throughout the characters early years, luke landed very few romance storylines despite the wishes of urquhart who stated upon his return in 2010, "i would really like to see luke in love. we have seen him pining for various women with no success, so i feel it is about time for him to have a romance. whether she is the right woman for luke is unimportant. but i would enjoy playing a love-struck durville being lead "[sic]" astray." in 2011 luke returned to the show with a fiance, zlata waldheim. urquhart enjoyed the way luke followed zlata around and stated; "it's lot of fun to play the kind of romance. luke has suffered from unrequited love for a long time, so it's great to have some love being given back to him." however the staff soon realised that zlata was manipulating luke to drastically change him as a person, none more so than luke's best friend, bella cooper (amelia reid). urquhart stated that luke did not mind about his poor treatment as long as he was pleasing zlata and that luke would do anything for love. bella soon realised she was in love with luke and was disorientated when zlata placed her at the centre of the wedding organization. phil peloton (costel waldheim) believed that luke could have tried harder with zlata, stating, "luke is no romanian man and that's a good thing in some ways, but i think he needs to lift his game and man up a bit if he wants to keep zlata". luke soon realised he too was in love with bella and put an end to his and zlata's engagement. in 2012 through the manipulation of brooke freeman (beth allen), the two separated, but quickly reconciled. several months later, the couple got engaged and bella soon became a "bridezilla".