that she could still picture him in quite such detail.
She decided to downplay all that, though. Cleo would never let her forget it if she thought Tilly had found herself alone in a tent with an attractive man and done absolutely nothing about it.
‘Quite,’ she said, deliberately casual. ‘In an I-could-show-some-emotion-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you kind of way.’
‘Ooh …’ Cleo brightened. ‘He sounds gorgeous!’ Her eyes sharpened. ‘Available?’
‘He’s divorced,’ Tilly admitted reluctantly.
‘I think you should go for it.’
Tilly felt oddly ruffled. ‘I wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, he wasn’t really my type. He wasn’t anything like Olivier.’
Which was true. Olivier had been dark and passionate, while Campbell was all cool containment. It was hard to imagine two men more different, in fact.
‘All the better,’ said Cleo, who hadn’t liked Olivier. ‘Someone not like Olivier is exactly what you need.’
‘I don’t need Campbell Sanderson,’ said Tilly definitely. ‘I’ve never met anyone so competitive—unless it’s my father! All men like that care about is winning,’ she went on with a touch of bitterness. ‘Never mind whose feelings they might be trampling on their way to success.’
‘You don’t need to spend the rest of your life with him, just have a bit of fun. Boost your confidence after that toad, Olivier.’
Tilly shook her head so the brown curls bounced around her face. ‘I can’t imagine anything less likely to boost my confidence,’ she said frankly. ‘Campbell is someone who has to have the best of everything, including women, and I don’t see me falling into that category, do you?’
‘You are the best,’ said Cleo loyally. ‘You’re funny, generous, warm, caring and sexy, if only you’d admit it. And you’re a fabulous cook. What more does a man want?’
‘A size six with legs up to her armpits?’
Cleo clicked her tongue. ‘You are so screwed up about your weight, Tilly! Listen, you are not overweight, you’re just curvy. That’s the way women are meant to be, and that’s how most men like them if the truth be told. Why do you think their tongues hang out whenever they spot a cleavage? You’re never going to be a stick insect, true, but you shouldn’t just accept that, you should celebrate it!’
‘Maybe I would if I could just lose a stone,’ said Tilly, reaching glumly for the biscuits. ‘Anyway, don’t get your hopes up about Campbell Sanderson. He’s hung up on his ex-wife, if you ask me, and I don’t want to get involved with that again. I had enough of being a consolation prize with Olivier.’
‘Then why not think of Campbell as your consolation prize?’ Cleo suggested.
The more she thought about it, the more Tilly had begun to wonder whether Cleo might have a point. She was overdue a good time, after all. She deserved a treat, and it wasn’t as if she would have any expectations. A brief affair to boost her ego and make her feel good about herself again—was that so much to ask?
Then Tilly would catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror and she would catch herself up, appalled at her presumption. What was she thinking? There was no way Campbell would be interested in her, even if she laid herself out on a plate for him.
Anyway, she was probably building him up in her mind, she reassured herself. When she saw him again, she would probably wonder what she had made all the fuss about and be very glad that she hadn’t made a fool of herself.
CHAPTER FIVE
EXCEPT it didn’t work out like that. The moment Campbell came through the door, Tilly’s heart gave a sickening lurch into her throat, where it lodged, hammering so hard she could hardly speak.
He was exactly as she remembered him, but somehow more so. Everything about him seemed very definite, and she was aware of him in startling detail, down to the buttons on his shirt, the fine hairs on his wrist, the faint line between his brows as he watched the crew bustling around the kitchen, talking about light and angles.
Momentarily sidelined with him, Tilly cleared her throat and forced her heart back into position. ‘How have you been?’
‘Busy,’ said Campbell succinctly. ‘I’m moving to the States in three weeks, and there’s a lot to do before then.’
So he clearly wasn’t going to have time for a little seduction on the side.
Tilly told herself that it was just as well. Her confidence was so low that he would be boarding his plane before she got up the nerve to try a little light flirtation. She had never been any good at that.
Anyway, look at him, so cool, so detached, so self-contained. It was all very well for Cleo to talk about having fun, but how could she have fun with a man like Campbell? It would be like trying to have fun with a granite rock.
No, forget it, she told herself. Just do the programme. Think about Mum and what this could do for the hospice. Teach him how to make a cake and don’t for one second let him think you might even have considered the possibility of fun!
There was a pause. It didn’t seem to bother Campbell but the silence made Tilly uncomfortable. ‘Where are you staying while you’re here?’ she asked, hating how inane she sounded. The two of them had shared a tiny tent. They had laughed on top of a mountain. She had clung to him and begged him not to let her go. And now she was treating him as if he were a stranger she had met at a cocktail party.
If Campbell noticed the incongruity of it, he made no comment. ‘In a hotel,’ he said. ‘The Watley …’ He twiddled his hand to indicate that he had forgotten the rest of the name.
‘The Watley Hall.’
‘You know it?’
‘Everyone here knows the Watley Hall, even if we can’t afford to eat there. It’s the best hotel in Allerby.’
She might have known that was where he would be staying.
‘It’s not very enterprising of you,’ she commented tartly. ‘I thought you would be pitching a tent in the garden!’
Campbell glanced at her. His face was perfectly straight but there was a glimmer of a smile at the back of his eyes, and her heart tipped a little, as if she had missed a step.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m just a boring businessman nowadays, wanting a place to work.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be learning how to make a wedding cake?’
‘During the day,’ he agreed. ‘I will need to catch up with work in the evenings, so a hotel will suit me rather more than a tent. And you’ll no doubt be glad to know that I’ll be out of your hair once the baking lesson is over for the day.’
The baking lesson. Tilly didn’t miss the dismissive note in Campbell’s voice, and her eyes narrowed. He obviously thought cake-making was a trivial business, easily mastered. A token few minutes in the kitchen every day and then he would be planning
