Page 49 of Gold Digger
“You and Hayley are coming home with me today,” my tone had gone from the soft, encouraging way I spoke to Hayley to now hard and uncompromising. I’d been willing to be gentle with Lottie yesterday. Her complete breakdown after I’d shouted at her like the absolute prick that I was, gutted me. Lottie Forest was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and she had been for a long fucking time. And I’d watched right there in my home as that weight finally took its toll and crushed her. I nevereverwanted to see her like that again. Now that I’d finallygot off my arse and looked into Lottie properly (something I should have done months ago but my hurt pride hadn’t even considered because, again, I was a massive prick), I knew that any normal person would have brokenwaybefore she had.
Lottie and Hayley had been taken home by my driver yesterday – Hayley had a therapy appointment and, to be honest, I knew that they both needed time to regroup, so I allowed them space for now. The first call I made was to my mother. As I suspected, she did have some information and she had known about Hayley, but she didn’t have the full picture. Unlimited funds and contacts everywhere meant that by lunchtime the next day, I had a comprehensive file on both sisters, and it wasn’t pretty reading.
Just like Lottie had said, she had been on her own since the age of ten. That was when she was removed from her mother’s care after repeated concerns raised by the school. Her mother was an alcoholic, father passed away when she was six. From aged ten to sixteen Lottie was in and out of foster care until she returned to her mother’s care. Her mother had been sober for a year and in that time had managed to find a new husband and get pregnant with Hayley. She did stay sober for the next six years, but then her husband ran away with another woman and emigrated to Australia, of all places. Contact was minimal after that, and he never paid any child support, despite court summons to do so. Lottie’s mother fell off the wagon in a dramatic fashion, rocking up to Hayley’s primary school completely shitfaced on multiple occasions and, yet again, her child was taken into foster care. Only this time a sister was waiting in the wings. Lottie had only just turned twenty-two, but she took in her now selectively mute, grieving, extremely damaged sister.
Over the last two years, the scrutiny from social services had been intense, but Lottie had managed to meet all of theirstandards. She’d given up any hope of attending university to take low-paid jobs and make ends meet as best she could. The only time she slipped up was when she was caught shoplifting a pair of school shoes for her sister. Meanwhile, her mother fell deeper and deeper into alcoholism.
Hayley’s grandparents had cropped up more recently. They hadn’t been involved with the child for her entire life, having disapproved of the mother, but they had got back in touch ten months ago demanding visitation rights. This was after Lottie and Hayley’s mother died from alcoholic liver disease. When I thought of those two cremating their mother all alone, I felt even more rage than I had before. I’d already started to make a few moves to ruin Buchanon’s business after I’d uncovered the fact that they fired Lottie two weeks after her mother died. From the looks Buchanon gave Lottie that night at my bar, I was pretty sure that her absence from work for a goddamn funeral wasn’t the only reason his wife got rid of her.
As if all that wasn’t enough to deal with, after a few months the grandparents reported Lottie as poor parenting material and made new demands – this time for full custody. Judging by Hayley’s reaction to the mention of them yesterday, I imagined that this was not what either sister wanted, but it was clear that Lottie was terrified it would happen.
Well, all of that shit, all of those worries were over now. With my money and my connections those girls were going to do exactly as they pleased, and nobody was going to threaten them ever again. There certainly would not be any problem obtaining fucking school shoes. There was just the small hurdle of convincing Lottie to trust me.
“W-we are not coming home with you,” Lottie’s voice was high-pitched with disbelief. “That’s insane. We can’t just pack up and move out.”
“Lottie,” I said in my most reasonable tone. “The police will have already filed their report with social services. When it comes to child protection issues, they are usually very prompt.”
She frowned up at me, looking adorably confused. In fact, at home and out of her Corporate Barbie uniform, Lottie was just plain adorable. Her glorious caramel hair was piled on top of her head, and her delicate face free of any make-up; she had on a pair of checked pyjama bottoms paired with a tight tank top and a fluffy, oversized cardigan, and her slippers were unicorns, which I noticed matched those of her sister. I’d never seen anything as ridiculous or as completely endearing in my life, and it only firmed my resolve that these two would be under my roof by the end of the day.
“How do you know about the police process for child protection?”
I shrugged. “Just a guess,” I lied – my team had done extensive research on police processes, local social services, family court, fostering, applying for adoption and grandparental rights. My personal assistant was an unrelenting arsehole, but she did not like injustice. Once Jenna had heard Lottie’s story she was all over the research. She’d even compiled a file on the grandparents, digging up all sorts of decades-old shit that I had no idea how she’d uncovered, but that may well come in useful if they continued to threaten Hayley and Lottie. I’d been the one to research selective mutism – but I’d save that conversation for another time; Lottie was clearly struggling with how fast things were moving now, and she hadn’t even moved in yet. “The point is, you and Hayley are not staying here another night. Did you know there are actual drug dealers on the street outside?”
Lottie frowned at me. “Er, yes. We’re in the dodgiest part of south London. Of course, there’re dealers.”
I threw up my hands. “What do you mean ‘of course there’re dealers’? They’re dangerous.”
Lottie narrowed her eyes at me and crossed her arms over her chest. “Listen, posh boy. I’ve been living in dodgy parts of London for years. The chuffing dealers aren’t the threat around here. Unless you’re buying drugs or trying to sell drugs on their patch, you’re invisible to them. Seeing as I have never had any intention of doing either, they’re a complete non-issue.”
“Whatisthe threat then?” I said in a low, dangerous voice.
“What?”
“You said drug dealers aren’t the threat around here. Implying there was another threat. I want to know what it is.”
She looked down and to the left, and I ground my teeth. I’d never met anyone as stubborn as her. As if on cue, Hayley came running out of the bedroom, skidding to a halt in front of me in her unicorn slippers.
“Hey, stowaway,” I said, crouching down to her level. She lost a little of her nerve then. The piece of paper she’d been clutching lowered as she bit her lip. I held out my hand and smiled at her. “Is that for me?” Very slowly, she lifted the paper up for me to look at. My heart tripped as I looked at what she’d drawn. “That’s amazing, Hayley. You know what? We can put this one on the fridge inmyhouse. Would you like to come over tonight?”
She nodded straight away.
“Hails,” Lottie snapped. “We’ve been over this. What His Grace said to those policemen wasn’t true. It was just to help us out, which is naughty because we shouldn’t lie. But we are not moving in with him.” Hayley’s eyes darted over to the door, then back to Lottie. “Fudge nuggets,” Lottie whispered to herself as she covered the distance to Hayley, took her hand and tried to lead her away from me. But Hayley’s face fell into a stubborn expression reminiscent of her sister and she planted her feet as her gaze flicked over to the door again. I straightened from my crouch as I looked in the direction of her gaze. There was a chest of drawers at a funny angle next to the door that I hadn’t noticedbefore. It was almost as though someone had dragged it across and not bothered to put it back against the wall. I blinked. Surely not…
“Lovebug,” Lottie’s voice had softened now as she dropped down in front of her sister and pushed some of her curls out of her face with a gentle hand. I had to strain to hear her next whispered words. “That was only for a couple of nights. We were safe, I promise. It was justin case. You should have told me you knew. I thought you were asleep.”
“Please tell me this isn’t what it looks like, Lottie,” I said through gritted teeth. Lottie gave me a wary look, and I tried to tamp down my rising temper. But visions of Lottie waiting until Hayley was asleep and then dragging a huge chest of drawers, which, even being likely twice her weight, would not keep anyone other than my ninety-five-year-old grandma out, flew through my mind.
“It was just a precaution,” Lottie explained. “I didn’t really think anything would happen, but there was the odd… er… kerfuffle in the corridor and, well, someone did try the door handle a couple of times.”
“Define ‘kerfuffle’,” I said in a tight voice and Lottie bit her lip.
“Just some drunk dudes, shouting and horsing around.”
“Christ,” I snapped, my hand going to the back of my neck.
“It wasn’t that bad,” she rushed to say. “And I’ve probably been a bit extra cautious with the barricading thing.” She turned to Hayley and softened her tone. “I didn’t know you noticed that, lovebug. You’ve got to tell me if something’s worrying you. We’re a team, remember?”
Quite rightly, Hayley’s eyebrows went up as she shot the chest of drawers a significant look. Lottie sighed. I was starting to see how this non-verbal communication worked.
