous about the winner, who brought us something we’ve never seen before. I’m sure you’ll all agree that Hope Island and their float of glass dolphins is a well-deserved winner.’
Cal cheered and whooped and, as Rome turned to congratulate him, Cal ushered both him and Freya and the rest of the team up onto the podium.
Rome shuffled to the back of the group, not keen to be in the limelight, but given his size, he still towered over the top of everyone else.
Cal took the mic, even though the mayor didn’t seem keen to give it up.
‘Thank you so much, this was months of hard work and planning and I’d just like to say a big thank you to all my team who made it all possible, but especially I want to thank Rome and Freya from Through the Looking Glass, who painstakingly measured, cut and soldered every piece of glass together. If you loved the float, please check out their website, Through the Looking Glass dot com, for more beautiful glass pieces.’
Rome smiled with gratitude for Cal.
There were claps and cheers for Rome and Freya and Rome ducked his head in embarrassment.
The mayor subtly wrestled the mic back from Cal. ‘Thank you. I’m sure we’ll all agree that the float was one of the best we’ve seen here for a long time.’
The mayor handed Cal a small silver cup which seemed a bit of a let-down after all the pomp and ceremony, though Rome knew that the fact they had won was a big coup for Cal, the glass studio and the island.
‘First prize also comes with this hamper of food and wine and a stay in the Under the Sea themed suite at the Bay View Hotel tonight.’
The crowd ooohed predictably as the mayor handed over a voucher and one of the mayor’s staff struggled on stage with a very heavy hamper.
Cal took the voucher and immediately passed it to Rome with a wink. Rome took it without hesitation.
A few more words of thanks and Rome, Freya and the rest of them were allowed to leave the podium.
Cal moved over to Rome and shook his hand as the mayor continued to talk up on the podium.
‘Congratulations,’ Cal said.
‘Thank you and you too. And thanks for the mention of Through the Looking Glass.’
‘My pleasure.’ Cal eyed the voucher in Rome’s hand. ‘Now go and enjoy yourselves.’
Rome grinned, not prepared to deny or acknowledge what he and Freya would be getting up to that night, though if Cal had seen them kissing he would have a fair idea.
Cal dived into the hamper and handed Rome a bottle of champagne and Rome laughed and took it.
‘You ready to call it a night, Freya?’ Rome asked.
Freya fake-yawned. ‘It has been a long day.’
‘Yeah whatever,’ Cal laughed. ‘I saw the two of you during the fireworks. I’m happy for you that you’ve finally got together.’
Rome didn’t say anything, just nodded then took Freya’s hand and walked out of the park. The walk soon turned into a run until they were practically sprinting back towards the hotel.
They managed to slow down and walk into reception but Freya was giggling helplessly as he handed over the voucher and got the room key.
They quickly went up to the twin room they had checked into earlier and grabbed their bags and then went back in the lift up to the top floor.
Rome put the key in the lock, let them in, dumped their bags and the champagne and immediately pulled Freya into his arms, kissing her hard. He needed her so much right now. The gentleness of the previous kiss was gone, this was filled only with desire. His hands snaked under her jacket and slid it off her shoulders and she stepped back away from him.
‘Sorry, I’m so nervous, I can barely breathe. I just need a minute,’ Freya said, brushing her hair back from her face in frustration. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for such a long time and now it’s going to happen I’m too nervous to enjoy it.’
‘There’s no rush. We won’t do anything you don’t want to do. We really can just cuddle if that’s what you want.’
‘Believe me, we’re going to make love tonight. I’m not walking away from that. Just give me a few minutes.’
She walked away from him and for the first time he noticed the room with its incredible view over the sea. There was a huge aquarium that ran the length of the room, dominating the whole wall, with tropical fish of every size and colour swimming gently through the water. The four-poster bed was covered in a satin blue throw with pale blue chiffon curtains and the velvet sofa was a deep blue too. Around the room there were lots of sea paraphernalia and pictures of shells, starfish and other fish. It was all rather lovely but his eyes were drawn back to the beautiful woman standing at the window staring out at the sea.
‘I had things I wanted to tell you tonight, I had a big speech prepared and I just don’t know if any of it matters now. I mean, of course it matters, you deserve to know the truth but maybe, for one night, we forget all of that.’
He had no idea what she meant, but he just wanted her to be happy and relaxed even if that meant they didn’t get to make love that night.
‘Why don’t we sit down on the sofa? We can have a glass of champagne, watch a little TV if you want, have a cuddle and a kiss and if you want to we can talk.’
She nodded though she still didn’t turn round. He took his coat off and slung it over the chair and something white fell out of his pocket. He bent to pick it up and realised it was the letter that Andrew had given him that morning just before they left.
As Freya still hadn’t moved and he wanted to give her the time to calm down, he opened the envelope and shook out the letter inside.
He read the letter, then read it again to make sure he was reading it right, anger filling him as he read it a third time.
He looked up at Freya, still standing in the window. ‘What the hell is this?’
Chapter Sixteen
Freya turned round to see Rome standing there brandishing a letter and looking furious. To her surprise, he was clearly angry with her. Their hot, romantic evening suddenly seemed to be slipping away.
She stepped towards him. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’
He thrust the letter towards her and then walked away across the room, digging out his phone as he started typing something furiously on it.
Freya watched him for a second then looked at the letter. Her heart sank as she realised it was from the glass studio in St Ives asking Rome for a reference for her.
‘I applied for this before I came back to work for you,’ Freya said, knowing it wouldn’t make any difference to his mood.
He held the phone up, clearly having looked up the job online. ‘This was why you wanted to leave Through the Looking Glass? I thought perhaps you wanted something that was bigger and better. But now I find out that you want to leave being a partner in your own glass studio to work in a different glass studio on a temporary six-month contract with a lot less pay.’
‘Rome, let me explain.’
‘So it wasn’t that you wanted a change in career, it wasn’t that you wanted more money, it really was that you just wanted to get away from me. What the hell did I do?’
‘It wasn’t you.’
Rome paced back across the floor, clearly not listening. ‘Am I really that awful to work for, I know I’m grumpy sometimes, is it that? Or is it that I’m boring, you find me so mind-numbingly dull that you can’t bear to be around me any more.’
Freya was horrified. ‘Rome, no, that isn’t it at all.’
‘You were happy to kiss me, you wanted to sleep with me, so obviously I couldn’t be too abhorrent for you. Or is it like some of the women on the island say: good at sex, not really good for much else. And you just thought you’d have a piece of that before you left?’
‘If you shut up for a second, I’ll tell you why I wanted to leave.’
‘So tell me?’
Freya sighed. She had never envisaged having the conversation like this. She had imagined that it would eventually happen over much more romantic circumstances. Maybe over a meal and a bottle of wine she would tell him that she loved him and she needed time away from him to finally get over him. And there was a tiny sliver of hope that he would then say it back. After the kiss that night, after their conversation about cuddling which was very obviously about making love, she had begun to think he did have feelings for her after all, that she hadn’t imagined those feelings over the last few days and weeks that had led up to that fateful night when she had stormed out on him. But now she had hurt him and the chance of a romantic night making love in this incredible room was gone.
She watched him standing there, so angry, and she didn’t know if what she was about to say would make any difference to him.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.
‘Because...’ She stepped closer. ‘Because, you blind silly boy, I’m in love with you.’
Rome stared at her. That clearly wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting.
‘I love you, I have been in love with you for so long. I love your humour, your kindness and your intelligence, I love all your geeky little facts. I love you. I love you to the moon and back.’ She let out a little giggle of relief at finally being able to say it after all this time.
He pushed his hair back from his face, clearly at a loss for words.
‘I applied for that job because I couldn’t do this any more. Because every day I worked with you or every evening I spent laughing with you, it was torture because all I really wanted to do was kiss you and make love to you and tell you how I really feel. Because every time I see you go off with another woman…’ her words caught in her throat ‘…a little piece of me dies inside and I couldn’t do it any more.’
All the fight went out of him. Rome took her hand. ‘Oh god Freya, I had no idea. I thought you might be attracted to me, I had no idea you loved me.’
‘That night, at Envy.’ Freya swallowed down the humiliation she had felt when she had stormed out. ‘I thought you were going to tell me that you loved me too. I even somehow stupidly persuaded myself that you were going to propose after that silly conversation about engagement rings and then your casual platonic offer to marry me. I’m such an idiot. And then you gave me this beautiful brooch instead of an engagement ring and asked me to be your business partner. I was so disappointed and it hurt so much that you just didn’t see me that way. It hurt more than when I found Jake cheating on me. And when I came out of the bathroom and saw you talking and flirting with that waitress, I knew that I would always be watching you going off with other women, and I realised if I didn’t leave I would always be waiting for you to eventually turn your attention to me and I couldn’t do it any more. I’ve been there with Jake, I waited for eight years and he never loved me. I wanted to stay on Hope Island, I wanted to stay working for you, I love working with you and working with glass but I knew I just needed time away from you to try to fall out of love with you. I thought six months working in St Ives, six months where I wouldn’t get to see you any more, maybe it would be enough. Then I could come back and just be friends.’
He reached out and stroked her face. He looked absolutely devastated by this news. ‘I can’t believe I hurt you, I’m so sorry, that was never my intention.’
‘But today, we were holding hands, you kissed me, we were going to come back here and make love. Was that really just sex? Did it mean nothing to you or do you have feelings for me too?’
‘Of course I have feelings for you. I adore you. I love spending time with you, you make me laugh, I can talk to you for hours and every night my dreams are filled with you and believe me they’re pretty X-rated.’
‘You dream about me?’
‘Every night. Which makes me feel all kinds of creepy, having those thoughts about my best friend. I think about you like that all day too.’
She stared at him. ‘But if you have these feelings why haven’t you done anything about it?’
‘That night, I wanted to talk to you about it, but I wanted us to be equals first. I didn’t want to be your boss asking you out. I wanted to give you half of the company and then I was going to talk to you about being partners in other aspects of our life. But you walked out before I got that chance.’
Emotion clawed at her throat. She’d got it all wrong. ‘You were going to ask me out?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I was going to talk to you about it. In some ways I was relieved I never got that far.’
Disappointment crashed through her again. ‘I don’t understand. You changed your mind. You didn’t want to ask me out?’
‘You’re my best friend and you mean the world to me. I value our friendship so much I didn’t want to ruin it just for the sake of having sex.’
‘You’re my best friend too and that will never change.’
‘I don’t ever want to lose what we have. I don’t do relationships. I’m useless at them. I never know what a woman is thinking or what to say and I would end up doing something that would hurt you and then I’d lose you.’
‘But for the last two years we’ve practically been in a relationship. We spent almost every hour of every day together. I fell in love with the man you are when we’re alone. Not the fake persona you show to everyone else. The real you. We talked, we laughed, I was never bored by you. You never said the wrong thing or upset me. The only thing missing from our relationship was the intimacy. Sex wouldn’t ruin us, it would complete us.’
He shook his head. ‘But I did hurt you. By not doing anything I upset you. These last few days when you walked out on me, I realised that I can’t live without you. Six years ago I lost someone very close to me and it broke me, I can’t go through that again.’
‘So what was tonight about?’
‘Desire took over. I wanted you so much.’
‘You can have me.’
‘It’s a bad idea.
We’re better off as friends.’
‘And how would that work? We stay as friends. Do you think I’m going to be OK watching you date other people, because I won’t. Will you be OK if I start dating other people, marry someone else?’
Rome scowled.
‘So you don’t want me but you don’t want anyone else to have me either. This is ridiculous. I get you’re scared of getting hurt. But you can’t hide yourself away for fear of what might happen. There are no guarantees in love but it’s better to try than to live a half-life where you’ll never experience love again.’ She slid her hands round his neck. ‘Why don’t you show me what your dreams look like?’
‘Freya, this isn’t a good idea. It would change everything between us.’
‘Only for the better.’
‘What happens if it ends?’
‘What happens if it doesn’t?’
Rome still didn’t look convinced and Freya stepped back, hurt. She obviously wasn’t worth the risk and she certainly wasn’t going to beg.
‘I’m going for a shower. Fill in the reference form for me, that’s the least you can do. Let me go so I can try to get over you. Why don’t you take the twin room tonight and tomorrow we can just pretend that this conversation never happened. We’ll just carry on as normal until I’ve worked my notice.’
She walked away from him and into the massive bathroom, barely noticing the huge hot tub and the large walk-in drench shower that was big enough for several people to take a shower all at the same time. The tiles were an inky metallic blue that sparkled in the spotlights. She stripped her clothes off and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water pour over her, closing her eyes against the water as it splashed across her face.
What a mess. She didn’t know what she imagined would happen when she told him she loved him but it wasn’t this. She cursed herself because if she hadn’t got nervous and freaked out, they would be making love about now. And maybe that would have been all that she needed to get over him, maybe they’d have had no chemistry at all and one night would have completely cured her of any inappropriate feelings for him. Though she doubted that to be the case. If their incredible first kiss was anything to go by, they had off-the-wall chemistry. But now she’d never find out.