Page 39 of Gold Digger
“Yes, Ollie,” Vicky put in as Ollie made his way back around the table via Harry York, clapping the man on the back on the way past by way of greeting and giving Felix a chin lift. “You actually can’t hug people in business meetings.”
His hard expression went soft again when he looked at his sister. “This is my meeting, darling and I can do what the fuck I want.”
“You can’t say the f-word in meetings either,” Vicky told him.
“Fuck that.”
There was more posturing and ridiculous fighting over nothing between Felix and Harry York. I managed to tune them out until Harry York dragged me into it.
“I heard you almost lost a cool ten mill on that dud bit of land the other day, Felix. Apparently, your intern clawed it back for you.” Harry York nodded towards me, and I froze. Ollie’s gaze flew back to me as well, and his eyes narrowed.
“Lottie’s not an intern,” Vicky put in, and I wished for once she’d just let something go and not make everything worse – but if something was incorrect, there was no stopping the woman. “She’s myexecutiveassistant.”
Ollie rolled his eyes and I felt my face heat.
“Ah, sorry,” Harry said, smiling at me and I saw Ollie stiffen. “Maybe we could recruit you to York Evans Investments? Save you the effort of having to bail out these numpties on the reg.” More angry vibes rolled off Ollie which made no sense. Firstly, Harry was married, very happily married if reports were true; secondly, seeing as Olliehatedme, what on earth did he have to be jealous or territorial over?
“The fucking cheek of you,” Felix snapped. “You come here, steal my clients, try to poach my staff. Don’t think I haven’t got some shit on you as well, York. You want to get into the weeds about poor client management? We can go there, you tosser.”
“Enough!” Vicky said, that one word cracking through the room, silencing the meeting.
“Will, is that tea on its way?” Felix asked, and Will Brent (one of the executives on the partner track and, in my opinion, a real dick – I still remembered him from that night at the club) – nodded.
“It’s handled,” he said just as the door to the room opened again, and Lucy, Will’s assistant, shuffled in with the tea trolley before freezing like a deer in the headlights when she saw the number of executives sitting at the conference table. Her eyes came to rest on Felix, and I had to hide my smile. The poor girl had the biggest crush on him I’d ever seen in my life. All Felix did was scowl at her, which did nothing for the girl’s confidence, something that was already in her boots. It was a shame because I really liked Lucy but, in truth, I wasn’t sure how much longer she was going to last here.
From there the meeting went the way I thought it would – straight to shit. When Ollie wasn’t scowling at me, he was combative and needling towards Felix, while Harry York seemed to be an expert in winding everyone up. The only thing to break the tension was the squeak of the tea trolley as Lucy pushed it around the room, sporting an obvious limp before peering down at Vicky’s tea colour chart with confusion. To Vicky, providing an actual colour chart for her preferred tea and the exact shade it needed to be according to the time of day was not atea diva move; it was providing detailed instructions on how she wanted something done – something Vicky would want from other people – so she couldn’t understand why anyone would think it made her difficult. (“If anything, it makes me easier,” she’d told me in frustration when I tried to explain to her that she couldn’t pull out her chart when she was visiting other companies or,worse, people’s homes and was offered a cup of tea. “I’m providing an objective measurement with which to gauge mytea preference. I would begratefulif someone gave me a colour chart when I was making their tea.”)
Once Lucy had spent an inordinate amount of time making a cup of tea (Lucy was not the most practical of people –in fact, she may have been the worst assistant I’d ever seen in action), she started making her way to our side of the table. That was when Felix noticed the limp, and he lost his mind, interrupting the meeting to interrogate her about her injury. When Slimy Will, Lucy’s direct boss, said, “Felix, let Hop-a-long serve the tea. She’s been limping all morning. She’s fine.” I thought Felix was going to punch him in the face.
“Lucy Mayweather!” Ollie’s deep voice filled the room. He was grinning at Lucy from across the table. “What the fuck are you doing here? Last time I spoke to Mike he told me you never left the village.”
“Er…” Lucy glanced around at all the faces staring at their exchange and blushed. “Hi.” She gave Ollie a small wave, and he grinned across at her. When he got up and hugged her I knew I shouldn’t care, really there was no logical reason for me to care, but that didn’t stop the rush of white-hot jealousy from tearing through me.
By the time the meeting was over, I felt like I’d run a marathon. All I could do was hope and pray that this would be my last encounter with Ollie for a good long while. Because being around him and his animosity felt like it was slowly breaking me.
But my hopes and prayers had never been answered before so I don’t know why I thought they would be now.
Chapter 18
I spoke to her
Lottie
“Where are you going?” Ollie snapped. I glanced over my shoulder and growled under my breath when I saw him striding after me, a furious expression on his face. It was two weeks after Vicky had told her brother and Felix off in the meeting. I’d just left Vicky in another conference room to renegotiate with some of Ollie’s advisors.
“None of your fudging business. Why don’t you… argh!” Yes, it had to be that exact moment I stepped on an uneven bit of pavement and twisted my bad ankle. “Mother trucking, fudging heels!” I was tempted to take them off and throw them into the road, but the last thing I needed was for dillweed here to witness me walking barefoot through London like some vagrant. Unfortunately, thanks to his abnormally long legs, he’d managed to catch up to me and was holding my arm to stop me falling. I jerked it out of his hold.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed as I attempted to storm away, now with a slight limp. This is what happens when girls like me and Lucy are forced into misogynistic shoes by the patriarchy.
“You shouldn’t be wearing heels if you can’t walk in them,” he said in that fudging superior tone that peed me off so much.
“Cheese and rice, you condescending butthead. Do you think Iwantto wear this stuff? It’s myCorporate Barbieuniform,as you put it.”
He shook his head. “You can wear whatever you want.”
“Says the man in a three-piece suit,” I muttered. “Why are you following me?”
“My sister’s paying you to do a job, and you’re just buggering off and leaving her halfway through the working day? Pretty shit assistant if you ask me.”
