no entourage?’ he said. The green eyes held a hint of amusement, which crinkled them at the corners and made her stomach give an extremely ill-judged flutter. For Pete’s sake, she was not attracted to a man who was going to take pleasure in making her crawl through mud this time tomorrow.
She kept hold of the door.
‘Excuse me?’ she said.
‘Don’t people like you have a gang of hangers-on that accompany you everywhere? You know, for hair and make-up and general love-ins.’
Did he have any idea of the ludicrousness of that comment? None of her friends were prepared to desert their luxury London lives for somewhere as devoid of consumer durables as this in order to offer her some support. In fact, there’d been a marked drop in contact from her social circle in these last few days. Supportive friendship apparently didn’t hold much weight in the face of disassociating yourself from the bad-mouthing Jack Trent media scandal. On her own, therefore, in the middle of nowhere, she’d spent the past hour flicking through the laminated ‘Hotel Information’ brochure, working out that with no satellite TV the choice of movie that evening was reduced to one—a sci-fi blood-fest, just bloody great—and wondering if she could bear the alternative: watching something else on the tiny screen of her phone via the somewhat erratic Wi-Fi.
‘Love-ins?’ she snapped. ‘Have you not been following the media? The entire country wants to see me fall flat on my face. Ideally in a swamp.’
The public interest showed no sign of abating, much to the glee of Purple Productions. Any hope that the furore might die down had long since disappeared. Her only hope, according to Chester, was to play the apology card for all she was worth, take the flak, and hope the tide would turn in her favour.
‘That could be arranged,’ he said.
She looked up to see a grin touch the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t entirely unfriendly. It occurred to her that getting him onside could make this whole hideous situation a million times easier so she offered him a smile in return.
‘Did you want something?’
‘I thought I’d run through the kit list with you, check you’re ready for tomorrow. I like to check in with all the candidates for my courses the night before, answer any questions, that kind of thing.’
‘Very professional,’ she said.
He waited, eyebrows raised, until she pushed the door back and let him step past her into the horrible hotel room.
One of the narrow twin beds was piled high with kit delivered by an enthusiastic production minion who was clearly beside herself with glee at the prospect of Evie Staverton-Lynch freezing her arse off for the weekend in the most repellent, unglamorous set of garments she’d ever come across. She tried to imagine a single situation prior to today when she might have considered wearing waterproofs and failed to come up with one. She was a city girl; she hadn’t been near the great outdoors since the childhood camping holidays her mother had loved, and they were long gone. Her father’s strategy for moving on from the past had involved avoiding nostalgia trips of any kind. A new family holiday destination was quickly slotted in with the purchase of a house in France, to which she and Will were despatched a few times a year, always with a nanny. Revisiting the idea of outdoor living held an undertow of uneasiness at what memories it might dredge up.
Then again, Survival Camp Extreme was about as far as it was possible to get from the glimpses of sunny camping holidays by the beach that she remembered. When it came to this weekend, nostalgia was surely the least of her worries.
The minuscule room seemed infinitely smaller with Jack Trent in it and her stomach gave a traitorous flip of nerves, which she steadfastly ignored. She could schmooze with the best of them and surely even Jack Trent could be charmed. It was just a matter of hitting the right approach. She crossed the sticky carpet to the teetering pile of kit and began sifting through it, although she’d already looked through it once with growing disquiet. A balaclava lay on the top of the pile, for goodness’ sake.
She could feel his eyes on her.
‘All ready for tomorrow, then?’ he said.
She glanced up at him. The green eyes watched her steadily and she got the oddest feeling that he knew perfectly well how she was feeling. This close she was struck by the pure muscular size of him. The plain green T-shirt moulded to his huge shoulders and broad chest. She could see part of an eagle tattoo on the rock-hard muscle of his left upper bicep.
She slapped on the don’t-care smile that she’d perfected over a number of years.
‘As I’ll ever be,’ she breezed.
‘Nervous?’ he pressed. She gave away the answer in the drop of her eyes and she could have kicked herself.
‘It will be fine,’ he said, his voice softened a little. Her stomach gave a skip in response. She hadn’t really thought Jack Trent did anything as sappy as reassurance. ‘Tough but fun, right?’
Fun?
‘How the hell did you get involved in this kind of thing?’ she blurted before she could stop herself. ‘I mean, it’s not exactly something vocational you decide on doing at school, is it? How do you come to the conclusion that the career for you will involve eating rodents and crossing freezing rivers?’
He grinned at the sudden outburst.
‘Says the girl who’s famous for...well, for being famous. How do you get involved in that?’
Her hand betrayed her and ran itself nervously through her hair before she brought it back to clench at her side.
‘I am not remotely nervous,’ she said, avoiding the question. ‘I work out five times a week, I run and I do toning with weights. I think I can manage what’s basically a revved-up camping trip.’
He laughed out loud, a rich, deep sound that made her traitorous stomach go soft.
‘Revved-up camping trip? Have you actually taken the time to watch any of the shows?’
‘I’ve seen a few clips,’ she said.
She wasn’t about to admit to him that his shows looked like a mud-soaked freezing nightmare. No way was she just going to take his arrogant implication that she wasn’t up to the challenge.
‘Fitness is only a small part of it,’ he countered. ‘It’s about initiative, it’s about self-control, it’s about how you react in a difficult situation with limited resources.’ He was watching her intently as if trying to read her mind. ‘I read your change of tack in the press,’ he said.
‘Change of tack?’
‘From washing your hands of all responsibility to holding your hands up and begging for forgiveness.’ He paused. ‘With accompanying photo spread.’
His green eyes held hers intently without the slightest flicker and her pulse jumped at his pointed tone. She knew perfectly well which photo spread he was referring to. She swallowed to clear her suddenly dry throat. She was determined to keep control of this situation, to squash any stupid misplaced attraction to him.
‘Are you complaining that I’ve said I’m publicly sorry?’ she said.
‘No,
