Page 32 of Gold Digger
“It wouldn’t be just severance from your job, Lottie. It would be severance fromOliver.”
“A severance package from a person? Is that a thing?”
“It can be, yes.”
“You want me to stay away from your son.” I felt an ache in my chest at my words. Ollie’s mum was here to bribe me to stay away from him. She hated me that much? I never got that vibe from her and I could always sense how people felt. Always. It was then it really came home to me how deluded I’d actually been. I knew Ollie had a close family. There were blooming loads of them: cousins, sisters, all sorts came to the house. So many threads in his family tapestry holding everything together. And over the last week, I’d started to let myself imagine a world where Hayley and I were weaved into a family like that. A world where this woman allowed us to be a part of her family, maybeeven welcomed it. I turned away from the dowager when my eyes started stinging. What planet did I think I was living on where a family like this with a hereditary title going back five hundred years would welcome a nobody like me?
Well, Hayley and I had been alone for this long, and we’d been let down plenty already. At least this way, I was finding out early about what kind offamilythese people were. The last thing Hayley needed was another disappointment. I squared my shoulders and looked back at Margot. The pictures I’d seen online of Ollie and that other woman raced through my brain, along with the cost of Hayley’s ongoing therapy.
Her voice was softer when she spoke again. “Listen, Lottie, it’s not just Oliver I’m doing this for, you know.” She glanced at my ancient laptop which I’d nudged when I sat down and was embarrassingly showing the article I’d been looking at with picture of Ollie and the beautiful blonde from last night. Then she looked back at me. I felt my face heat. “I just don’t think he’s serious enough about you. I’m worried he’ll let you down, and with your little sister relying on you… I wouldn’t want you to be put in a difficult position. I really do like you and your sister, you see.”
“Fine,” I snapped.
The dowager’s head jerked and she blinked at me. Even without my ability to read people, it wouldn’t have been hard to tell that she was shocked. She expected me to decline. But underneath the shock, there was something that confused me. There was disappointment. Why would the woman offer me fifty grand to get rid of me and then be disappointed when I took it?
“So, you’ll cut off contact with Oliver?” she asked slowly, her eyes narrowing on me.
My throat felt tight as Ollie’s gorgeous face, his eyes, his smile, his laugh and his inability to play competent chess all flashed through my mind, followed swiftly by visions of himand that blonde with the taglineDuke of Fuckingham Strikes Againunderneath. It wasn’t just the fact that he had another woman tucked into his side the day after he’d brought me lunch and kissed me again, although that hurt, a lot. Deep down, it was the ingrained knowledge that the likes of him were not for the likes of me. The woman hanging off him at that event was wearing a five-thousand-pound dress according to the article. Fivethousandpounds. That was five months’ rent for me. And she was clearly happy in front of the cameras. There was no way I would want to be photographed. In my situation, it literally couldn’t happen.
Oliver Harding was a dead end. And we needed that money. A few years ago, heck, even six months ago I would have been too proud to take it. But, you know what? Now, it wasn’t about me and my pride. Now it was about a little girl and the fact she simplycouldn’tspeak to anyone but me. It was about trying to establish a normal life for her, and it was time-critical. The longer Hayley was without help, the more ingrained the behaviour would become.
“Yes,” I said after a long pause. “You have my word.”
Chapter 15
Well, that’s a relief
Lottie
After I’d accepted the money from his mother, I texted Ollie to tell him that I was resigning from my job but would work my two weeks’ notice, and that I didn’t think us going out was a good idea. He tried to ring me, but I just didn’t pick up. The next morning, I still turned up to clean his house. When I arrived there, though, a grumpy-looking lady in her sixties, clutching a bottle of bleach was barring the doorway.
“Er, hi,” I’d said to her as she glared at me. “I’m Lottie, the cleaner. Are you?—”
“I know who you are,” the woman snapped.
“Well, are you the new cleaner?”
She snorted. “New? I’ve worked for the Hardings for forty years, young lady.”
“Does Ollie know that?—”
“His Gracetold me to tell you that your services are no longer required. He will honour a full month’s pay which I think is more than generous since he’s been paying you to do sod all for months. So you can jog on.”
“Mrs H,” Ollie’s voice sounded behind the lady and she huffed in annoyance, “give us a moment please.”
“Fine,” Mrs H snapped, moving away from the door and muttering to herself about gold-digging harlots as she shuffled away down the corridor.
“Lottie,” Ollie said, his large frame filling the doorway as he crossed his arms over his chest. Our height difference was even more exaggerated by the fact I was a step down from him where he stood. I swallowed.
“Your mum told you then?” I asked in a small voice and his eyes flashed with anger.
“That she paid you off? Yes, Lottie. Mum made sure to tell me that.” His voice was so cold. Warm, teasing, kind Ollie was gone, replaced by this cold stranger who was staring at me like I was a squashed bug on the pavement.
I cleared my throat and willed the tears I could feel building back. “I’m so sorry,” I said and despite my effort it was barely above a whisper. “Ollie, I feel terrible but I really needed to?—”
“How could you?” he snapped, the coldness replaced by white-hot anger as his whole body tightened with tension. “How could you take it? Did everything mean nothing? Did you…” his voice broke off and he looked away from me, squaring his shoulders before he looked back but this time not giving me any eye contact. If I thought his voice from before was cold, the next time he spoke it was positively Arctic. “I believe my mother’s terms include no further contact. I suggest then that you leave. Unless you’d like to repay the fifty grand?”
God, Margot had told him everything. I felt like I was going to throw up. But he was right. I’d made a deal. I had my reasons, I’d apologised to Ollie. Now I needed to move on.
