Thankfully she’d stopped shivering and knew she was lucky to be alive. Ella remembered arriving at the hospital and after she’d undergone some tests the doctor confirmed she had mild hypothermia. She had a line of stitches across her forehead and a vague recollection that Callie had been by her side at some point, but her head hurt that much, she’d just drifted off to sleep.

Lying there in her own private room, Ella had no clue what time of day it was, but hearing a soft knock on the door, she looked up to see the nurse walking towards her with a hot mug of tea. ‘How’s your head this morning? Would you like some painkillers?’ she asked, looking at the chart. The nurse kindly helped Ella to sit up and plumped up her pillows.

‘Yes, please, it’s like a dull ache,’ replied Ella, sipping her tea.

‘You’ve had quite an adventure, haven’t you?’

‘One I could have done without,’ Ella said as she closed her eyes for a brief moment.

‘We need to keep you in for the time being. You’ve had a huge wallop and we just need to err on the side of caution.’

‘What time is it?’ asked Ella.

‘Just gone 9am.’

The door opened and Ella looked over to see Roman walk into the room holding up a carrier bag and wearing his trademark smile. ‘I was going to bring you flowers but apparently that’s not allowed, so I’ve brought you fluffy PJs and socks… plain white trainer socks, even though I was tempted to bring monster socks and a bobble hat to keep the heat in. And I also brought these…’ He pulled out a huge bar of chocolate, a flask of tea and pile of magazines.

Ella was impressed. ‘You’ve thought of everything, thank you.’

‘Callie sorted out the PJs. I’m here until 10.30am, then Callie is going to take over the second shift.’

‘I have just the best friends,’ Ella smiled and took the carrier bag off Roman and immediately opened the chocolate and offered some to him. ‘Thank God for the PJs.’

Pulling her blankets around her chest, the nurse checked Ella’s pulse, temperature and noted them down on the chart at the end of her bed before leaving the room, while Roman sat down on the blue plastic chair at the side of her bed.

‘That was quite a night. I don’t even know how Gianni’s food went down.’

Roman was looking at her with such admiration. ‘You are amazing.’ He smiled warmly at her. ‘And I mean amazing, pressing the emergency button, locking yourself in the cabin.’