He pulled the pot of rice to one side of the fire, not speaking. What had she expected? He probably thought she was insane. Hell, it sounded insane spoken out loud. With Jack’s proper respectable business and charity work his own TV image was a sideline. He already had his own successful life outside it all.
‘It sounds fantastic,’ he said.
She glanced sharply at him, so stiff and detached, like her father. Had he actually used the word ‘fantastic’? She hadn’t realised how certain she was of a negative reaction from him. ‘Can’t do.’ Just like her father on the telephone.
‘Really?’ she said. For Pete’s sake, her voice sounded pathetically grateful. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘You think it does?’
He nodded.
‘Absolutely. My sister mentioned your jewellery. Some butterfly necklace you wore the other week—she liked it and wanted to know where you got it. I don’t suppose that was one of yours?’
She realised she was staring at him.
‘Yes!’ she said excitedly. ‘I made it. She seriously liked it? You can’t imagine how lovely that is for me. I’ll make one for her.’
‘She’d love that. I’ll pay for it, of course.’
She flapped a hand at him.
‘Don’t be daft. I wouldn’t dream of it.’
He was watching her quietly, his expression hard to fathom. She wondered vaguely if she’d offended him, as if she could splash the cash as necessary and that dashing off a necklace for his sister meant nothing when it actually made her want to jump around the camp with pride.
‘I’d like to,’ she said. ‘As a thank you for getting me through the weekend.’
‘You’re not through it yet,’ he pointed out, but he was grinning now and she was relieved. ‘That’s nice of you. The business sounds great. It’s obviously got appeal in the eighteen-year-old girl bracket, judging by Helen’s reaction. Not that I know much about jewellery, but everyone needs a sense of direction. I’m all for work. I’ve seen what can happen when people have no sense of purpose, what it does to your self-esteem. I’m sure you’ll do brilliantly. Don’t let anyone stand in your way.’
Before she could stop herself her excitement at his enthusiasm bubbled over and she walked around the fire on her knees, a broad grin on her face. He jumped a little as she leaned in and kissed his mud-gritted cheek on impulse.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
A surprised grin touched his mouth as she shifted on her knees back around the fire to her own bedroll.
‘You’re very welcome.’
She sat down cross-legged and looked into the fire, unable to keep the smile off her face.
‘So just to clarify,’ he said, ‘the diva the-world-is-ending reaction to the mud on the face was all an act. For the cameras, so to speak.’
There was amusement in the green eyes as they met hers.
She blew a stray tendril of hair off her face.
‘Don’t get me wrong—I think you’d be hard pressed to find any girl who’d let herself be filmed caked in mud without putting up some kind of protest. But yes.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess it was. You saw the public backlash in the press. They want to see me humiliated on screen, not enjoying it all like a happy camper. I was just giving what I thought they wanted.’
‘And the we-understand-one-another schmoozing back in your hotel room to get some kind of easy ride?’
She shrugged.
‘I was public enemy number one. I thought it couldn’t hurt to get you onside a bit.’
‘And as the day’s gone on—’
‘I kind of lost sight of playing that part. The stupid tasks were hard enough without having to stay in some kind of mad It-girl character. It was a relief, if I’m honest, to just be myself for once.’
He opened his mouth to speak and she stopped him with a held-up hand before he got the wrong idea and suggested they up the perceived enjoyment level by bringing in cave-diving or something equally terrifying.
‘Before you get carried away, I’m not a secret fan of the great outdoors. Believe it or not, I would rather be curled up at home with a box set than sleeping in the forest.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘But I’m not really a party girl either. Or a shopping addict. Those are a means to an end. And now I’ve told you I really ought to kill you.’
She waited, staring down at her hands for him to respond. Just what kind of idiot would he think she was now? When all she got was silence she glanced up to test the look on his face.
He was smiling across at her, that gorgeous smile that floored the nation’s women. Except she was the only one here and it was just for her.
‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ he said. ‘No need for violence.’
He held her eyes a beat too long and her stomach softened deliciously. She knew flirting when she heard it and that last comment definitely smacked of it. As she cut her own eyes away they took in the shapeless jacket and trousers combo she was wearing. She hadn’t a scrap of make-up on and she couldn’t begin to even imagine what kind of bird’s nest her hair must look like. She’d seen the kind of women Jack Trent went for and she hadn’t seen a single one that channelled the dragged-through-a-hedge look.
Scratch that about flirting. Far more likely that comment was a sympathy boost.
* * *
Jack built up the fire and she’d unrolled her sleeping bag and shoved her legs inside it. Past dusk now, the wood full of sounds that hadn’t registered with her in the daytime. The crackling rustle of small animals moving around, the wind rippling through the treetops, the crackle and spit of the fire. It cast a glow for a short distance and beyond the darkness was impenetrably perfect. The smell of woodsmoke drifted on the air. She sat as close to the fire as she could without her sleeping bag catching fire. Jack’s stomach was a knot of tension. At the night in the wilderness, he insisted to himself, not at being alone with her.
It all made a kind of sense to Jack now. The glimpses of likeable among the spoilt behaviour since she’d arrived here. She’d started out in the London production meeting channelling full-on socialite princess, and then the more he got to know her and the further she got from that comfort zone, the more he began to see a normal, fun young woman with hang-ups like everyone else and a very obvious aversion to failing or giving up, which he could relate to one hundred per cent.
Without being thrown together by the show he’d never have got to know her, any more than he put himself in a position to get to know anyone. And he liked her. He liked the way she looked, he liked her backchat, he liked her determination and optimism in the face of what sounded like constant discouragement from her family. Why deny it? Why not let himself enjoy her company for one evening? It couldn’t hurt. This time tomorrow they’d be back at the hotel and he’d most likely never see her again.
That thought really shouldn’t be the downer that it seemed to be.
‘It does makes a certain kind of sense,’ he said, settling down opposite. ‘The whole TV image thing. At the beginning I thought you were going to complain your way through every task. The TV crew were geared up for monumental tantrums. I never thought you’d make it to the end.’
‘I know you didn’t,’ she said. The look in her blue eyes was of pure satisfaction and that spark of attraction kicked right back in at her triumphant vibe. The boost he always got from watching people outdo themselves on his courses.
‘Really?’
He looked at her questioningly because he prided himself on his ability to make his course candidates feel positive, to lead by encouragement.
‘Champagne and caviar?’ she reminded him. ‘The suggestion that any camping holiday I might have would be a luxury one? Be honest, you thought I wasn’t up to this thing right from the start.’
He inclined his head slightly. She’d earned it.
‘Point taken,’ he said. She’d been on the back foot with him from the outset after the media fiasco. He supposed he’d let that prejudice seep into some of his comments. He wasn’t quite as professional as he hoped he was.
‘I’m not sure I actually need any of that,’ Evie said, nodding at the pot on the fire filled with rice from Jack’s rations and her own. ‘I’m still full from the delicious meal you served to me earlier.’
He grinned.
‘Just think how it will make you appreciate food more when you get back to reality.’
She prodded the fire with a stick. It was hypnotic; there was something cosy about watching the flames dance. He sat cross-legged on his bedroll on the other side of the flames.
‘This is reality for you though, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘With your TV show it’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get. The real me is far too boring to make good viewing. Tonight Evie Staverton-Lynch tries out a new brand of luxury hot chocolate while watching TV in her onesie.’ She grinned. ‘Miss Knightsbridge would have been dropped after one episode.’
‘How on earth did you get on the show if you’re nothing like the character they wanted?’
‘That’s a funny story,’ she said.
‘I’m listening.’
She wriggled a little further into her sleeping bag and took a metal mug of boiled rice from him. She took a tiny spoonful. Bland and gelatinous, but delicious compared to the ghastly food task.
‘I was living in London not long after I finished college and I went to a birthday party at the last minute. One of my old school friends—I hadn’t seen her for years.’ She took another taste of the rice. ‘My father hadn’t been in touch for ages, except for the usual messages from his PA, and then suddenly he was there with his date.’
‘A date?’
‘My mother died when I was twelve,’ she said. ‘Since then he has a couple of old family friends who go to these things with him. No romance involved as far as I know. Not since my mum died.’
His face was carefully neutral.
‘It can’t have been easy, losing your mum like that.’
No pause to respond to that; she simply breezed ahead. She’d been breezing ahead for years. It had become her coping strategy.
‘Maybe he couldn’t cope with the reminders of her. He just shut down where I was concerned, pretty much from the moment she died, not that we were ever really close.’ She toyed with the mug of rice, thinking back. On some level the revelation that she wasn’t his child at all had come as a relief. At least she had a reason now for his cold and deliberate detachment from her, instead of those early years of miserable confusion and abandonment. ‘He’s your typical stiff-upper-lip military man. No way of telling what he’s thinking. Impossible to read.’ She glanced his way. ‘I thought at first you might be like that too, but I was wrong.
‘No offence,’ she added quickly as he raised an eyebrow. She took a deep breath, sweeping on. ‘He likes me best when I’m away somewhere, like school or college, kept busy. Kept quiet. I’m a pain in the arse of a loose end. At school I used to act up just to make that difficult for him.’
She wrapped her hands around the tin mug to warm them.
‘My father wasn’t exactly delighted to see me at this party.’ She shrugged. ‘Awkward. It was like school all over again. I was so determined to show him what a great time I was having, I drank far too much, knocked over a table and eventually got removed from the party. He left with his escort on his arm and I woke up with the mother of all hangovers the next day. I don’t really drink, you see.’
He nodded.
‘Next thing I know, I get a call from Purple Productions, briefing me on this new reality show they’ve come up with. The whole concept of fly-on-the-wall had really taken off and one of their team had been at the party. They assumed behaving like a diva in public was par for the course with me. Then they found out my background and that was it. Apparently I was exactly what they were looking for—rich socialite behaving badly with old-school family living in swanky West London on her trust fund. Except that I was never really like that at all.’
‘If the trust fund fits,’ he said.
She laughed at that. It really was funny.
‘Exactly. People just see money and think everything must be easy.’
The money and the name was all she had left of her life.
‘At the beginning I took it on thinking it would annoy my father.’ Desperation to retain a shred of her father’s attention had led her to try anything, fuelled by the irrational feeling that as long as he didn’t stop noticing her she could still have a part of his life. ‘I never expected it to take off the way it did. I got myself an agent, Chester, and he’s the one who built up the whole It-girl image. He gets the magazine shoots and interviews, that kind of thing. Then I started to make a bit of money for myself, and that felt great after so many years of going cap in hand to my father if I wanted anything, feeling reliant on him for everything. It’s only recently that I’ve started to see I could use the show as a springboard to finally start my own business. I finally started to believe I had a direction at last, something for me.’
He looked at her intently across the fire as he finished the last few spoons of his own rice. An unexpected pang of sympathy coursed through him. That fall-back position of hers was most people’s dream. It had been so easy to simply imagine her with enough money to buy whatever she wanted and generations of rich and supportive family behind her, that he’d assumed happiness came along as part of the package. Losing your mother so young was awful. Her father sounded useless. Maybe money made that easier on a practical level but it couldn’t change the fact that she was basically on her own.
‘What about you?’ she said, pointing at him with her spoon. ‘What’s your family like? Are they all mad for the great outdoors too?’
He shook his head at the ludicrousness of that idea.
‘You probably spent more time outdoors as a kid than I did with your camping holidays. We lived in London, inner city. One of those grey concrete blocks of flats on an estate. The kind of estate where you feel like you’re entering a whole different universe when you go there.’
He doubted she’d ever been within shouting distance of such a place.
‘You probably haven’t a clue what that would be like,’ he said. ‘It has the obligatory row of shops, one of which is a twenty-four-hour grocery store. Kids hang around on corners. There’s always a playground and it’s always covered in graffiti and half the equipment is broken. Everyone knows everyone else and whole branches of families live within walking distance of each other. The police look there first if there’s a drug bust.’
She was staring at him. He checked himself. His inner hatred of the place and what it had done to his family had never really gone away.
‘Is that why you joined the army?’ she said. ‘To get away?’
He looked away.
‘Something like that, yeah. I joined at nineteen. Things weren’t going too well for me at home at the time.’
A light gloss over the full story. The usual grip of shame held his tongue when it came to revisiting his past behaviour.
‘Before I met you I thought maybe you had family in the forces like me. Your father perhaps. Then you told me he wasn’t really on the scene.’
He failed to stop a sarcastic smile at that. Dusk was kicking in now but in the light from the fire she didn’t miss it.
‘What’s funny?’ She smiled back questioningly.
‘The idea that my father would have the nous to join the forces. Too much like hard work. Come to think of it, anything is too much like hard work for him.’ He glanced at her. ‘Your father is at least interested in what you’re doing, even if it comes across as criticism. I haven’t heard from mine for years. Which means my TV stuff has completely passed him
by because, trust me, he would have been in touch by now if he’d sniffed money. He’s either dead, out of the country or off his head so much of the time that he’s not living in the real world.’
That deep inner thought surfaced, the way it always did when he thought of his father. He had escaped to the army, deserting his family as surely as his father had done before him, leaving them to whatever might come. With it came the niggling fear: could that be him again in the future if the situation were right, walking away from those he needed?
* * *
A prickling sense of shame made Evie’s cheeks feel suddenly a little warm at the thought of all the moaning she’d done about her father. Jack’s background sounded hideous.
‘So it was just you and your mother growing up?’ she said.
The old curiosity gnawed at her deep inside as she asked the question. What was it like to grow up, all the way up, with a mum? She imagined her own mother would have been the perfect warm, loving, go-to protector with whom she could have shared everything. She had that luxury. She could make her mother whatever she wanted her to be, in her mind.
‘And Helen,’ he said. He smiled as he said his sister’s name. Evie liked that.
‘Older or younger?’
‘Eight years younger,’ Jack said. ‘My father left us for the last time while my mother was pregnant with Helen, and from then on it really was just the three of us. Before that he’d still pitch up now and then, when whoever he’d hooked up with had thrown him out. When he had something to gain from it. After the first few times I quit thinking he’d stay. A few more times and I realised it wasn’t me he came back for at all.’
Man vs. Socialite Page 10