Last-Minute Proposal

Campbell had been setting up the camera on an outcrop and was squinting through it while he waited impatiently for her to finish. ‘If we sit on that rock, it’ll get us both in. Might be a bit of a squash, but it’ll be quicker than two separate sessions.’

They perched together on the rock, and Campbell put his arm round her to keep them both in frame. ‘Smile!’ he muttered out of the corner of his mouth. ‘And say something for the camera.’

Burningly aware of his arm, Tilly smiled. ‘Here we are on the top of Ben Nuarrh and it feels as if we’re on top of the world,’ she told the camera and gestured around her. ‘It’s the most beautiful morning.’

She drew a deep breath. ‘I can’t believe that we got here at last,’ she confessed. ‘I feel incredible! I never believed that I could do it, and I probably wouldn’t have done if Campbell hadn’t bullied me all the way,’ she said with a glance at him. ‘I’m glad you did,’ she added almost shyly.

‘That’s not what you said this morning!’

‘No, well, I was tired this morning,’ said Tilly with dignity. ‘I hardly slept at all.’

Campbell pretended to gape in astonishment. ‘You most certainly did!’

Forgetting the camera, she turned to look at him. ‘I didn’t snore, did I?’ she asked anxiously. She had been worried about that.

‘I wouldn’t call it a snore, exactly. There was quite a bit of snuffling and grunting and smacking of lips. It was like sharing a tent with a rather large hedgehog.’

‘Charming!’ Tilly made to thump him but she was laughing, elated by the morning and the mountain top and the fizzing awareness of his presence.

‘Other than that,’ he said, ‘I very much enjoyed sleeping with you.’

That was when she made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They were the same pale, piercing green but alight with humour and something else that made Tilly’s laugh falter suddenly.

She moistened her lips. ‘Do you think that’s enough for the camera?’ she asked, and Campbell’s gaze held hers for a moment longer.

‘I think it probably is.’

For the umpteenth time, Tilly rearranged the wooden spoons by the hob and then snatched back her hand with an exclamation of annoyance. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ she said crossly. She was driving herself mad!

The television crew were due any minute. Tilly told herself she was just worried about having cameras in the house, zooming in on all the undusted mantelpieces, but deep down she knew that the prospect of seeing Campbell again was the real reason she was feeling so jittery.

It was three weeks since they had stood on the top of Ben Nuarrh. Campbell had marched her down the mountain in record time to make sure that they won the first stage, so they were ahead on points. Winning, however, was by no means a foregone conclusion. He still had to complete his challenge first, and then the viewers would have a vote after seeing clips from the video diaries and filming, so they wouldn’t learn the final result until a grand awards ceremony later in the year.

Remembering Campbell’s frustration at realising how much depended on the vagaries of the viewers’ reactions, Tilly smiled wryly. He was so obviously a man who liked a clear goal, a definite mission that he could go out and accomplish. Want a bridge blown up? A hostage rescued? A mountain climbed in record time? Campbell was your man. But all this waiting to see what people thought and felt was not for him. Having started, though, he was committed to finishing now or it really would feel like failure.

And failure wasn’t something Campbell Sanderson was prepared to contemplate, that was clear.

So he would be arriving any minute now to learn how to design and make a wedding cake, and he would be determined to succeed, however little he might enjoy it.

Well, she hadn’t enjoyed abseiling, Tilly remembered, or crossing that river. Or being bullied up and down that mountain! It had been wonderful at the top, of course, and she was very glad that she had done it in the end, but she wasn’t at all anxious to repeat the experience. She had been very happy to come back to her cosy kitchen-or rut, as Harry and Seb would call it-and she was looking forward to being the one who knew what she was doing this time.

How was Campbell going to react to that? Tilly didn’t see why she should make it too easy for him. He had made her suffer, after all.

After the elation of making the summit, he had been brisk on the way down, and clearly couldn’t wait to tie up the formalities at the end and get away. Tilly had been a little hurt by that, even though she knew it was silly. It wasn’t as if either of them had wanted to be there. Nothing had happened.

It was absolutely ridiculous to be missing him, in fact.

‘So, what was he like?’ her best friend, Cleo had asked, brushing aside details of Tilly’s traumatic abseil and homing straight in on the man assigned to partner her. ‘Attractive?’

Tilly thought about the glint in Campbell’s green eyes, about his mouth and that smile and the strength in his hands. She had barely known him forty-eight hours, and it was vaguely disturbing that she could still picture him in quite such detail.

She decided to downplay all that, though. Cleo would never let her forget it if she thought Tilly had found herself alone in a tent with an attractive man and done absolutely nothing about it.

‘Quite,’ she said, deliberately casual. ‘In an I-could-show-some-emotion-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you kind of way.’

‘Ooh…’ Cleo brightened. ‘He sounds gorgeous!’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘Available?’

‘He’s divorced,’ Tilly admitted reluctantly.

‘I think you should go for it.’

Tilly felt oddly ruffled. ‘I wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, he wasn’t really my type. He wasn’t anything like Olivier.’

Which was true. Olivier had been dark and passionate, while Campbell was all cool containment. It was hard to imagine two men more different, in fact.

‘All the better,’ said Cleo, who hadn’t liked Olivier. ‘Someone not like Olivier is exactly what you need.’

‘I don’t need Campbell Sanderson,’ said Tilly definitely. ‘I’ve never met anyone so competitive-unless it’s my father! All men like that care about is winning,’ she went on with a touch of bitterness. ‘Never mind whose feelings they might be trampling on their way to success.’

‘You don’t need to spend the rest of your life with him, just have a bit of fun. Boost your confidence after that toad, Olivier.’

Tilly shook her head so the brown curls bounced around her face. ‘I can’t imagine anything less likely to boost my confidence,’ she said frankly. ‘Campbell is someone who has to have the best of everything, including women, and I don’t see me falling into that category, do you?’

‘You are the best,’ said Cleo loyally. ‘You’re funny, generous, warm, caring and sexy, if only you’d admit it. And you’re a fabulous cook. What more does a man want?’

‘A size six with legs up to her armpits?’

Cleo clicked her tongue. ‘You are so screwed up about your weight, Tilly! Listen, you are not overweight, you’re just curvy. That’s the way women are meant to be, and that’s how most men like them if the truth be told. Why do you think their tongues hang out whenever they spot a cleavage? You’re never going to be a stick insect, true, but you shouldn’t just accept that, you should celebrate it!’

‘Maybe I would if I could just lose a stone,’ said Tilly, reaching glumly for the biscuits. ‘Anyway, don’t get your hopes up about Campbell Sanderson. He’s hung up on his ex-wife, if you ask me, and I don’t want to get involved with that again. I had enough of being a consolation prize with Olivier.’

‘Then why not think of Campbell as your consolation prize?’ Cleo suggested.

The more she thought about it, the more Tilly had begun to wonder whether Cleo might have a point. She was over due a good time, after all. She deserved a treat, and it wasn’t as if she would have any expectations. A brief affair to boost her ego and make her feel good about herself again-was that so much to ask?

Then Tilly would catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror and she would catch herself up, appalled at her presumption. What was she thinking? There was no way Campbell would be interested in her, even if she laid herself out on a plate for him.

Anyway, she was probably building him up in her mind, she reassured herself. When she saw him again, she would probably wonder what she had made all the fuss about and be very glad that she hadn’t made a fool of herself.