Page 47 of Gold Digger
“What the fudge have you done?” Lottie said through her teeth.
“Mrs H,” I said casually, “can you take Hayley back to the kitchen so she can finish her cookies.”
“Come on then, lovie,” Mrs H said with a smile as she reached for Hayley’s hand, but the child just burrowed further into her sister’s side. So I walked over to her and crouched down to her eye level.
“Hey, little stowaway,” I said softly, and her face emerged from the folds of her sister’s jumper to peek at me. “I know that was all a bit scary. But there’s nothing to worry about now. You’ve seen me before, haven’t you? Maybe when your sister was working? That’s how you knew your way here?” She gave a tentative nod confirming my suspicion, and I smiled. “Well, now you don’t have to hide when you come here, right? Because you and your sister are going to live here.”
“Your Grace, I?—”
I shot Lottie a warning look, and she shut her mouth, pressing her lips together in a thin line, her eyes flashing with fury.
“And I’m Ollie, okay? Sometimes, your sister is silly and calls me Your Grace, but that’s not my name. To you, I’m Ollie. And I’ve got a niece about your age. She can tell you what a fantastic uncle I am.” Hayley’s eyes went wide at the mention of Florrie, then she looked away quickly. “Ah, of course,” I said slowly, “you’ve already met Florrie, haven’t you?”
She bit her lip and looked up at her sister.
“It’s okay, lovebug,” Lottie muttered as she stroked Hayley’s hair back from her face.
Hayley turned back to me and nodded. Christ, how often had she hidden in my library? Why the fuck didn’t Lottie tell me that her sister needed to come with her to work? I forced a smile.
“Well, that’s good because you’ll be seeing a lot more of her.”
Then, to my surprise, Hayley did something I’d yet to see – she smiled. My eyebrows went up. “You like Florrie?” Sheemerged further from her sister to sit up straighter and gave an enthusiastic nod, and I chuckled. I couldn’t think of two more opposite personalities. Florrie wasa lot, but clearly that appealed to Hayley. I guess children don’t always need words to get along. And anyway, Florrie likely had enough words for both of them. “Well, that’s great news.” Hayley’s smile got bigger, and my chest tightened. I decided then and there that making this little girl smile was going to be my new favourite pastime.
Chapter 22
Frustration and hurt pride
Lottie
“What the fudge is going on?” I said as Ollie strolled back over to me after ushering Hayley and the indomitable Mrs H out of the door. I was standing now, my fists clenched at my sides, adrenaline pulsing through me. How dare he promise Hayley things like that? How dare he lie to the police? We were in deep manure now because of him. I closed my eyes when they started to sting and swallowed down the sob that was threatening to work its way out of my throat. “Are you punishing me?” I whispered and saw his eyes flash when I focused back on him.
“Of course not, Lottie,” he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. “I saved your arse just now. A thank you would be great.” He raised one eyebrow, and my hand tingled with the urge to slap his smug face.
“You lied to the police,” I said in a low voice, shaking with fury. “You mademelie to the police. You have no idea how tenuous our situation is.”
“No, I don’t,” he snapped back, uncrossing his arms as he stormed over to me, the smug expression giving way to an angry one. “Because you never fuckingtold me. You even made yoursister hide when she came over here. What kind of monster do you think I am that you have to hide your little sister from me?”
I threw my hands up and took a step back, making his eyes flash again. “I was your employee. I relied on the money I earned here. You can’t just bring along a child to your place of work when she won’t go to school. I needed this job.”
“I never gave you any indication that I would be enough of a prick to send your sister away. Jesus Christ, Lottie, I thought you knew me better than that. I thought we meant something to each other. You lied to me. Over and over again, you lied.”
There was some hurt leaking into his tone now. Angry Ollie, I could handle but hurt Ollie… I backed away another couple of steps until I came up against the coffee table. My hand went up to my temple to push my hair back, and when I saw Ollie watch its progress, I realised it was shaking, so I lowered it to my side and fisted it again.
“I couldn’t risk it,” I said. “You don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me then!” he shouted, and I flinched at the loss of his normal control. “Fuckingtalk to mefor once. I really liked you, Lottie, and you held everything important back from me. Then you left me. Don’t you think I would have given you that goddamn money myself if you’d asked me rather than take a payoff from my fucking mother and make me look like a goddamn idiot?”
“I didn’t mean to?—”
“Well, you did,” he snapped; his face was a mask of fury. “You threw us away for a measly fucking fifty grand. You confirmed everything my family suspected about grasping gold diggers. I thought we had something special, but you were never honest with me. You never even told me about your sister. So this whole shitshow today isyourfault. If you’d been honest from the beginning, this would never have happened.”
Your fault.
Ollie’s words hit me with such force that I rocked back on my heels like he’d struck me. I’d been trying so desperately hard to hold everything together for Hayley for the last few months, but the stress and pressure just kept building and building, and now I’d taken my eye off the ball for a moment and the police were involved. They were going to file a report with social services, which would include actual lies. The chances of me losing Hayley to those fudging bastards who thought she was justputting onher selective mutism and that she needed afirmer handwere now much, much higher. And Ollie was right. It was my fault. A wave of nausea swept over me, and I realised that it wasn’t just my hands that were shaking now. My throat was tight, and my eyes started stinging as Ollie’s angry face blurred with the tears I was trying to hold back.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I said in a hoarse voice.
“Lottie, maybe we should—” Ollie’s voice was softer now, which somehow made everything worse. As his hand closed over mine, I felt something inside me snap, and I lost it.
