Gold Digger

Lottie

“Where are you going?” Ollie snapped. I glanced over my shoulder and growled under my breath when I saw him striding after me, a furious expression on his face. It was two weeks after Vicky had told her brother and Felix off in the meeting. I’d just left Vicky in another conference room to renegotiate with some of Ollie’s advisors.

“None of your fudging business. Why don’t you… argh!” Yes, it had to be that exact moment I stepped on an uneven bit of pavement and twisted my bad ankle. “Mother trucking, fudging heels!” I was tempted to take them off and throw them into the road, but the last thing I needed was for dillweed here to witness me walking barefoot through London like some vagrant. Unfortunately, thanks to his abnormally long legs, he’d managed to catch up to me and was holding my arm to stop me falling. I jerked it out of his hold.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed as I attempted to storm away, now with a slight limp. This is what happens when girls like me and Lucy are forced into misogynistic shoes by the patriarchy.

“You shouldn’t be wearing heels if you can’t walk in them,” he said in that fudging superior tone that peed me off so much.

“Cheese and rice, you condescending butthead. Do you think I want to wear this stuff? It’s my Corporate Barbie uniform , as you put it.”

He shook his head. “You can wear whatever you want.”

“Says the man in a three-piece suit,” I muttered. “Why are you following me?”

“My sister’s paying you to do a job, and you’re just buggering off and leaving her halfway through the working day? Pretty shit assistant if you ask me.”

“I thought you didn’t want me near your sister?” I said, glancing at my watch and picking up the pace when I saw the time.

“No, I don’t want you anywhere near anyone in my family,” he said, and I rubbed my chest absently as if to ease the pain. I don’t know why I wasn’t used to his casual cruelty by now. Thanks to Vicky, I was around him way more often than was healthy, and he never failed to remind me exactly what he thought of me. “But you’ve made her rely on you. She needs you now, so you can’t just sod off in the middle of the day.”

I sighed as I came to a stop to turn to him. “I haven’t made her rely on me, Ollie.” He flinched at my use of his name, and I realised that I hadn’t said it since before everything fell apart. “And anyway, not only was I leaving her with you and Felix, both of whom can look after her perfectly well, but also some of those guys in there could probably use some of Vicky’s truth bombs – do them the power of good.”

Ollie shook his head. “So, you just run off whenever you want? It’s not even the end of the working day.”

“It is the end of my working day. This is what I negotiated with Vicky before I even started with this job. I have to leave by three, she knows that. Most of the time we work around it, arrange meetings in the morning.”

“Well, I could only meet in the afternoon, so…” he trailed off, shoving his hands into his pockets. I raised both eyebrows.

“Right,” I said slowly. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t . I have other commitments. I would have thought you would be breathing a sigh of relief.” I tilted my head to the side as I stared up at his frowning face.

“What other commitments?” he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“If I didn’t know better,” I said, my voice soft. “I would think that you wanted me at that meeting for you .” My tone became taunting then because I’d had enough. Fork this guy. So I took a step forward until we were inches apart, so close I could smell his aftershave. “Is that it, Your Grace? You want me there? Can’t stay away from me?”

I watched in fascination as his eyes darkened and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “Careful, baby,” he growled, and I felt a head rush as my stomach clenched with desire. “You want to go there? We can go there. But you’d better know what you’re asking for. I’m not blind to the kind of girl you are now. No more bullshit romance and fake feelings. But if you want to go, we’ll go. Just say the word.” His voice dropped then, dark and low. “I know for a fact nobody’s ever made you come as hard as I have. If I close my eyes, I can still see the shock on your face, hear the scream I had to stifle with my mouth. So I can’t promise any more flowery words, but I can guarantee you’ll be more than satisfied.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, going for confidence, but the breathless quality of my voice let me down. “Bring it on.”

I could feel my pulse beating in my chest as my face caught fire. Images of dirty, angry sex with Ollie flooded my brain until there was a low ringing in my ears, and I felt almost high. Nothing existed beyond Ollie and me. Not the London crowd moving all around us on the pavement, not the traffic, not the car horns. Everything was drowned out by my absolute need for him. I was drowning in his blue eyes. Then my gaze dropped to his mouth. He was smirking, but as time remained suspended, the smirk gradually fell away. And then time just stopped. I felt myself go up on my toes as if I no longer had control of my body, and he started leaning down. It was like there was an invisible gravitational pull between us, something that neither of us could fight. The air crackled, and I stopped breathing altogether.

“God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he muttered low just as our lips were about to touch. The way he said it was so full of resentment that it snapped me out of my trance. I blinked, and the spell was broken. I had to use every ounce of self-control to wrench myself away and out of our cocoon of suspended animation. When I did step back, of course, it was into the path of the oncoming foot traffic. I was knocked to the side as a businessman clipped my shoulder. When I stumbled I would have fallen without Ollie’s strong hand shooting out to hold me. Unfortunately my handbag did fly off my shoulder and crash to the floor, the contents spilling everywhere.

“You can go,” I said in a shaky voice as I shook off his hand and crouched down to stuff my belongings back into my bag. To my surprise, he crouched down with me and silently started helping me, his mouth set in a grim line and two flags of colour high on his cheekbones. His hand landed on the glitter and pasta necklace Hayley had made for me, the one I had to wear when I picked her up and had convinced her I wore all day, every day. He paused, staring at it intently, then looked back at me with a questioning look. I snatched it from him, hiding it in the depths of my bag and avoiding eye contact with him.

“Lottie, I?—”

“I have to go,” I whispered, straightening up and turning away from him to join the stream of human traffic. When I made it to the bus stop, Ollie was nowhere to be seen. I breathed a sigh of relief, telling myself I was glad and ignoring the relentless ache in my chest.This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

“Hey, lovebug,” I said as I hugged Hayley outside the school gates. When we separated and I moved to straighten up, she stopped me with her hands on either side of my face. Our brown eyes stared at each other for a long moment, and she frowned, tilting her head to the side. I felt the concern rolling off her, and I sighed. Just like me, Hayley could often see what others were blind to. A fake smile wouldn’t fool her, not for a second. “I’m okay,” I whispered, but she just frowned at the lie. I felt my nose sting but held it together. “Alright, kid, you win. But I will be. We both will be. And fudge nuggets to everyone else.” That got a little smile from her finally.

“How was today, lovebug?” I asked as we started to walk home. Hayley shrugged, and I squeezed her hand. “Words, love,” I said in a gentle but firm tone and heard her blow out a frustrated breath.

“Fine.”

“More words, please.”

“When can I see Florrie again?”

I drew to a sudden stop, ice trickling through my veins. “Hayley, what are you talking about?”

“Florrie,” she repeated, her voice was a little hoarse from disuse, but the name was clear enough. “I liked her.” I prayed that this was just a weird coincidence, but I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Is that a girl from school?”

“No, the girl in the big house.”

I closed my eyes and blew out a breath.

“Why have we stopped?” Hayley asked. “And why are you cross?”

“I’m not cross,” I said in a forced, bright tone as I started walking again.

“Yes, you are.”

We were level with the entrance to our block of flats now. I pressed the buzzer to open the door, but there was no sound. Rolling my eyes, I pushed on the door and it swung open. Great security. I expected it would take another few months to fix the blooming thing, just like last time. I’d made a game of piling up furniture against our flat door when it happened before, but that had been a while ago, and I wondered if Hayley would see straight through that now. She would definitely sense my fear. Her intuition got better every day. The lack of speech seemed to compound the observational skills. Every day, her ability to read people seemed to improve at an exponential rate.

“How did you meet Florrie?” I asked as we climbed the stairs (the lift had long since given up the ghost, and we were well into the third month of taking the pee-smelling stairs).

“She came to the big room while you were cleaning.”

I took my keys out and, finally, we were in our little oasis. Once inside, I turned the deadbolt and put the chain on. I’d move the chest of drawers across once Hayley was in bed later.

“Florrie speaks a lot,” Hayley told me. I laughed at that – Hayley wasn’t wrong. The time I’d met Florrie with Margot she’d certainly had a lot to say. “So she said it didn’t matter if I was quiet – she’d make up for it. We learnt a dance. She had a phone and played some music on it, and she taught it to me.”

It was the most words I’d ever heard Hayley say at one time, and I felt like my heart was breaking. Why did the first kid she connected with in years have to be the niece of a man who hates me and the granddaughter of a woman who’d prefer to pay me off than take the small risk of me being a part of her family one day?

“You can’t see Florrie again,” I told her. “What about the kids at school?”

She looked away, and her little shoulders dropped. For a mad moment, I considered ringing Ollie and saying, “Hey, listen. I know you hate me and your family hates me, but how about we arrange a playdate between my sister (who you aren’t aware exists) and your niece? Sound good?” Yeah, never going to happen. But then Hayley said something in a low whisper that I only just caught, and it changed everything.

“I spoke to her.”

“You what?” I flew to where she was curled up on the sofa. “Hayley, you spoke to her?”

“It was only one word,” she mumbled as if it was no big deal, when it was a very, very big deal. Hayley hadn’t said one word to anyone other than me in two years. “It was after she showed me the dance.”

I felt my throat swell and my eyes sting but I managed to ask, “What did you say?”

“Cool.”

I let out a watery laugh. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

She shrugged, and I gathered her up in my arms, hugging her to me.

“So, can I see her again?”

I closed my eyes and hugged her tighter as her little arms came around my neck to cling onto me.

“We’ll see, lovebug. We’ll see.”