Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller)’s romance with Robert Sugden (Ruan Hawley) on Emmerdale was one of the great soap love stories, with the pair dubbed ‘Robron’ and being hugely popular with fans.

The fandom were devastated when Ryan Hawley announced he was leaving, and his character was written out in 2019 by having Robert go to prison after killing his sister’s rapist.

Ever since the announcement that Robert’s half brother John Sugden (Oliver Farnworth) would be joining the show and that the character is gay, speculation was naturally high that this would mean that he’d possibly find love with Aaron.

When Emmerdale bosses teased that he would ‘catch the eye of an unsuspecting resident it seemed to confirm what was ahead.

John’s character is complex. He has a military background, lives off-grid in a van and has been described as a ‘lone wolf.’

‘He won’t think twice about telling someone what he thinks. He’s not trying to make friends. He’s not out to win people over,’ Oliver Farnworth revealed.

So it seems that no sooner has he arrived in the village than he’s ruffling feathers. Among those who get on the wrong side of him from the very beginning are Mackenzie Boyd (Lawrence Robb) and Aaron Dingle.

Mackenzie steals John’s van and dumps it in a lake. Although Aaron isn’t part of this plan he finds out about it and he’s not happy with what Mack did – but he isn’t about to tell John what happened either.

There’s definitely some chemistry between John and Aaron, and John plays on this, leading Aaron on to think that he’s interested in him. When Aaron makes a move and goes to kiss him, he’s left humiliated when John doesn’t reciprocate and he realises that John was just toying with him.

With his ego bruised in this way, Aaron is unsettled to hear that John is going to be staying in the village for the foreseeable future after Cain (Jeff Hordley) offers him a job at the farm.

He confides in Chas (Lucy Pargeter) about what happened between him and John. What will she advise?