by Holly Martin
Chapter Twenty-Two
Freya walked back into the shop and saw that the solicitor had gone. Rome was shifting the boxes of tools and things they would need to work on the mural at the beach this afternoon nearer to the door. He broke into a huge smile when he saw her and it was such a genuine, warm smile that it filled her with so much happiness. He put down the box he was holding and came to greet her, cupping her face gently and kissing her sweetly.
‘You’ve been gone a while, I missed you.’
She smiled. ‘We’ve been talking about you.’
There was no need to tell him who the ‘we’ was. He would know that she had been chatting to Eden at the very least.
‘I gathered that I was the topic of conversation when I got a text from Bella saying, “Just seen Freya, for god’s sake don’t screw this up.”’
Freya laughed.
He slid his hands down her back and into the back pockets of her denim shorts, holding her against him. ‘And I don’t intend to.’
She rested her hands on his chest for a moment. ‘Did you have a good meeting with the solicitor?’
She looked up at him and he was grinning. ‘Yes, I did in fact. Come over here for a moment.’
He led her over to the workbench where there were some official-looking documents.
‘So you really are selling the flat?’
‘Yes I am. It’s taken a few days to sort this out in order to separate the flat from the shop. It’s going to take a while to register the flat as separate at the Land Registry so I was going to wait until that was finalised before I told you but the solicitor has drawn up the contract now so there’s no harm in telling you today.’ He encouraged her to sit down. ‘I thought I would give you the chance to buy it first, before I put it on the market.’
Anger flared up in her. ‘What? Do you have any idea what property prices are like round here? I do, because I stopped to look in the estate agent window on my way back here and there’s no way I could afford a quarter of the cheapest property on my salary. I would be unlikely to get any kind of mortgage on my salary either.’
He stilled her flapping hand with his own as he sat down next to her. ‘What kind of properties were the houses you looked at?’
‘Some of them were the old cottages, some were the bigger townhouses on the other side of the island,’ Freya answered, not sure where he was going with this.
‘Any flats?’
She shook her head. There were so very few flats on the island, certainly no blocks of apartments. The only ones were those like hers which were above shops. Most of the shop owners used these for storage or workshop areas to make the things that they sold.
He shrugged. ‘Turns out that flats aren’t really worth much on the island – everyone wants a cottage with sea views. You only have a tiny sea view from one of your windows so it’s worth even less.’
‘Then why sell it at all?’
‘Because I don’t want it.’
‘But I do. That’s my home.’
‘Then buy it off me.’
‘With what? I think I have two thousand pounds in my account, funnily enough I don’t think that will cover it.’
Rome grabbed the contract and slid it in front of her. She saw his name and underneath that it said he was selling the property to her, which was ridiculously presumptuous of him, but underneath that it said how much he was selling the flat for.
One pound.
She stared at it, looked back up at Rome who was watching her with patient eyes and then back down at the contract again. She swallowed the lump in her throat, all of her anger fading away.
Eventually she found her voice. ‘You’re selling the flat for a pound?’
‘It’s not worth anything,’ Rome quite clearly lied.
She looked up at him. ‘I don’t understand why you are doing this. If you were to sell the flat you’d get hundreds of thousands of pounds for it. Property prices in the Scilly Isles are crazy.’
‘I don’t need the money, and I don’t need the flat.’
‘You can’t give me the flat.’
‘I’m not, you’re buying it off me. You said that one of the things you wanted to do in your life was to buy your own home, so…’
Oh god.
Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Oh you daft, silly man. You can’t give me the flat. Most men give the women they date a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates, not a flat that’s probably worth a quarter of a million pounds or more.’
He stroked her face, wiping the tears away.
‘You said you wanted your own home so you knew it could never be taken off you, something that was just yours. I want to make you happy.’ More tears joined the ones he had just wiped away and he laughed, slightly. ‘Seems I’m not doing a very good job of that.’
‘You are, trust me, but I can’t accept.’
He shrugged. ‘Then I’ll have to sell it to someone else. I’ll give the estate agents a call tomorrow, get it put up for sale. I expect it will go quite quickly at that price.’
She rolled her eyes.
‘Look, you say you love me?’ he said and she nodded. ‘And if you love me, then you’ll want to make me happy. It would make me deliriously happy if you would stop being so stubborn and just accept the gift.’
She thought about it for a moment. He was going to ruin her. Eventually she nodded. ‘OK.’
‘Good, you owe me a pound.’
A slow smile spread across her face. She owned her own house. Well, she would when everything was final.
She slid her arms round his neck. ‘This is the sweetest thing that anyone has ever done for me. Thank you.’
He smiled and kissed her briefly. ‘It’s my pleasure.’
‘I do love you,’ Freya said.
Rome smiled but it was another little stab of disappointment when he still didn’t say it back. She had agreed to give him time, but that still didn’t stop it from hurting. Maybe he’d never say it back.
‘Make love to me,’ she whispered. At least when they were making love she could feel that connection between them and in that moment she could pretend that it was love for him too.
‘Not now. Making love in the shop in the middle of the day is probably a little more risqué than doing it on the beach after dark, plus I haven’t forgotten our sex ban.’
‘You’re so strange. Most men would never dream of implementing a sex ban.’
He shrugged. ‘You’ve had years to get used to how strange I am, it’s too late to back out now.’
‘I fell in love with all of you, the strangeness doesn’t put me off.’ She stared down at his chest and kissed just above his heart. ‘Eden says this no sex thing is actually really significant for you.’
‘Eden sees everything through rose-tinted glasses, but in this instance she’s right. You’re too important to me to screw this up.’
Her heart filled at that comment and he leaned his forehead against hers.
‘I want this to work more than anything,’ he said.
‘I do too.’
He bent his head and kissed her and she pushed the doubts away. She would trust him and, as Bella and Eden said, it was time that she started to enjoy what she had with Rome and stop worrying about what might happen.
Rome stepped back from the mural, or the very beginnings of it, to look at what they had done so far. They were in the small marquee just outside the school’s wall, slowly building the mural up. They had soldered together several smaller pieces into larger roughly rectangular panels. These panels were all carefully wrapped in numbered bits of paper in the boxes they had brought over from the shop and would then be slotted into the right place and soldered onto the other panels. Like a big jigsaw, they were starting from the outside and working their way into the middle. They had done the corners and had started working their way along the bottom. Although they were right at the very beginning of slotting it all together, and they still had a lot of work to do back at the studio before they would be
anywhere near finished, he was really proud of how it was looking so far. The only thorn in his side was how hot it was under the marquee. He wanted to lift the sides to let some air in but the marquee was there to protect the mural from being seen before it was officially revealed. There were currently hundreds of people on the other side of the marquee walls, playing on Buttercup Beach, and he didn’t want anyone to see it until it was finished.
‘Can you stop staring at it and grab the soldering iron?’ Freya said as she was holding two panels together. ‘I want to do this piece and then step outside for some air. It’s so hot in here.’
Her hair was fluffed out, looking like she’d just been dragged through a hedge, she was sweaty and had a smudge of dirt on her forehead – but to him she looked incredibly sexy.
‘Let me grab some water,’ Rome said. Scooping two bottles from the cool box, he opened one, took a quick mouthful and offered the other to Freya. She arched an eyebrow at him and he laughed when he realised that both her hands were in use, holding the panels in place.
He opened the other bottle and held it to her mouth, carefully angling it up so she could take a drink. She tipped her head back and drank gratefully from the bottle. A few drips slid out from the top of the bottle and ran down her throat. She squealed as the ice-cold water ran down her hot skin.
He quickly stopped pouring. ‘Sorry, here let me get that.’ He moved his fingers to catch the drips and then thought better of it. He dipped his head and caught the drips with his tongue instead, sliding it up her throat as he followed the little river of water all the way back up to the corner of her mouth. She groaned with need, which sent a punch of desire straight to his stomach.
When he reached the corner of her mouth, he slid his tongue across her icy lips; feeling the coolness against his own hot tongue was achingly wonderful.
She moved to kiss him properly but he edged back slightly.
She was still holding onto the panels, although he guessed if he was to carry on with what he suddenly intended to do, they would probably be dropped to the floor, so he eased the panels from her hands and put them on the workbench behind him.
He held the bottle against her lips again, slowly tipping it up, and she leaned her head back obligingly. This time he wasn’t so careful pouring the water into her mouth and some dribbled down her chin, over her chest heading straight for her breasts. Just as it dipped into the valley between her breasts, he caught the drip with his tongue. Her groan was louder this time as she threaded her fingers through his hair. He kissed the flesh on each breast as he slowly inched his way back up towards her throat.
‘Hello!’ a voice called, just as the flap of the marquee was pulled back and Bella walked in. Rome leapt away but not before Bella clearly caught him licking Freya’s breasts.
‘Oh my god,’ Bella said, before quickly ducking back out again.
What was it with his sodding family catching him in the act?
Freya giggled as she straightened her clothing.
‘Go and see what she wants, I don’t think I’m in any fit state to go and talk to my sister,’ Rome muttered, rearranging his shorts.
Freya wiped the rest of the water off her chest and ducked outside.
‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea,’ he heard Bella whisper theatrically.
Rome took a long cool drink of water and tried to school his thoughts to think about anything other than how good it felt to lick and kiss Freya like that. Christ, this sex ban was going to be the death of him.
‘It’s OK, we were just kissing,’ Freya said, even though it had been clear for anyone to see that it was a hell of a lot more than that. ‘It was hardly going to lead to sex when Rome has banned sex from our relationship entirely.’
She sounded disappointed about that and he suspected she was feeling as sexually frustrated as he was right now. God, he hoped he was doing the right thing with banning sex from their relationship for the next week. It could quite easily go the way his relationship had gone with Paige where they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He wanted more from his relationship with Freya. He wanted to prove to her it was more too. But if he got it wrong, then all that would happen would be they’d be getting angry and frustrated with each other.
‘I bought some ice creams for you both,’ Bella said. ‘Thought you might need some cooling down, though I didn’t realise the weather wasn’t the only thing that was making things hot and steamy in there.’
Now more appropriately ready to talk to his sister, Rome ducked out of the marquee into the bright sunlight.
Bella was handing over two white chocolate Magnums.
‘Thanks Bella,’ Rome said, taking his from Freya. ‘Sorry about that.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s OK, you’re both at that exciting stage of a new relationship where it’s all passion and need and lust. I remember being like that with Isaac when we first started dating.’
‘From what I can gather, you’re both still like that now,’ Rome said.
Bella grinned. ‘Yeah, probably.’
He unwrapped his ice cream and took a big bite, realising how sexy it was to watch Freya eat hers.
‘I thought we could go for a walk actually,’ Bella said and Rome swallowed the mouthful of ice cream that was resting on his tongue.
He tore his attention from Freya and looked back at his sister. She had that look that clearly said that she wanted to interfere. It was very obvious she wanted to talk about him and Freya.
‘We’re quite busy actually.’
‘I’m sure you can have a break for five minutes,’ Bella said.
He didn’t want to say that he had been enjoying his break immensely before she had come along and interrupted him.
‘I only have five minutes anyway,’ Bella went on. ‘We’re leaving for Penzance shortly.’
Freya gave him a little nudge. ‘I’ll be fine on my own for a while.’
Rome rolled his eyes, recognising when he was outnumbered.
‘Come on then.’ He indicated for Bella to go ahead of him and he fell in by her side as she walked down towards the shore. The sun was shining hard above them from a cloudless blue sky, the turquoise sea shimmering and sparkling as it lapped gently onto the sand.
As he ate his ice cream, they wandered down to the little jetty and Bella didn’t say a word as she hopped up onto it and padded out to the end. He followed her and sat down next to her, their feet just inches above the water.
‘It’s a beautiful day,’ Bella said, shielding her eyes and looking out to the horizon.
‘Bella, I love you, but if you’ve brought me down here so you can interfere in my relationship with Freya then I’m just going to walk straight back up to the marquee again. If you want to talk about the weather or anything else in fact, apart from me and Freya, then I’m happy to talk. But I’m not talking about that.’
‘Isaac has asked me to move in with him.’
Oh crap, now he felt like scum. Bella hadn’t wanted to interfere in his relationship at all.
‘Sorry.’
She shrugged, clearly not offended. She started picking at the wood, scraping the sand that had encrusted itself onto the end of the jetty. Clearly this was something she wasn’t comfortable with.
‘You don’t think it’s a good idea?’ he asked.
‘I’m scared.’
Crap. He wasn’t geared up to have these kind of conversations. He was close to Bella, he absolutely adored her, but his role as big brother was always to protect her against getting hurt, physically and emotionally. They so rarely had these kinds of conversations. Bella had Eden or their mum for that, or even Freya for that matter. He was the least likely person someone would go to for advice regarding matters of the heart. He was rubbish with women – the one girl who had shown any interest in him beyond the bedroom he had proposed to and she’d promptly gone off to London for the next eighteen months and their relationship had been based mainly on sex after that. And now he had this thing with Freya, his bes
t friend, his lover? His soul mate? He had no idea how to categorise what they had or if it had any chance of lasting. If he was honest, he was scared too. Scared of losing her like he’d lost Paige, scared of screwing things up and losing her in a different way, scared that one day she would wake up and realise that she didn’t love him, that he was too grumpy or too boring or too emotionally stunted and he’d lose her anyway. How could he possibly give Bella advice when he was scared too?
He took her hand. ‘What is it that you’re scared of?’
‘Losing him.’
He thought about that for a moment. Maybe he was the right person to talk to her. Maybe he didn’t have any pearls of wisdom to give but maybe just talking to her about his own feelings would show that she wasn’t alone or wrong to have these feelings.
‘I feel like I’m going to screw this up,’ Bella said, sadly, staring down into the sea.
‘There’s nothing you can do to screw this up, that man is crazy in love with you. He accepts you and loves you exactly how you are. You don’t need to change or pretend to be someone else. He loves you, this… fragile, vulnerable, scared, feisty, fun, kind, generous, wonderful person, he loves all of you.’
Bella sniffed, her face partially hidden by her long red hair. Was she crying?
‘Is that how it is with you and Freya?’ Bella said, tearfully. ‘You know that nothing you do will ever scare her away. She’s been your best friend since she moved to Hope Island, she’s seen you at your worst, she’s seen you grumpy, angry and stood by you when you were grieving over Paige and she still loves you. It must be so wonderful to have that security in a relationship, to know she will love you no matter what.’
He thought about that for a moment. Bella was right. Freya did know him really well. He had never tried to hide who he was. He had never tried to impress her before, he had been completely himself and she had fallen in love with him despite all that. Or maybe because of all that.