Loving Our Heroes

He looked at the notebook in front of him. ‘You want me to make a barge?’

‘An ancient Egyptian one. You’re bound to be able to find a picture on the Internet somewhere. Antony was a Roman so you’ll be able to do him OK, and Cleopatra will be easy—give her black hair, big fringe, lots of eyeliner.’

And he was supposed to make all this out of cake?

Campbell listened as Tilly and Cleo carried on sparking ideas off each other, talking at dizzying speed, laughing and egging each other on. ‘We mustn’t forget the asp!’

He couldn’t help comparing this with the business meetings he was used to, where he told people what he wanted done and they did it. The meetings he chaired were much more controlled, much more efficient.

Much less fun.

‘What do you think, Campbell?’ Tilly had been drawing a quick summary in her sketchbook and she twisted it round so that he could see. He leant closer, trying not to notice the summery scent of her hair.

‘Very clever,’ he said. ‘I would have just stuck a couple of figures on top of a cake.’

‘Yes, well, that wouldn’t have won you many votes, would it?’

Campbell straightened. He had forgotten about the competition there for a while. Which was odd, given that winning it was the only reason he was here.

‘They’re bound to be impressed by this, if you can do it,’ said Cleo. ‘It does look a bit complicated, though. Would you rather we came up with a simpler design, Campbell?’

‘No, that’s fine,’ he said, unable to admit that he didn’t have a clue where to start with it, but was determined to succeed at this the way he succeeded with everything else. ‘Tilly promises her clients that they can have whatever cake they want, so if this is what you want, Cleo, this is what I’ll make you.’

‘Wonderful!’ Cleo beamed as she got to her feet. ‘It’s going to be such fun! You will stay for the party after they’ve filmed the cake, won’t you, Campbell? Once they’ve gone, you and Tilly can relax and enjoy yourselves—separately if you want,’

she added, rolling her eyes in such exaggerated resignation at Tilly’s expression that Campbell couldn’t help laughing.

Normally the thought of a wedding made him run in the opposite direction, but Cleo was so friendly that he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Besides, he had to go anyway to deliver the cake. It would be his last evening with Tilly.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’d like to come.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ said Tilly as she came back from seeing Cleo off. She dropped into a chair with a sigh. ‘I hope Cleo didn’t embarrass you. She certainly embarrassed me! Sometimes I feel like disowning all my friends!’

‘I liked her,’ said Campbell. ‘And she’s obviously very fond of you.’

‘I know.’ Tilly dragged the hair back from her face with both hands. ‘She’s a good friend, but she’s got it into her head that I need a man. And it’s not just Cleo! It’s a conspiracy,’ she complained. ‘Even my brothers are in on it, so be warned. Seb and Harry are both coming home for the weekend and, as neither of them know the meaning of subtlety, you’ll probably find yourself tied up and forced into bed with me!’

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Campbell’s mouth as her regarded her. ‘I can think of worse fates.’

Dark blue eyes flew to meet his for a fleeting moment before she looked away and coloured. ‘You don’t need to be polite,’ she muttered.

‘I’m not. You’re an attractive woman. You must know that,’ he said with a frown as Tilly goggled at him.

She swallowed. ‘It’s not how I think of myself, no,’ she said at last.

‘Why not?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘I don’t understand why you’re so hung up about your weight,’ said Campbell with a touch of exasperation. ‘OK, so you’re not the thinnest woman I’ve ever met, but you look absolutely fine to me. Some women aren’t meant to be thin, and you’re one of them. It’s only women who get worked up about what size they are. Men don’t care.’

‘I notice they all like to go out with thin women, though,’ said Tilly waspishly as she got up and began clearing away the mugs. ‘I bet your ex-wife is slim, isn’t she?’

‘She ought to be. She never ate anything. It was a waste of time taking her out to dinner,’ Campbell remembered.

‘I wish I could be like that!’

‘But then you wouldn’t have had your fantasies about meals to get you up Scottish mountains,’ he pointed out. ‘You wouldn’t be you.’

‘No, I might be slender and elegant and controlled.’

There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice as she turned and began rinsing the mugs at the sink.

Campbell looked at her back. ‘That sounds very dull,’ he said carefully, forgetting that Tilly’s chaotic quality had once made him uneasy, too. ‘Who on earth would want you to be like that?’

‘Olivier did.’ Tilly was still clattering mugs and wouldn’t turn round. ‘That’s why he broke off our relationship in the end. I couldn’t be the kind of person he wanted me to be. I was too much for him.’

‘Too much what?’

‘Too much everything, I think. I ate too much, laughed too much, talked too much, loved too much …’ Her back was still firmly turned and, even though she was clearly trying to keep her voice light, Campbell could still hear the undercurrent of pain.

‘Surely those are the reasons he would want to be with you in the first place?’

‘I don’t think it was like that for Olivier. Cleo’s theory was that I was a kind of project for him. Perhaps he saw me as some kind of challenge. Maybe he thought it would be interesting to see if he could shape me into something different, someone cool and controlled who would blend with his stylish décor.

‘But of course I never could blend in,’ Tilly went on, setting the mugs on the draining rack and turning at last. ‘Now I feel ashamed for trying to, but I loved him so much, I was desperate to please him. I’d have done anything he wanted, but I just couldn’t be that different. I’m just not like that.’

Her throat was tight with remembered hurt, and she couldn’t bear to meet Campbell’s eyes. She reached for a tea towel instead and wiped her hands very carefully.

‘In the end, I think Olivier found me disgusting,’ she said with difficulty, her gaze on the tea towel. ‘It was awful. The more I tried to please him, the more he withdrew. It was as if he couldn’t bear me near him.’

Campbell heard the crack of pain in her voice and anger closed like a fist around his heart. ‘Who was this guy?’ he demanded furiously.

‘He’s an architect. A very good one. He’s moved to London now. I think Allerby was too provincial for Olivier.’

‘Or maybe he was too affected for Allerby,’ Campbell suggested. ‘What can you expect with a poncey name like Olivier?’ he demanded. ‘I suppose his real name is Oliver and he wanted to make himself more interesting.’

Tilly couldn’t help feeling touched that he was so angry on her behalf, but habit drove her to defend Olivier.

‘His mother’s French,’ she told him. ‘That’s why he’s Olivier and not Oliver. Actually, the name suits him. He’s very dark and good-looking and…oh, glamorous, I suppose,’ she remembered with a sigh. ‘He was always out of my league. He’s not just handsome, he’s clever and witty and artistic and good at everything he does.’

‘He certainly did an excellent job of destroying your self-confidence,’ said Campbell acidly.

Tilly smiled a little sadly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever had much of that, not when it comes to men, anyway.’

Her hands were as dry as they were ever going to be. She made herself hang the tea towel back on its hook and opened the fridge to look for butter and eggs. When in doubt, Tilly always baked. There was something about the process that soothed her. She had made an awful lot of cakes in the months since Olivier had decided she was never going to match up to his standards.

Campbell pushed back his chair to watch her. ‘Why not?’

‘Cleo blames my father, but then Cleo would. She’s an amateur psychologist. She says that I’m “replicating a pattern of loving men I can’t trust”.’ Tilly hooked her fingers in the air to emphasise the quotation.

‘And are you?’

She shrugged as she searched for sugar, flour and sultanas in the sliding larder.

‘I don’t know about that, but whatever it is I do, I’m not doing it again,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t just Olivier. Before him it was Andrew, and before him, Simon. They weren’t quite as demanding as Olivier, but I’m sick of not being quite good enough. I’m sick of having my heart broken.’

Carrying the dry ingredients over to the table, she started to set them down and looked at Campbell at last. ‘I know my friends mean well. I know they just want me to be happy. They think I shouldn’t let Olivier put me off men for life, and that I should just get back out there and start dating again, but I don’t dare. I’m too afraid I’ll just end up getting hurt again.’

She stopped, the packet of sultanas still clutched against her chest. ‘Funny, I’ve never admitted that to anyone else,’ she said, a puzzled crease between her brows. ‘I must feel safer with you than I thought.’

‘I’m not sure that’s very good for my ego,’ said Campbell wryly, and she flushed a little, belatedly realising that she had spoken her thoughts aloud.

‘I just meant…because you’re only here for a week,’ she tried to explain. ‘You’re not just leaving Allerby, you’re leaving the country soon, so even if we did find each other attractive, a relationship would be out of the question.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

RIGHT, and he needed to remember that, Campbell told himself that night. He was surprised at how much he had hated seeing how hurt Tilly had been by Olivier—and he didn’t care what she said about him being half-French, it was still a damn fool name.

What a sinful waste that she should have cut herself off from men. Alone and restless, Campbell scowled up at the ceiling through the darkness. He badly wanted to show Tilly that she was wrong, that she was quite beautiful and sexy and desirable enough as she was.

But how could he do that without hurting her himself?

Tilly had told him that she was afraid, and he didn’t have time to win her confidence. Even if he did, what then?

He was moving to the States, Campbell reminded himself. Taking over a company with a global reputation like Mentior’s would be the culmination of his business career. There would be no stopping him now. He was going to take that firm and turn it round and make it the best in the world again, and he was going to do it where Lisa couldn’t fail to note his success.

Ever since Lisa had left him, he had been focused on proving to her just how big a mistake she had made. He would never have a better chance than this. There was no question of not going.

And that meant there was no question of convincing Tilly that she was a desirable woman. She was absolutely right. It was best for both of them if they kept their relationship firmly on a friendly basis. Tilly had made it very clear that was all she wanted.

He needed to be realistic, after all, Campbell told himself. They were only together because of the television programme. As soon as Cleo’s wedding was over, and he had made that cake, they would go their separate ways. They would meet up at the awards ceremony for one last filming and, if they had won, as Campbell fully intended they would, they would hand over their cheques to the hospice that meant so much to her, and that would be that.

It was impractical to even think about anything else.

Unfortunately, that didn’t stop Campbell thinking about it anyway. It was hard not to when he and Tilly were spending so much time together.

Campbell hadn’t expected to enjoy his time learning to make cakes. He had expected to be bored and impatient to get back to the office. He checked his email regularly, and his PA had strict instructions to ring him if there were any problems, but they all seemed to be managing perfectly well without him, and Campbell found himself thinking about work less and less and about Tilly more and more.

Never having given it any thought, he had been surprised at quite how much was involved in making cakes for a living. As Tilly explained, it wasn’t just a question of baking. She had long interviews with each client to find out exactly what they wanted, then the cake had to be designed and decorated and delivered on time. She sourced recipes, shopped for ingredients and priced each cake, but what she was best at was talking to people.

Inclined to be dismissive at first, Campbell came to recognise her ability to make connections for the skill it was. He watched clients relax as they sat at Tilly’s table and told her about who or what they wanted to celebrate with a special cake, and he watched their faces when they saw what Tilly had made for them.

There were almost always gasps of pleasure and admiration when the cake was unveiled, and he could understand why. Campbell was amazed at what she could do. The day after Cleo’s visit, she had made a football pitch complete with players in the correct strips for a nine year-old boy who was a Manchester United fan. Campbell had helped her deliver it to the birthday party and would have enjoyed the whole experience if he hadn’t had to drive a van with ‘Sweet Nothings’ painted on the side.

A pink van.

Campbell had told Tilly she needed to work on her corporate image, but she’d just laughed at him. ‘Everyone loves the pink van,’ she said. ‘It’s fun.’

‘I just hope to God nobody I know sees me in it,’ he grumbled and Tilly slid him a mischievous glance.

‘Perhaps you’re the one who needs rebranding,’ she suggested. ‘You could tone down all that macho man and get in touch with your feminine side!’

The look Campbell sent her in reply made Tilly laugh out loud.

‘OK, there is no feminine side. That would explain why you’re finding it so hard to make a cake!’

And Campbell had to admit that he was struggling on that front. Tilly made it look so easy, but when he’d tried to make even a basic sponge it was a disaster.

‘Look, it’s not a competition,’ Tilly said to him, watching him square up to his ingredients for yet another practice cake. ‘It’s not about winning, or beating the ingredients into shape. It’s magic.’

She let some caster sugar run through her fingers, caressed a speckled brown egg. ‘It’s about taking all these different ingredients and turning them into something that looks wonderful and smells wonderful and tastes wonderful. You’re too aggressive,’ she scolded him. ‘You’re treating cooking as a battle, with you as Julius Caesar and the ingredients as the poor old Britons! Don’t think of the recipe as a series of manoeuvres. Think of it as helpful advice to create something beautiful.’

But, frustrated by his inability to master baking the way he had mastered every other obstacle in his way, Campbell was too brisk, too impatient for results, to do anything of the kind. He didn’t know what Tilly meant when she said it wasn’t about winning. Why else would he be making a fool of himself like this?

He was much happier sorting out her office for her and criticising her accounting system. He fixed wobbly shelves and changed the light bulbs she couldn’t reach. He checked the oil in the van and filled up the windscreen wash. He set up a special business email account for Sweet Nothings.

‘If you carry on like this, I’m not going to want you to leave,’ Tilly said.

Leave. Campbell was jolted by the reminder. Of course he would be leaving. He would be getting on a plane and flying off to the States, where there would be no Tilly humming tunelessly as she moved around the kitchen. No Tilly endlessly teasing him about his military approach or his interest in Roman history. No Tilly there rolling her eyes, wearing her bold bright lipstick, leaning forward with an animated face, encompassing everyone she talked to in her warmth and her light.

But he would be in New York. He would be successful. He would look Lisa in the face and show her everything that she had lost.

‘Careful!’ Tilly cautioned him as he lifted the cake out of the back of the van. ‘This one’s very fragile.’

Campbell looked down at the cake, decorated to look like a bed complete with pink frills, scatter cushions and a teddy bear. It was covered with cosmetics, a chick flick DVD and a sparkly top.

‘Is this a birthday cake?’

‘It’s for a sleepover party.’

To Campbell the house seemed full of shrieking, giggling girls who flocked around them, exclaiming at the cake and tossing back their hair as they cast sidelong glances at him under their impossibly long lashes while Tilly carried on an in-depth conversation with the birthday girl’s mother.

‘Phew!’ He let out a long breath when he finally managed to extricate her and made an escape. ‘I’d rather parachute into enemy territory than do that again.’

Tilly rolled her eyes in a characteristic gesture. ‘Honestly, they were just a few little girls!’

‘They weren’t little, and they were terrifying. You could have warned me!’

‘I didn’t realise that it would be quite such a traumatic experience for you,’ she said, grinning as she unlocked the van. ‘You certainly weren’t much back-up support!’

‘Hey, I got you out of there, didn’t I?’

‘I’m not sure grabbing me by the wrist, telling Jane that we had to go and dragging me to the door really counts. You might try a more diplomatic approach next time.’

‘There’s going to be a next time?’ said Campbell, his horror only half feigned.

‘Perhaps I’d better make it solo missions if there’s any girly stuff involved,’ said Tilly, laughing at him over the roof of the van. ‘I hope this never gets back to the mess. The day Campbell Sanderson panicked when confronted with six twelve-year-old girls!’

‘I did not panic,’ he said, trying to suppress an answering grin. ‘I merely made a strategic retreat. I was thinking of you, in any case,’ he added virtuously as they got into the van. ‘It’s been a long day.’

Tilly stretched and sighed. ‘It has. At least that’s it for today.’ She reached for her seatbelt. ‘Do you want me to drop you back at the hotel?’

‘If you’ll let me buy you dinner,’ said Campbell on an impulse and when she froze with her seat belt halfway across her, he held up his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘Don’t panic, I’m not planning to make a move on you! You made your feelings clear enough about that,’ he told her. ‘I was just thinking that you’d done enough cooking today, and I’m sick of eating in a restaurant on my own.’

Tilly hesitated. Far from panicking, she was perversely miffed that Campbell had made his lack of intentions so obvious. It didn’t help that she was perfectly aware that it was her own fault. She had told him that she didn’t want to get involved, so she shouldn’t complain that he had taken her at her word.

She should be glad, in fact. Her heart couldn’t take another break. It would just shatter and there would be nothing left of it at all. She didn’t dare let her guard down, Tilly reminded herself. It would be so easy to let Campbell in, but how could he not hurt her? He might amuse himself for a while, but he wouldn’t stay for ever, and why should he? Look at her—overweight and screwed up and stuck in her rut. What could she possibly have to offer him compared to an incredible new job and a beautiful ex-wife who clearly would only have to crook a perfectly manicured finger to have him back?

No, face reality, Tilly, her mind told her firmly. Campbell is not for you.

The trouble was that her body hadn’t quite got the message.

Instead of listening to what her head was saying, her body was simmering with awareness of him. All Campbell had to do was turn and smile and every nerve she possessed seemed to suck in its breath.

Tilly couldn’t take her eyes off his hands, his mouth. She couldn’t stop remembering how lean and hard his body had felt, couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to unbutton his shirt, to run her hands over his powerful muscles, to press her lips to his skin. To forget about her poor, broken heart and let him bear her down on to a bed, a couch, the floor—anywhere—as long as he made love to her.

That was the point where Tilly had to stop herself. Wasn’t it Campbell who had accused her of having a vivid imagination? It wasn’t always a good thing, she decided, not when it left you with a thudding heart and a dry mouth and your insides roiling and writhing with desire.

And if she was like this during the day, what sort of state would she be in sitting across a table from him, where the lighting would be soft and intimate and she would only have to move her hand a matter of inches to be able to touch him?

No, the sensible thing would be to go home and put herself firmly out of temptation’s way.

On the other hand, Tilly’s body argued back, it would be nice to have a meal someone else had cooked, and it wasn’t fair to leave him on his own every night. There was no point in being silly. It was just a meal with a friend. What could be the harm in that?

‘Dinner would be nice,’ she said firmly. ‘Thanks.’

They arranged to meet a couple of hours later at a restaurant in the centre of Allerby. That gave Tilly enough time to jump in the shower and then work herself into a frenzy of doubt about what to wear.

She didn’t want to look as if she were trying too hard, or as if she were expecting anything more than a friendly dinner, but it would be nice to show Campbell that she didn’t always look a mess. She dressed for comfort when she was cooking, and her shoes were always practical and flat. It wasn’t exactly a glamorous look. As for what she had worn on that Scottish hillside, Tilly didn’t want to think about what she had looked like then!

In the end she settled on a clinging wrap-over top in a lovely deep violet with a swirly black skirt which looked good with her favourite shoes. They had perilously high heels with cutaway sides and peep toes and Tilly felt a million times better about herself the moment she put them on. Really, she ought to wear them the whole time, she decided, and to hell with teetering around the kitchen all day or throwing out her back.

Even the shoes couldn’t stop her feeling nervous as the taxi stopped outside the restaurant. Tilly knew it was stupid, but her heart was thumping ridiculously and her entrails were fluttery.

‘Please, please don’t let me make a fool of myself,’ she prayed as she paid off the taxi and turned for the entrance. The restaurant was reputed to be the best in Allerby and Tilly had been doubtful that they would get a table at such short notice, but she should have known a little thing like the restaurant being full wouldn’t stand between Campbell and getting what he wanted.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled open the door. The maître d’ glided towards her, but Tilly had already seen Campbell. He rose from the table at the sight of her, and their eyes met across the restaurant.

Campbell had showered and shaved and, in his beautifully cut suit, he looked lean and cool and more than a little ruthless. He looked devastating. Tilly’s knees felt as if they were about to buckle, and she swallowed hard.

See? her mind was nagging. I told you this was a bad idea. Now how are you going to resist him?

She pushed the thought aside. This was just a friendly dinner. But her mouth was dry as, oblivious to the maître d’, to anything except the man waiting for her, she walked over to join Campbell.

‘Hi,’ she said. The queen of sparkling repartee that was her.

Campbell felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of his lungs at the sight of her walking towards him in a tight top and a skirt that skimmed her gorgeous curves and shoes so sexy they practically left scorch marks on the floor.

Without thinking, he reached out to touch her. He couldn’t help himself. He had a hand at her waist and was drawing her towards him before the red alert siren went off belatedly in his head. He wasn’t getting involved, right?