Page 80 of Gold Digger
You’re my numpty
Lottie
“It’ll be okay, lovebug,” I said as I squeezed Hayley’s hand. But my heart was sinking as I took in the sheer number of people filing into the room. It seemed as though it was just myself and Hayley against an army. Her grandparents had brought a solicitor with them. That idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. A lawyer? I thought we were deciding where Hayley would be happiest? We didn’t need a lawyer for that, did we? And for some reason, everyone was invited into the room before us. We were left waiting outside whilst they’d been in there for over twenty minutes. How could they be deciding anything without speaking to me and Hayley? Laura, our social worker, popped her head around the door then and gave us a tight smile.
“Right, you’re okay to come in now,” she said with a forced, bright tone, and my panic ramped up again. I’d seen that expression before. It was the expression people used when they had to let you down. I’d been let down a fair bit since childhood, so I knew what the mixture of pity and resignation meant. Hayley and I followed behind her into the room. Looking at Brenda and Tony there wasn’t the normal defiant anger I’d seen from them before. Instead, Brenda was fiddling with her sleevesand looking uncomfortable. Tony only made brief eye contact with me.
“Do you have anyone else with you today?” Laura asked almost hopefully. I shook my head and was about to answer when the door into the waiting area slammed open, and Ollie stormed through it. He looked utterly panicked, windswept and totally gorgeous. I knew it shouldn’t, but at the sight of him, relief, so strong I almost collapsed under the weight of it, swept through me. His eyes flicked between me and Hayley, and I saw the same relief reflected in his eyes. He came straight to me, grabbed my hand in both of his, and I felt something slide onto my ring finger. He kissed the side of my head before moving his mouth to my ear.
“Trust me,” he whispered before moving back to give Hayley a hug.
“Stowaway! Fancy seeing you here,” he said brightly. “Let’s get this boring stuff done, and then we can go get pancakes, right? At least you get to skive a day off school.”
Hayley smiled for the first time that day and my heart clenched.
“Terribly sorry we’re a touch late.” I startled at the sound of Margot’s voice, as she, Vicky and Claire all crowded into the space then proceeded to hug me and Hayley in turn.
Laura took in my now huge entourage with an increasing bewilderment.
“Shall we?” Ollie said smoothly, extending out his arm for Laura to precede us into the conference room.
“R-right,” she stuttered. Ollie opened the door for her, and we all filed past him. Brenda and Tony’s eyes were wide as they took in the number of people that filled my side of the table. After many previous meetings with just me on this side, they were probably finding the shift in the power imbalance impossible to process.
Denise, the safeguarding lead, cleared her throat. “Okay,” she said, using a bright tone to hide her shock. “I knew we were expecting Hayley as well as Lottie today. Hi, Hayley.” Hayley gripped my hand harder but didn’t say anything in response, which didn’t surprise me – she was now talking to small groups, but this was way too intimidating an atmosphere for her to say anything. I felt a surge of anger that she was even put in this position but tamped it down. “But I don’t think we were aware of the additional support accompanying Lottie today. Shall we go around the table introducing ourselves?”
Once all the introductions had been made, Brenda and Tony were starting to look a little pale. When Ollie introduced himself as Oliver Harding, the Duke of Buckingham, the silence that followed was thick with tension. It was the first time I’d heard Ollie use his title as a weapon since the school incident. His aristocratic tone told everyone in the room that he was the one in charge, that hundreds of years of breeding meant that his authority should go unquestioned. Even in the toughest business negotiations, he’d never sounded quite as commanding.
“Right, okay,” Denise said gamely into the stunned silence. “So, if we’re ready I’ll start. This meeting is to help assess what would be best for Hayley. After speaking to Brenda and Tony I think that it might actually be better to have a quick chat whilst Hayley pops out for a bit with Laura for a hot chocolate, then Hayley can come back and say her bit too. Okay, Hayley?”
Hayley had shrunk into my side, and her grip on my hand was almost painful.
“It’s okay, lovebug,” I muttered into the side of her head before kissing her on the temple. “Have a hot choccie and then you’ll be back in no time.” She shook her head, but then Claire came around to crouch down next to her.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she said softly. “How about Vicky and I take you? I’ve got some Skittles in my bag. We can sneak them together.”
Hayley’s eyes flew to Ollie, she pressed her hand to the centre of her chest then to the centre of mine. I had to blink rapidly to stop tears forming. Ollie turned away from everyone in the room as if we were on our own. He pressed his hand to his chest then to mine then to Hayley’s.
“I’ll look after her, darling,” he said firmly. She kept eye contact with him for a long moment before she slowly nodded, let go of my hand and allowed Claire and Vicky to lead her out of the room.
“So, Brenda, Tony,” Denise said. “Did you want to start?”
Brenda cleared her throat, shooting a nervous glance at Ollie, who was sitting back in his chair now, giving the impression that he was completely relaxed, but I could feel his coiled tension and razor-sharp focus as he stared Brenda down.
“Well, as I’ve said before, the child is?—”
“Hayley,” Ollie said, his voice cracking across the room like a whip. “Notthe child, Hayley.”
“Y-yes, of course,” Brenda said, clearing her throat before continuing. “Hayley would be much better off in our care. Lottie’s proven she’s too young for this type of responsibility. She’s not meeting Hayley’s needs like she should be. That child still isn’t speaking, and Lottie just lets her get away with it. She clearly needs more boundaries in the home environment. She does not have the resources to adequately support our granddaughter. It’s a child looking after a child. Totally inappropriate. And then there’s this newspaper article. God knows what she’s involved in. Taking a large amount of money for… well, I wouldn’t like to say what for.”
I froze in my seat in shock. It was only then that I noticed the newspaper sitting in the middle of the table. Before anyone could say anything, I flew to my feet and snatched it up.
“Oh my giddy aunt,” I breathed as I sunk back down into the chair, staring at the now-crumpled paper in my hand. There was a photo of Ollie and me in the corridor of the fundraiser. He was kissing my neck, my head was thrown back, and my mouth was slightly open. The headline read, “Duke Pays Cleaner Fifty Grand for Services Rendered”. For a moment I felt like I was going to throw up. There was a low ringing in my ears, and all the faces in the room started to blur. Then I felt Ollie’s large, warm hand around mine, heard his voice through the fog, and it anchored me into the present.
“Breathe, Lottie,” he murmured. “Trust me, remember?”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Ollie cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. I was just about aware enough of my surroundings to notice the atmosphere in the room shift when he started speaking.
“I wasn’t aware that the musings of tabloid newspapers featured heavily in discussions regarding custody arrangements for children,” Ollie put in smoothly, staring Brenda and Tony down. Tony swallowed, and Brenda’s face flushed red. “Mum?” He held up the newspaper over his shoulder, not breaking eye contact with Brenda.
