‘What now?’
‘We put the river behind us and get on with the next task. Just one more segment to film before we camp for the night and you give it your best shot, like you have done with all these tasks so far. You can do this. OK, so you’re pissed off that you lost your footing on the river crossing but let’s not lose sight of the fact you actually got into the water. You’re doing great.’
He got a small smile this time.
‘OK.’
‘Great.’ He put an arm around her shoulders and gave a squeeze of encouragement. Big mistake. She leaned in against him automatically, the crown of her head sliding neatly beneath his chin as if she was the perfect fit for him. He let her go as if she were suddenly red hot and groped for a light-hearted comment to gloss over the fact that his heart rate was shimmying crazily. ‘And you’ll excel at the next task,’ he said quickly. ‘All you need to do is eat a few bugs.’
She gave him an incredulous look. He’d really got this sweet-talking thing sewn up. Not.
‘Oh, just fantastic,’ she snapped.
* * *
Why the hell had it hacked her off so much when the river thing hadn’t quite gone as perfectly as she expected it to? She was amazed by how annoyed she was with herself for not being more careful with her footing. Why should she even care how it went? She hadn’t expected to feel so damned triumphant when she managed to pull off the zip wire either. Despite what she might have said to Jack, did it really have that much to do with impressing the public?
How long had it been since she’d come across someone so enthusiastic and encouraging? She could easily see now why his survival courses had been so successful. He could instil enough trust to make you step off a ledge onto a zip wire or follow him into an icy cold swirly river, and he could make you feel great about the achievement, whether or not it had gone to plan.
She could only dream of having that confidence and charisma. Oh, she was used to having everything go her way, to people agreeing with her every whim. A trust fund did that for a person. Happen to have a family who had no real interest in you? No worries at all—with a trust fund behind you, you could buy friends, a social circle. Hell, you could buy a life. That was pretty much what her father had been banking on, she knew. That she would just get on with her life while he got on with his, minimal interaction necessary, his obligation to her mother fulfilled. His wallet saw to that. He’d married her mother knowing that Evie came as part of the deal, one making up for the other. When her mother had died that payoff had disappeared.
She’d learned the truth at fifteen, after he’d descended on her boarding school in response to her acting up. In anger he’d made that revelation, and her mystification and hurt at his dwindling interest in her had finally made perfect sense. He would continue to support her financially for her mother’s sake but, for him, it ended there.
The desire to belong had never left her. The hope that she might still earn his love on her own terms. He was the only father she’d ever known. And there was Will, the only blood relative she had left. To him, ignorant of the facts, she was still his big sister. She’d clung to that as she tried to find her way forward after her mother’s death, ashamed to tell anyone her secret for fear of losing what façade of a life she had left.
It had felt empty and inconsequential down the years. The only time she’d had a taste of anything like a sense of achievement was when she finally realised she might have enough interest through the TV show to launch her jewellery designs. A captive audience with whom she couldn’t fail because the fear that she wouldn’t be good enough, that she’d just sink out of sight, had made her too afraid to try before. Not when she’d sunk out of sight with her family these past twenty or so years.
Jack made failure seem somehow less scary with his gung-ho attitude about giving things a go and challenging yourself. She wanted that feeling to stay on. And that more than anything made her determined to throw herself into the eating task, one hundred per cent. It was all about impressing herself, building her confidence. It had absolutely nothing to do, she insisted to herself, with impressing him, despite the growing spark she felt between them. To fall for him would go against all the safety precautions she’d built these last few years when it came to men. She already knew he only ever had flings with women—like she needed yet another one of those. A surge of nausea churned in her stomach at the thought of a liaison with Jack, this time scrutinised from wonderful start to inevitable ditch by the gleeful viewing public.
No way would she let herself be sucked into that situation again. She would keep her mind resolutely on nothing but the outdoor tasks. Jack Trent really could be a hairy hillbilly for all she cared.
SIX
As they trudged downhill for forty minutes towards the final film location of the day, the camera crew clearly weren’t included in the ‘living off nature’s bounty’ thing. If Evie had to watch one more person munch their way through a chocolate bar she might be tempted to mug them.
‘How much longer is this going to take?’ she blurted at last, leaning against a tree with Jack while the production team organised a mocked-up table setting on a fallen log, spreading a cloth and fiddling with a cool-bag.
He glanced away from the sheet of paper he was holding, some kind of listed itinerary—goodness knew what the hell was written there.
‘Shouldn’t be much longer,’ he said, grinning. ‘Hungry, are you?’
‘That’s not funny. I just want it over and done with.’
A nod from the director and he led the way to the set. She approached the table reluctantly, her face already scrunching into a disgusted expression before she even saw the buffet from hell.
‘Let’s eat,’ Jack said.
The words landed in her stomach like a rock. To one side of the table was a couple of plastic boxes, hastily removed from shot as she watched by a production minion.
‘Tupperware?’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘What the hell happened to foraging nature’s bounty? How exactly is this true to life?’ It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if there was pizza.
‘This is a TV show,’ Jack said, stating the obvious. ‘These foods are all foraged, all items it’s perfectly possible to find out here. Unfortunately we’re under time pressure so instead of hunting and collecting game ourselves it’s been decided that we’ll do a bit of a tasting demonstration.’
‘Decided by who?’ she asked. Clearly not Jack—his whole demeanour screamed disapproval.
‘The production team,’ he said, waving a hand at the handful of people. ‘Naturally if you were just attending the survival course without any filming, all food would be caught by us. Obviously that can be unpredictable, very much down to what you happen to find on the day, and it can also be very time consuming. I’ll explain all that to camera and we’ll edit in some footage of me demonstrating how to make snares.’ He paused. ‘Then they thought talking through and trying a range of foods with you might add a bit more interest for the viewers.’
‘I just bet they did,’ she said, her temper surfacing. ‘Get evil Evie to eat roasted rat and watch the hike in viewing figures—right?’
Jack shook his head.
‘For the record, it wasn’t my decision.’ He paused for a moment as the camera clicked into action. ‘You can refuse, of course. I wouldn’t blame you. You’re clearly used to champagne and caviar, but these are all perfectly edible foods that will keep you alive in the wild.’ He turned to camera and began counting off on his fingers. ‘Squirrel, rat, mealworms...’ The camera zoomed in as Evie leaned over the table to look at what was on offer. It all looked beyond hideous. The gnawing hunger that had resurfaced at intervals for the last couple of hours scuttled away. She was certain now that she could manage on nothing but a thimbleful of purified water for the whole weekend if necessary. When she looked up Jack’s eyes were sharp with i
nterest; he was obviously waiting to see what her reaction would be.
‘If you’re not up to the challenge you only have to say,’ he said. He held her gaze steadily with his green eyes. ‘But you can do this. Nothing on that platter will kill you.’ Always the get-out opportunity. He encouraged, he didn’t push.
The ‘champagne and caviar’ comment riled her a little. For all his impressed attitude after the river crossing, in his eyes she was clearly still nothing more than rich socialite. Purple Productions, and Jack—and undoubtedly her father and the public at large—doubted that she was up to the task. They all thought they knew her reaction before she even started. All that remained was for It-girl Evie to pull a disgusted face and make a huge on-screen fuss before tasting perhaps a corner of one of the awful chunks of ‘food’ and then throwing up just off-camera. That waste-of-space opinion of her would be cemented in the space of one scene of the show. Her success at the zip wire and her endurance of the river would be forgotten in the space of a few minutes as she showed her true colours after all. She decided right there that there was no way she was going to give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her fail at this. She would try every disgusting thing on offer without so much as a gag. She drew herself up to her full height.
Jack watched as she poked through the items on the table with one finger. The camera zoomed in for a close-up.
‘You first,’ she said.
* * *
Ten minutes later and the food had been filmed and named for the viewers, item by gruesome item, a line-up of morsels on a tin plate, some of which were—gut-churningly—moving. She locked determined eyes with Jack’s amused ones and refused to drop her gaze first.
Start as you mean to go on.
She watched Jack chat to camera about the nutritional qualities of insects and grubs, many of which were apparently safely edible by humans, none of which mattered to her one bit because they looked so utterly, utterly repellent.
He made his point by picking up a couple of wormy things from the writhing mass on the plate and calmly eating them with an expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place if they’d been canapés at a swanky cocktail party. He kept his eyes locked on her the entire time. She could feel her cheeks trying to pull themselves into a grimace.
‘Your turn,’ he said. ‘Make sure you chew before you swallow them.’
Her stomach gave a sickening roll in response and she slapped him on the arm.
He laughed good-naturedly while she dug her nail extensions into her palms.
She thought of the Miss K fan base, expecting her to throw a hissy fit of monumental proportions before possibly resorting to tears. Was that really how she wanted to be viewed? Most of all she thought of her father with his view that all she ever did was show herself up.
‘Cheese on toast,’ she chanted aloud, deliberately not plumping for champagne and caviar, reaching for the plate before she could change her mind. The grubs felt vaguely squelchy beneath her fingers. ‘Cheese on toast, cheese on toast.’ She tried to picture the delicious crunch of toasted bread and the strong flavour of cheese, with maybe just a dash of black pepper, all the while attempting to chew without letting the grubs make contact with any part of her mouth except her teeth. Jack’s eyes widened at the mad chomping. A dark and bitter-tasting stringiness flooded her mouth in spite of her efforts and by sheer will she somehow managed not to gag as she swallowed.
Then it was done; it was gone. One down, more to go. And as she looked up Jack gave her an impressed grin and a thumbs up of encouragement. She somehow felt better about herself in that moment, after eating bugs, than she had done since this whole nightmare had begun.
Within twenty minutes she’d tried everything on the plate. Including but not limited to star-of-the-show roasted rat. The sense of satisfaction she felt at not having thrown in the towel was completely unfamiliar. The camera crew moved around them, packing up equipment, ready to move to their pick-up point. One cameraman would continue with them to film them setting up camp before he departed too. Then tomorrow there were more promised outdoor sequences to be filmed. She felt oddly more on edge at the prospect of spending the night alone here, just herself and Jack, than she did at whatever might be thrown at her tomorrow. She forced herself to get a grip. She’d got through this day unscathed. How hard could it be?
* * *
‘Three out of three,’ Jack said, finally setting his pack down in a new clearing. Their final campsite was chosen, as he had informed the camera, because it was well sheltered and near but not too near a stream. ‘Not bad. You’ve really held your own.’
‘Really,’ she said, not sure whether that could be construed as entirely complimentary when his voice was laced with surprise.
‘Grown men have puked,’ he said.
Unbelievable the spike of pride that caused. She wondered what that said about the lack of achievement in her life thus far. Perhaps best not to analyse that one too much.
An hour or so later and the camera had finished a run of footage covering the best place for a fire, how to collect and purify stream water, and how best to shelter if necessary. The cameraman packed up his kit and left them nerve-tinglingly alone together. The tense reality of being alone with her smacked Jack between the eyes almost immediately.
He couldn’t deny he was impressed. Surprised and impressed. Agreeing to attend the course and actually throwing yourself into the tasks involved were two different things. She was game. He hadn’t expected that. And taking part in the tasks with her was actually fun. It was all a bit of a change from the usual overenthusiastic attendees his courses attracted. Most of his candidates were only too happy to follow orders, eager to learn and impressed by his reputation. Since the TV show he could add starstruck to that mix, something which made him extremely uncomfortable.
Evie displayed none of those traits. Without an interest in survival skills or bush craft, she instead chatted to him about her childhood camping holidays and asked him about his background. As a workaholic who deliberately avoided any relationship that demanded emotional investment from him, being with someone who was interested in chatting to him wasn’t what he was used to. Yes, there had been dates, but they were little more than photo opportunities for the press. There had been plenty of short flings when he was on leave from the army but that was years ago now, back when he was in the mindset of taking no responsibility for anyone but himself.
On top of all that, she was much nicer to look at than the usual people who came on these things. He’d never imagined anyone could possibly look that cute with mud on their face. She was a confusing mass of behaviours. The girl he’d seen on the TV who’d tried to schmooze him onside back in the hotel for an easy life, and the girl who was determined to go through with the worst of the outdoor challenges his courses offered. So which was she?
‘Thanks.’ She leaned her backpack against a handy tree. ‘If you wanted to stop with the “rich girl” references any time soon, that would be really good.’
He stopped what he was doing and looked at her questioningly.
‘Champagne and caviar?’ she said, eyebrows raised.
A smile kicked in. He’d been running with stereotype so long that it hadn’t occurred to him that he might be offending her.
‘Sorry.’ He stood up. ‘That is your life though, isn’t it? Party-girl socialite. Your whole TV show buys into that.’
She dropped her eyes away, as if she disliked that comment. Silence ensued as she pawed through her own backpack and he felt a twist of regret, closely followed by exasperation. What was he doing now, analysing her every comment and reaction? He focused on the task at hand and waved a hand around at the wooded surroundings. ‘We need to get started collecting some wood, then we can get a fire up and running.’ Being alone with her brought a twist of tension that it shouldn’t. An evening stretching ahead, just the two of
them. He swept the thought to one side. It was one night. Another campout in a long line of millions of them. Loads of practical tasks to deal with. He was simply knocked sideways a little by the fact that he’d started the day unimpressed by her and she’d managed to turn that opinion around. She wasn’t quite what she’d seemed, back in that production meeting. That didn’t happen to him often.
To prove to himself that he wasn’t distracted he moved around the clearing, showing her the kind of wood that worked best. She dutifully began collecting, making a pile. Again, no sign of the diva when the camera wasn’t switched on.
‘What kind of things did you get up to, then, camping out as a kid?’ he asked, carefully keeping the conversation on task too.
She glanced up from the pile of wood.
‘Certainly nothing as full-on as eating bugs,’ she said. ‘Although I’m sure Will would have been up for it. Sleeping in a tent, a bit of fishing, cooking over a campfire. All the usual stuff.’
‘He should be impressed, then.’
‘Will?’ She uttered a light laugh. ‘He won’t be watching. He’s out on tour in the Middle East.’ She shrugged wryly. ‘He probably wouldn’t be watching even if he was back here. My family aren’t big fans of my TV appearances.’ She glanced his way. ‘No offence. My father actually likes your show. When I’m not in it at least. He thinks my TV stuff is a family embarrassment.’
He was surprised. He’d read enough about her to know she came from a hugely successful family. He’d assumed that kind of background, with a family business and a family name, automatically meant they would be close. What the hell was there to go wrong when everyone had enough money to fix any problem, no matter how large?
‘I guess I assumed you had this big supportive family background,’ he said. He thought of Helen, managing back at home with his mother on minimal money for months at a time when he’d been abroad. Just like Evie’s brother Will, he’d never given his sister a second thought while he was away. Out of sight, out of mind. His stomach gave a guilty churn.
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