Page 62 of Gold Digger
“Ollie, that was coercion,” she snapped but snuggled into me all the same.
“I’m yours as well, you know,” I said softly as I kissed her hair again. Her fingers flexed and then relaxed on my chest, but she didn’t pull away. “Hayley’s too. You’re both mine, but I’m yours as well.”
“Okay,” she whispered, her breath hitching. She kept her face buried in my chest and hidden from me. I didn’t say anything when I felt her silent tears on my skin. But I did frown at the ceiling, her words from earlier filtering through my mind:
I know first-hand what happens when people like me don’t blend in, when we aren’t easy.
I wanted to punch everyone who’d ever made her feel that way, but I knew I’d have to punch myself in the process.
Chapter 30
You know your job’s secure, right?
Lottie
“Yeah, no, they turned us down,” I said to Felix.
He frowned at me. “Why are you smiling then?”
“Am I?” I reached up to my face as if to check. Lucy giggled from her corner. Since Lucy had taken Felix back, he’d set her up in a corner of his office with a desk for her to write at, but she mostly curled up on the sofa with the many,manyblankets and cushions he piled in for her there. Felix’s office was set at twenty-five degrees, but Lucy still had a thick jumper, woollen socks and at least two blankets over her. To be honest, this was a better solution than the one Felix came up with a few months ago when he super-heated the entire office space for Lucy’s benefit. Pete from accounting had to wear actual sweat bands it was so stifling.
Felix crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me. I would have found his glare intimidating before, but now that his girlfriend was one of my best friends and I’d seen how much of a big softie he really was, it didn’t have the same effect.
“It makes you a bit of a dick to be beaming away about us losing a massive client to Harry bloody York.”
“Sorry,” I said, pressing my lips together to try and prevent the smile, but it was a losing battle.
“Oh, pish,” Lucy said from her corner. “Let her smile. Who cares about your silly money people? Lottie’s happy.”
“Lucy,” Felix said in a strained tone, clearly scrambling for patience. “They’re notsilly money people, they are billionaire businessmen with serious capital to invest. The ROI for the Stantington group would have been—” He broke off as Lucy yawned, and I stifled a laugh. “You can go if I’m so bloody boring,” he grumbled, and Lucy narrowed her eyes at him.
“Fine,” she snapped, starting to push her blankets down. Felix’s annoyed expression dropped, and he strode across the room to pull them back over her and tuck them into her sides.
“I’m sorry, Luce,” he said, contrite now with the prospect of her walking out. “You’re right. They are silly money peeps, and ROIisboring. Please don’t go.”
“Be nice to Lottie.”
“I am being nice to Lottie,” he said through gritted teeth.
“If anyone should understand, it’s you,” Vicky put in, and we all turned to her. She was sitting in Felix’s chair, spinning one way and then the other.
“What do you mean?” Felix asked.
“Well, you smile all the time now too,” she said simply. Felix’s eyebrows went up. “Because of Lucy,” Vicky clarified. “Now Lottie has all the sex and endorphin-releasing activities with Ollie, so she smiles as well. Wow. And here I was thinking I was the one bad at reading people.”
“Vicky,” I hissed, my cheeks on fire.
“And anyway, Lottie told me that the Stantington Group representative was lying. That’s why I didn’t encourage them in the meeting or offer them acceptable terms. And look, their stock value crashed about an hour ago. So, actually, even if Lottie was not smiling because of her happy sex hormones, sheshould be smiling because she stopped us from taking on an unstable, high-maintenance client.”
“Just another typical day in the finance world, I see,” Ollie appeared in the doorway to Felix’s office wearing his own huge smile; my face could have probably fried a full cooked breakfast at that stage. Without pausing to greet anyone else he came straight to me, wrapped his arms around me, gave me a brief but firm kiss and then put his mouth to my ear to say, “I want to hear more about thesehappy sex hormones.”
“Ollie!” I protested, giving him a light shove but his arms remained around me. “You can’t just barge in, kiss me and talk about sex hormones. I’m at work.”
“Felix does it all the time,” he argued. “I’ve caught him snogging at work twice in the last month, and he’s the bloody boss.”
“It’s true,” Lucy put in. “I’ve given up telling him off for it.” She shrugged.
“Lucy, you’re not employed here now,” I said, finally pulling back from Ollie but he simply took my hand and held it in his instead.
