Last-Minute Proposal Read online

  ‘Whatever you want,’ said Campbell, one eye on the other competitors, who were already packing up and getting ready to head down the hillside. ‘Just do it.’

  ‘OK,’ said Tilly bravely. ‘Let’s get on with it then.’

  In spite of her best resolution, it took a couple of attempts before she had the nerve to let go of his neck completely and put her hands on the rope instead.

  ‘Good,’ said Campbell, and she was ashamed of the tiny glow of warmth she felt at his approval.

  He explained what she needed to do. ‘Off you go, then,’ he said briskly.

  Tilly inched her way back to the edge. ‘You won’t let me fall?’ Her voice was wavering on the verge of panic again and Campbell looked straight into her eyes.

  ‘Trust me,’ he said again.

  ‘Right,’ said Tilly and, taking a deep breath, she leant backwards over the empty air.

  It would be too much to say that she enjoyed her abseil, but the hardest part was that first moment of leaning into the void, and once she was making her way down the cliff, gradually letting out the rope, it didn’t seem quite so terrifying. Campbell was at the top, letting out the rope as she went, and very quickly, it seemed, her feet touched the grass and she was collapsing into an untidy heap.

  The next moment, Campbell had abseiled down in two easy jumps and was gathering up the equipment. ‘Come on,’ he said briskly, barely sparing a glance at Tilly, who was still sprawled on the grass and recovering from the trauma of her descent. ‘We’re behind.’

  Reluctantly, Tilly hauled herself upright. Her legs felt distinctly wobbly but when she looked up at the rock face, she could see that it wasn’t in fact that high. Campbell had been right, damn him.

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  ‘Now we have to get down and across the river, and we have to do it before the others, or we can’t be sure of getting through to the next round.’ Campbell coiled the last rope and stowed it away in his rucksack. ‘Come on.’

  He strode off, leaving Tilly to trot after him. ‘Are you sure you’re going the right way?’ she asked a little breathlessly, and pointed over her shoulder. ‘Everyone else has gone that way.’

  ‘Which is why we’re going this way,’ said Campbell, not breaking his stride in the slightest. ‘It’s a tougher route, but much quicker.’

  ‘How on earth do you know that?’

  ‘I looked at a map this morning.’

  Tilly stared at his back. ‘Boy, you really do want to win, don’t you?’ Her father was the only person she knew with that kind of drive to win at any cost.

  ‘Why are you here if you don’t?’ he countered. Just as her father would have done.

  ‘I was tricked into it.’ Tilly’s blue eyes sparkled with remembered indignation. ‘My twin brothers decided that it was time for me to get out of my rut and entered me in the competition. The first I knew of it was when people who work at the hospice started coming up to me and telling me how thrilled they were that I was taking part and what wonderful things they would be able to do with the money if I won. So I could hardly turn round then and say it was all a terrible mistake, could I?’ she grumbled.

  Campbell glanced down at her. Her heart-shaped face was pink with exertion and she was vainly trying to stop the breeze blowing the mass of curly brown hair into her eyes. She looked cross and ruffled and vibrant in her red ski-suit. It seemed a bizarre choice to wear for a weekend walking in the hills, but at least there was no chance of her getting lost. You could see her coming a mile away. Perhaps the television people had told her they wanted her to be noticeable-although it was hard to imagine not noticing her.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘If you didn’t want to do it, you could have just said so.’

  Of course he would say that, thought Tilly. It was easy for people like Campbell Sanderson and her father, who only ever focused on one thing. They didn’t worry about what other people would think or whether feelings would be hurt. They just said what they thought and did what they wanted and it never occurred to them to feel guilty about anything.

  ‘It would have seemed so selfish,’ she tried to explain. ‘The hospice is a really special place. It was so awful when we knew my mother was dying. She was in pain, my brothers were very young, my stepfather was distraught…I was trying to hold things together but I didn’t know what to do.’

  The dark blue eyes were sad as she remembered that terrible time. ‘I was so afraid of Mum dying,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how any of us would have got through it without the hospice. It wasn’t that we were any less bereft when she did die, but when she was there we were all calmer. They were so kind, not just to Mum, but to all of us. They helped us to understand what was happening, and accept it in a way we hadn’t been able to do before.

  ‘It was the same when my stepfather died,’ said Tilly. ‘It was still terrible, but we weren’t so scared. I owe the hospice so much that I can’t just back out. They were all so thrilled about the prospect of me taking part for them! If we win, they’ll get the prize money, which would mean so much to them. They’re building a new wing, so that other families can have the help and support we had. How could I turn round and say I wasn’t going to try and help them after all?’

  ‘There must be other ways of helping them,’ Campbell pointed out.

  ‘I volunteer in the shop,’ said Tilly, ‘but that isn’t much of a sacrifice, is it?’

  ‘It’s more than most people do.’

  ‘Maybe, but most people don’t get a chance to win a huge donation to the charity of their choice either. If an opportunity like that comes along, it’s virtually impossible to turn it down. I’d have felt worse than a piece of poo on your shoe if I had-as Harry and Seb no doubt worked out.’

  ‘Harry and Seb?’

  ‘My twin brothers,’ Tilly told him without enthusiasm. ‘This whole thing was their idea. They found out about the programme and took it upon themselves to enter me on my behalf. They sent in a photo and some spurious account of why I was so keen to take part-and then made sure everybody knew that I’d got through to the first round before I did so they were all lined up to lay on the emotional blackmail when Seb and Harry finally broke the news.

  ‘At least, they didn’t mean it as emotional blackmail,’ she amended, wanting to be fair. ‘Everyone at the hospice thought I wanted to take part and had just kept quiet in case I wasn’t picked. So of course when my brothers told them that I was going to be on the programme, they were all delighted for me and kept telling me how proud Mum would have been if she knew what I was doing, which she would have been, of course.’

  Tilly sighed. ‘I couldn’t disappoint them by telling them it was all a mistake, could I? It would have felt like letting Mum down, too.’

  Campbell frowned as he headed across the hillside, cutting down from the track so that they had to leap between clumps of heather. At least, Tilly did. Campbell just carried on walking as if he were on a pavement. Tilly had never met anyone as surefooted. There was a kind of dangerous grace about the way he moved, and it made her feel even more of a lumbering walrus than she did normally.

  He was obviously incredibly fit, too. Look at him-he wasn’t even out of breath, thought Tilly, aggrieved, while she was puffing and panting and tripping over heather and generally making it obvious that she was extremely unfit.

  ‘Why were your brothers so keen to get you on the programme?’

  ‘They’ve got this bee in their bonnet that I’m in a rut,’ puffed Tilly, struggling to keep up with him. ‘I was thirty earlier this year and you’d think I was about to cash in my pension the way they’re carrying on about my missed opportunities!’

  ‘Are you in a rut?’

  ‘If I am, it’s a very comfortable one,’ she said with an edge of defiance. ‘I’m perfectly happy doing what I’m doing, and I haven’t got time to worry about ruts. The boys only think that because they’ve been away at university, and they’ve got this idea that Allerby is boring-although I notic
e they don’t mind coming back when they’re short of money and in need of some good square meals,’ she added tartly.

  Of course, Campbell would probably think an attractive market town in North Yorkshire was boring, too. He didn’t look like a provincial type. He would stand out like a tiger amongst a lot of fat, pampered pets in Allerby, for instance.

  On the other hand, he didn’t look like a true townie either. Tilly couldn’t imagine him going to the theatre or sipping a cappuccino. His military background probably explained that slightly dangerous edge to him, but then what was he doing here?

  There was one easy way to find out.

  ‘So what are you doing here? You don’t seem the kind of bloke who does things he doesn’t want to do.’

  ‘I seem to have ended up doing this,’ said Campbell sourly. ‘I’m Chief Executive of Manning Securities.’

  ‘The sponsors of the show?’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, without once breaking pace. ‘Keith, my PR Director, convinced me that the show would be good for our image. Personally, I’d have thought it was more effective just to give the money to charity, but Keith was adamant that this would have a greater impact. It fitted with our ethos of corporate social responsibility and, as I didn’t think I’d have to be involved myself, I gave the go-ahead.’

  ‘You look pretty involved now,’ Tilly commented, and he grunted a reluctant acknowledgement.

  ‘Not out of choice. This is Keith’s fault. He rang me yesterday morning, saying that one of the contestants had had to withdraw because he’d broken his leg and that the production team were desperate for a last-minute replacement with survival skills.’

  ‘That was Greg,’ said Tilly. ‘I met him last week when I learnt I’d got through to this round. They said he was an experienced Outward Bound instructor and a vegan, so I suppose they thought he would make a good contrast with me. He seemed a nice enough guy, but I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I heard he’d broken his leg. I thought I’d have the perfect reason to withdraw, and then they partnered me with you!’ Her expression was glum.

  ‘Glad I was such a nice surprise!’ said Campbell with a touch of acid.

  ‘Well, you can’t pretend you’re exactly thrilled at being stuck with me for the next couple of days,’ she pointed out.

  ‘I’m not thrilled to be doing this at all,’ he said. ‘I’m moving to a new job in the States in a few weeks, so I’ve got better things to do than mess around with television challenges. But Keith is very committed to the project and, as he knows that I used to be in the forces, he was piling on the pressure to get me to agree to help out.’

  ‘If you didn’t want to do it, why didn’t you just say so?’ Tilly was delighted to be able to quote Campbell’s words back to him. ‘Aren’t you military types trained not to give in to pressure?’ she added innocently. ‘You could have stuck to name, rank and serial number.’

  Campbell shot her a look. ‘Keith was a little cleverer than that. He talked a lot about how the programme wouldn’t work if they didn’t have the right number of contestants, and what a shame it would be if my last few weeks at Manning were remembered for a failure.’

  ‘Sounds like he knows just how to press all your buttons,’ said Tilly, full of admiration for the unknown Keith. It was clear that he had his boss sussed. She had barely known Campbell for more than an hour, but even she could see that he was driven by the need to be the best. Any suggestion that he might be associated with failure would be like a red rag to a bull.

  ‘He said it would just be a weekend with an amateur in the Highlands,’ Campbell went on, darkly remembering how he had been misled. ‘I didn’t realise quite how much of an amateur you would be, I must admit.’

  ‘Look at it from the television producers’ point of view. Where’s the fun if both of us know what we’re doing? If you ask me, they want scenes like the one at the top of the cliff.’

  ‘What cliff?’

  ‘The one I abseiled down!’

  ‘That little drop? You could have practically stepped down it!’

  Tilly eyed him with dislike. ‘So what’s your charity?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Everyone who’s taking part is doing it for charity. So I’m doing it for the local hospice, and I think Greg was hoping to raise money for mountain rescue dogs or something. You must have some incentive to win.’

  Campbell shrugged. ‘Winning’s enough for me,’ he said. ‘But I tell you what. My prize money will go to your hospice if we win, so they’ll have a double donation.’

  Double the money. Tilly thought about what that would mean to the hospice. ‘Really?’ she asked.

  ‘Only if it gives you some incentive to hurry up,’ he said astringently.

  ‘I am hurrying,’ said Tilly, miffed. ‘I’m not used to all this exercise. I suppose that’s why they picked me,’ she added with a glum look. ‘They thought I’d be just the person to hold you back.’

  ‘Then I hope you’ll be able to prove them wrong,’ said Campbell, pausing on a ridge to look down at the river below.

  His eyes scanned the valley. A television crew was waiting on the other side of the river, but there was no sign of the other contestants yet. They had taken the straightforward route, which meant that his gamble had paid off.

  Tilly puffed up to stand beside him. ‘Where next?’

  Campbell pointed to the river. ‘Down there.’

  ‘But how…?’ Tilly’s heart sank as she peered over the edge at the precipitous drop.

  ‘This is more like a cliff,’ Campbell conceded.

  ‘Oh, no…’ Tilly started to back away as she realised just what he had in mind. ‘No! No, absolutely not. There’s no way I’m hanging off that rope again. Don’t even think about it!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  T EN minutes later, Tilly was standing at the bottom, watching Campbell do his SAS act. Sliding down the cliff in one fluid action, he made it look so easy, she thought resentfully.

  ‘There, that wasn’t that bad, was it?’ he said to her as he unclipped himself and began briskly coiling ropes.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Tilly contradicted him sulkily, although it hadn’t, in fact, been quite as bad as the first time. ‘I’m going to be having nightmares about today for years,’ she told him, unwilling to let him get away with his unashamed bullying that easily. ‘I can’t believe I was glad when I heard Greg wouldn’t be able to take part! He would have been much nicer to me. I’m sure he would never have told me to stop being so wet or made me throw myself off the edge of a cliff,’ she grumbled.

  ‘I’m sure he’d have been perfect,’ Campbell agreed. ‘But he wouldn’t have got you to the river ahead of everyone else.’

  ‘He’d probably think there were more important things than winning,’ said Tilly loftily.

  Campbell looked at her as if she had suddenly started talking in Polish. Clearly it had never occurred to him that not coming first might occasionally be an option.

  ‘Then why would he have been participating?’

  ‘Perhaps he was the victim of emotional blackmail, like me. This might come as news to you, but some of us think that it’s enough to take part.’

  ‘Tell that to the people hoping for a bed in the new hospice wing,’ said Campbell brutally.

  Tilly winced. He was right. She mustn’t forget about why she was doing this, but if only there was some other way of raising money that didn’t involve her being stuck in these freezing hills with the ultra-competitive Campbell Sanderson!

  ‘Your company’s sponsoring this whole show,’ she said a little sulkily. ‘Why don’t you just hand out a few cheques instead of making everyone jump through all these hoops?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ he said, to her surprise. She would have bet money on the fact that they would never agree about anything. ‘I would much rather write cheques than spend a weekend messing around like this, but PR isn’t my forte.’

  ‘No?’ said Tilly, feigning
astonishment. ‘You amaze me!’

  Campbell shot her a look. ‘Keith tells me programmes like this one are the way forward, viewers want to be engaged in the process of giving money, blah, blah, blah. The long and short of it is that I pay him a good salary as PR Director to know about these things and he assures me this is what will work best for Manning Securities.

  ‘If it’s the best thing for Manning, it’s what I’m going to do,’ he told her, ‘and if I’m going to do it, I’m going to win it. In order for me to win, you’ve got to win, so you might as well get used to the idea. Any more questions?’ he finished with one of his acerbic looks.

  Tilly sighed and gave up. ‘Did they say anything about lunch?’

  For a moment Campbell stared at her, then the corner of his mouth quivered.

  ‘No, but I imagine there’ll be something to eat at the checkpoint across the river.’

  Tilly looked away, thrown by the effect that quiver had had on her. For a moment there, he had looked quite human.

  Quite attractive, too, her hormones insisted on pointing out, in spite of her best efforts to ignore them. That body combined with the undeniable frisson of a mysterious and possibly dangerous background was tempting enough, but if you threw in a glint of humour as well it made for a lethal combination.

  She could do without finding Campbell Sanderson the slightest bit attractive. This whole weekend looked set to be humiliating enough without lusting after a man who would never in a million years lust back. That whole hard, couldn’t-give-a-damn air gave him a kind of glamour, and Tilly was prepared to bet that there would be some lithe, beautiful, stylish woman lurking in the background.

  Tilly could picture her easily, pouting when she heard that Campbell would be spending the entire weekend with another woman. Don’t go, she would have said, tossing back her mane of silken hair and stretching her impossibly long, slender body invitingly. Stay and make love to me instead.

  Of course it would take more than a sultry temptress to deflect Campbell’s competitive spirit, but it would have been easy for him to reassure her. There’s no danger of me fancying the woman they’ve paired me with, he would have said dismissively when she’d threatened to be jealous. The television people have deliberately picked someone fat and dowdy to give the viewers a good laugh.