Page 43 of Gold Digger
“I’ll come to your funeral, mate,” Ollie said, and Lucy growled in frustration. I kept my eyes lowered and bit my lip. She clearly had no idea how lucky she was.
“Well then,” Vicky said. “That’s fine.” Lucy tore her gaze from Felix to look at Vicky. “I’m sorry, Lucy,” Vicky explained. “ButI’m much better with social interactions if all the dynamics are made super clear at the start.”
“Vicky’s not good with grey areas. It’s just that…” I broke off midsentence when Ollie made an annoyed noise at the back of his throat. I slid him a nervous look then forced a smile. “Shall we sit?”
“I can’t sit here,” Vicky snapped, glancing at the table and the empty plates.
“I know, hun,” I muttered. “We’ll sit in a booth, all right?”
Vicky nodded, and some tension seemed to leave her shoulders. She couldn’t have sat with the table so crowded with plates and cutlery. Vicky was very prescriptive about food and could find it difficult even being around lots of food debris.
Once we were settled in the booth, and despite the frosty atmosphere between me and Ollie, the conversation flowed. To my surprise, Lucy came out of her shell more than I’d ever seen her manage before. Whether it was the smaller, more relaxed environment, the fact that Felix kept his arm casually draped around her shoulders or that Vicky and I were there, I wasn’t sure. But it was clear that in the right environment, Lucy could be coaxed out of her extreme shyness, and she askeda lotof questions. Whilst I managed to deftly avoid most of them (I did have extensive experience of this, after all), she did coax a surprising amount of information out of the others: boarding school, polo playing, what it was like to be anactualduke. The only titbit of info she did manage to extract from me was how I met Vicky.
“Oh, wow,” Lucy said. “I had no idea you worked for the Buckingham Estate before. Did you ever go to Little Buckingham?”
“I only worked at the London house,” I replied in a small voice as I shifted in my chair.
“Less said about that the better,” muttered Ollie into his beer and my face heated as I shrank further into my seat. “And now you’re a personal assistant to one of the leading financial brokers in London. Cleaner to executive. Perfectly logical transition.”
My face flooded with heat at that, and when my eyes started to sting I prayed I could keep it together.
“Lottie’s very qualified for what she does, Ollie,” Vicky said, frowning at her brother. Vicky often didn’t pick up on Ollie’s digs as they were too subtle for her literal brain to catch, but this one didn’t seem to go over her head.
“Right,” Ollie drew out the word. That was my cue to stand.
“I think I’d better leave,” I said in a soft voice, avoiding eye contact with Ollie and turning to Vicky. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“But—” Vicky started, looking a little panicked. I leaned down towards her. “Ollie’s here, hun,” I said softly. “You’ll be good with him. You know that.” Vicky glanced at Ollie and visibly relaxed.
“Of course, I’ll sort you out, Vics,” he said. “Let the girl go home.”
Justthe girl, not even my name.
That’s all I was now – just that girl who screwed him over.
I grabbed my jacket off the coat rack at the entrance, but when I turned to step outside I ran into what felt like a brick wall. I staggered back and large hands shot out to enclose my upper arms and stop me from falling.
“What the—?” I started to say then stopped as I looked up into those piercing blue eyes.
“Why are you still wearing this fucking coat?” he snapped. I jerked back from him, and he released my arms immediately, which meant I could dodge around him and out of the double doors. But he wasn’t finished with me. Once I was out on the pavement he was again blocking my path.
“Go away, Ollie,” I said, if anything my voice was tired. I was so over these stressful interactions. So over his judgement, his disappointment in me, his censure. This man who’d never struggled a day in his life chose to judge me? What a prick. How had I ever fancied myself in love with him?
He blinked as he frowned down at me, seeming a little thrown by the resignation and lack of fire in my tone. His hand went to the back of his neck, and I found myself immune to the arm and chest muscles that inevitably displayed. Well… almost.
“Buy a better coat, for God’s sake,” he said, his words now more frustrated than angry.
I rolled my eyes. “My coat is none of your business.”
He sighed as ifIwas the one inconveniencinghim. What on earth?Iwasn’t blockinghisway and banging on abouthisclothing. The fact was that I didn’t need a new warm winter coat as all the business interactions we had were indoors, so I only had to buythe uniform, as I saw it, for those. I wouldn’t accept company money for my coat, and I sure as heck wasn’t buying one out of my own money. Hayley had a new coat, that was all that mattered. And I had to save the rest for her one-to-one therapy, and maybe, if I was careful, I might be able to afford a private school. Her therapist had advised that smaller class sizes would benefit her. Plus, I wasn’t sure what was happening at her school, but it was clear she hated it there. Even my degree was on hold for the moment. I didn’t want to waste any of the money paying for the next module when I might need private school fees, and unfortunately, my ageing laptop had finally given up the ghost as well.
“You’ve plenty of money to buy a coat now,” he told me in that superior bloody tone. “What’s the point of blackmailing my family if you’re not going to spend the money?”
“I didn’t blackmail your family,” I said through gritted teeth, although why I bothered I had no idea. We’d been over thisbefore and he wasn’t going to believe me. “And you have no idea what I need money for.”
His grumpy expression flickered for a moment as his brows drew lower. “What do you need money for?” His voice was no less frustrated, but it had softened with something almost like concern now, and I had to swallow past the lump in my throat.
“Leave it alone,Your Grace,” I said, cursing my unsteady voice. “After all, I’m only acleaner, remember? Not qualified for anything else according to you.”
