by Holly Martin
She turned away and walked down the stairs and he didn’t call her back.
Freya hurried down the street towards the ferry that would take her to St Mary’s and away from the man she loved. She wiped the tears from her eyes that wouldn’t stop falling.
Her head was a swirl of emotions. Rome’s weird dreams, his sudden declaration of love that came from nowhere, the fact that, if what he said was true, he had loved her and never told her.
But then, she had never told him how she felt either.
Rome was right about one thing though, he had never lied to her before, never given her any reason to doubt him.
As she joined the back of a small queue of people waiting for the five o’clock ferry, the phone rang and she quickly fished it out of her bag and saw it was Eden.
She answered the phone.
‘Freya, are you OK?’
More tears fell from her eyes at her friend’s kindness. How could she tell Eden she was leaving, she’d be so upset. Not only was she walking away from Rome, she was walking away from Bella and Eden too and the thought of that hurt almost as much as leaving Rome. Maybe it wouldn’t be forever, she just needed some time to think.
Up ahead, Bob, the ferry captain, was starting to let people on board and she shuffled forward in the queue.
‘I don’t know,’ Freya said, quietly, mainly because she had no idea how to describe what was going on in her head at the moment. ‘Eden, has Rome ever told you about the dreams he has of Paige?’
There was silence for a moment and Freya stepped aboard the ferry, flashing Bob her ferry pass and dragging on her suitcase.
‘Are you talking about the horrible dreams he has of her as the grim reaper?’
Freya’s heart sank as she sat down. It was true. ‘Yes.’
‘He’s had them since he was little. Rome read everything he could get his hands on when he was growing up, including a ton of stuff that was way too old for him. The hazards of having a library at the end of our road. That was Rome’s playground – while the other little boys were out playing football, Rome was in there reading books about anything and everything, including a load of books about death after our gran had died. For some reason he fixated on the image of the grim reaper and had terrible nightmares about it. They went away after a few years but they came back after Paige died, with her in the starring role.’
Freya closed her eyes as the boat suddenly juddered into life. Why had she doubted him? He had been telling the truth. Well, at least about that.
‘Eden, I need to go. I’ll call you later.’
‘You better do.’
‘I will.’
‘He loves you, you know. Mum was right about that. Anyone can see he is crazy in love with you. Please don’t do anything rash.’
She was just about to defend herself but Rome had been right about that too. Throwing anything she could grab into a suitcase and running away was how she had handled the thing with Jake and now she was doing the same thing again.
‘I just need some time to think.’
‘He’s your best friend, don’t forget that. I know how it feels and, however much it hurts to have Dougie back and know he will never be mine, I would rather have him home and to see him every day than to never see him again. So before you do anything stupid, please think what your life will be like without Rome in it at all.’
Freya thought about this.
‘Call me later,’ Eden said.
‘I will, I promise.’
Freya hung up and stared out at the inky sea, as Bob manoeuvred the boat out of the harbour. A pink glow lighting up the horizon indicated the sun was going to rise soon.
Was Rome right about her issues with Jake? Had Jake really messed her up far more than she realised?
The problem was, her relationship with Jake had begun in a similar way to how her relationship with Rome had started. They had been friends first then one night they had ended up sleeping together. Jake hadn’t been keen to start a relationship either but they’d slept with each other a few more times. When her nan had died and she’d had nowhere else to go, Jake had offered her his place as somewhere to stay until she sorted herself out and she had been so pathetically grateful and so stupidly in love with him that she had made herself indispensable, cooking, cleaning, working her arse off for him at his company. He’d never said he loved her and she told herself she didn’t need to hear it because she thought he did love her in his way. And although he talked about Lizzie a lot she had naïvely assumed that if he wanted to be with Lizzie he would be. She’d had no idea he was having his cake and eating it. When she had found out it had hurt her so much.
She realised now, that experience had tainted her relationship with Rome. She had been waiting for Rome to betray her too. Maybe not in the same way; she knew she could trust Rome to be faithful to her, though that hadn’t stopped the green-eyed monster when he had been talking to Amelia, that first night at Envy, and whenever Kitty had come round and flirted with Rome. She had been expecting him to betray her by not loving her back but had he really been in love with her the whole time, falling deeper in love with her every day they were together?
She thought about the connection they shared when they made love. It had never been like that with Jake. You couldn’t fake that level of intimacy. They could only really have shared that connection if he had deep feelings for her too.
She thought about all the dreams he had made come true for her, and how incredible it was that he wanted to do that for her. He said he wanted to make her happy. Tears filled her eyes again.
She replayed the events of the last few hours in her head now she knew what Rome was saying about the dream was true. Everything he had said fitted with his version of events, which meant that when he’d been making love to her and had kept repeating that he loved her, he really had been saying it to her.
He loved her.
And actually the signs had been there all along.
Oh god what had she done? She had allowed what Jake had done to ruin what she had with Rome. It wasn’t that Rome was hung up on his past at all, it was all her.
Fresh tears filled her eyes as the boat came in to dock at St Mary’s. She needed to talk to him.
Bob tied the boat up and the small number of passengers slowly started to disembark, some of them stopping to chat to Bob on the way out. Freya had to stop herself from screaming in frustration, she had to get back to Hope Island.
Suddenly there was a commotion on the jetty as someone shoved past the small queue of people patiently waiting. People were protesting but the man didn’t care.
Freya’s heart leapt into her mouth as she recognised the dark curls and the huge frame of Rome Lancaster. She stood up, wiping her tears away so she could see clearly. It was him. How the hell he was here when she had just left him on Hope Island, she didn’t know, but he was here.
She ran to greet him as he suddenly stepped on the boat and gathered her into his arms. ‘I told you, I’m never letting you go,’ he said, fiercely, as he kissed her hard.
She protested feebly against his lips, desperate to talk to him, but then she didn’t care any more and she melted into the kiss.
Rome shuffled her backwards onto the boat out of the way of the people still departing or getting on.
Oh god, he was here. He was kissing her. She hadn’t messed everything up with him at all.
He pulled back slightly to look at her. Her brain was a mush of emotions and questions. ‘How are you here?’ she blurted out.
‘I stole Isaac’s speedboat,’ Rome said before kissing her again.
He held her to him tightly, clearly afraid to let her go. When he did pull back, she could barely catch her breath. But there was so much she wanted to say to him.
The boat was already pulling away from the jetty, taking them back to Hope Island, taking them home, when suddenly Rome dropped to his knees in front of her.
The small crowd of passengers gasped and went quiet. Any words she had
wanted to say caught in her throat as he produced a small black box from his pocket.
‘Freya Greene, I love you so much. You are everything to me. My best friend, my soul mate, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
She quickly sank to her knees in front of him. ‘No, no, no. Rome you don’t need to do this. I love you. I made a mistake. I cocked up. I didn’t believe you when I had no reason not to trust you. You were right when you said that I was letting my past hold me back. This wasn’t you at all. I was on my way back to apologise, you don’t need to propose to me to get me to stay.’
He looked at her in confusion. ‘You don’t want me to propose to you?’
‘Of course I do, I want forever with you. The day we get married will be the happiest day of my life. But I want this when the time is right for you. Not because we had a silly row.’
He sat back on his heels, clearly unsure of what to do next. No book of love could prepare him for this. She stroked his face and he held her hand against his cheek.
‘I held back too,’ Rome said, softly. ‘When I first met you I was so afraid of getting hurt again, of falling in love and losing you, that I pushed the possibility of love away. I wouldn’t even consider that I was falling in love. I ignored the signs, ignored the feelings building up inside of me. And when the feelings became too much to ignore, when they would keep me awake at night because I was thinking about you and I ended up at your flat too many times to count, not because of the nightmares but because I just needed to be close to you, I was still too cowardly to do anything about it. Not because I was afraid of getting hurt, but because I didn’t want to cock it up and lose you. You were, and you still are, my best friend and that was way too important to me to do anything that might damage that friendship. I would much rather we were friends forever than lovers for a few weeks and then lose you because I’m an idiot. I should have told you sooner, I do love you.’
‘I love you too,’ Freya cried.
He wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘I wasted two years, confused by my feelings, and too afraid to admit the truth. I don’t want to waste another day. This, right now, is the right time for me. I want to marry you.’
He opened the black box. She stared at the ring and gasped. The stone was not diamond or opal, it was made from glass just like he said it would be. Swirls of gold, blue, caramel and pink twisted around each other in a tiny bead of fused glass.
It was at that moment the sun peeped above the horizon and the light picked out the tiny fragments and bubbles of different colours that surrounded the swirls. It was like looking at a tiny galaxy of a million stars, the swirls and the gases of the nebulas in space.
‘I started making this for you after our conversation outside the jewellers that night. I didn’t know when I was going to give it to you, but I wanted to see if I could make something as beautiful and special as you are. The gold and blue is for your hair, the toffee strand is for your beautiful eyes and the rose is the exact shade of your lips, which I could kiss forever and never get tired of it.’
Freya stared at it, unable to take her eyes off it.
‘If you want a traditional diamond or an opal or a sapphire or a ruby, I’ll get it for you, but I wanted something that captured how uniquely beautiful you are. I love you, will you marry me?’
Freya nodded, unable to hold back the tears now. ‘Yes. Yes, of course I’ll marry you.’
Rome slid the ring onto her finger and Freya couldn’t stop sobbing as he gathered her to him and kissed her.
The passengers cheered and clapped and she pulled away from him slightly, giggling, and realised they had arrived back at Hope Island. The streets were quiet and peaceful, the island still seemed to be sleeping, the street lights twinkling in the early morning light. But she knew she was home now.
‘You’ve made all my dreams come true now,’ Freya said.
‘And we’ll make new dreams together.’
Freya looked out at the sun rising over the sea. It was a new day, a new beginning. ‘Shall we go home?’
Rome shook his head. ‘I would love nothing more than to go home and take you back to bed right now, but I need to go back and get Isaac’s boat.’
Freya laughed.
‘Will you come with me?’
‘I’d follow you to the moon and back.’
Epilogue
‘Ten, nine…’
‘Are you nervous?’ Freya asked, leaning into Rome. He let go of her hand and wrapped his arm round her shoulders, kissing her forehead.
‘No, I know this is our best work yet. It’s been months of hard work but I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved.’
‘Two, one...’ the mayor of Hope Island shouted, the crowd joining him with the countdown. He pulled the red curtain off the school mural and, as it fell to the floor and the glass glinted and sparkled in the sunlight, the crowd gasped and then cheered and clapped.
She smiled at all the children on the mural, playing in the playground and on the beach, she loved the dolphins jumping out of the waves and was most proud of how the sea had turned out, with its fused glass and metallic ribbons of gold weaved through it. That had been her idea and her part of the project and it couldn’t have turned out better. It really was beautiful. But the thing that made her smile the most was some of the people standing on the edges of the mural. Rome had the idea that they should put their loved ones into the mural to show how important they were to them and to the island. Bella, Isaac, Eden, Dougie, Finn and Lucy had all been immortalised on the mural. And although most people on the island would only see them as figures, non-descript people, Freya and Rome knew who they were. Freya grinned at the figure of Rome that she had put into the mural with his arm around the figure of her that he had put in. She was a part of this island now and it meant the world to her to see that symbolised in the mural too.
The school was opening for the new academic year the next day, it had been hard work getting the mural finished in time, working almost every day over the summer holidays and they had only just finished two days before, but Freya was so pleased with how it had turned out.
People came up to them and congratulated them and then started to drift off towards the barbeque that was being held to help celebrate the unveiling of the new school wing and the glass mural.
‘I didn’t mean about this,’ Freya said, once most of the people had moved into the school grounds for the celebrations.
‘Oh,’ Rome grinned. ‘Not one bit. You?’
‘No, not at all.’
They started to slowly walk down the beach away from the school. A few other stragglers were heading down the beach ahead of them.
‘You look so beautiful today, have I told you that?’ Rome said.
Freya looked down at the creamy strapless beach dress that sparkled with blue sequins, offset with a satin blue belt. She loved seeing Rome’s look of delight when she came downstairs in it before they came out.
‘Yes you have, and you’re looking pretty bloody hot yourself, Rome Lancaster.’ He was wearing a suit jacket over a pale blue shirt that was open at the collar. He looked so happy and relaxed.
‘And have I told you how much I love you?’
She smiled. ‘You tell me ten times a day.’
That was probably an understatement. Since the first time he had uttered those wonderful words, it was like a dam had burst and he couldn’t stop saying it. He didn’t care about saying it in public either, he was quite happy to shout his love to anyone and everyone who would listen. It was so genuine though, she knew that he meant it.
‘Does your Book of Love tell you to say it so often?’
‘I gave that book to the charity shop, I don’t need a book to know how I feel for you. There are no words sufficient to describe my feelings for you. And you seem to love me regardless of what I do or say. There are no rules any more.’
‘I do love you, very much.’
He bent his head and kissed her, smiling against her lips.
She looked ahead to the small round marquee that was billowing in the sea breeze. Out in the sea, she could see the dolphins frolicking in the waves. It was a perfect, sunny, September day.
‘I can’t believe tomorrow we fly out to Africa for our safari. I’m so excited. That’s my last dream coming true.’
He’d made every one of her dreams come true for her. Rome had insisted on going ahead with the sale of the flat, despite that she had moved in with him, pretty much straightaway. He’d told her it was her dream and he wasn’t going to go back on that.
‘Not all your dreams have come true. I believe you wanted four children by the time you’re thirty. We might have our work cut out having four in the next year, but we can give it a go. We’ll have lots of time on our safari for baby-making.’
She stopped him and looped her arms round his neck. He wrapped his arms round her back and held her close against him. He leaned his forehead against hers and moved his hands to caress her stomach.
‘I can’t wait to see you carrying my baby,’ he said, softly, his thumbs dancing across her belly.
Pretty much as soon as he’d slid the engagement ring on her finger, he’d started talking about trying for a baby and at first she’d thought he was doing that for her, trying to make all her dreams come true, but when he’d started reading books about babies and being a dad and getting really excited about the prospect, she knew he wanted this as much as she did.
‘You won’t have too long to wait,’ she whispered.
He frowned slightly, his smile falling off his face. He looked down at her stomach and then back up at her. ‘You’re pregnant?’
‘We’re pregnant,’ Freya giggled. ‘Just a few weeks so it’s still really early, but yes, you’re going to be a dad.’
She watched the huge smile spread across his face and then he kissed her hard.
