Page 75 of Gold Digger
“You’ll move out of my sister’s house,” I said in a controlled voice as he groaned at my feet. “I don’t want to see your faceeveragain.” I crouched down next to him then, grabbing a fistful of his hair so that I could talk into his ear. “You might have forgotten this, but I own this city, literally. Nobody lays a hand on my family. London is done for you, mate. You can slink off and live on the rest of your trust fund because you’ll never work here again.”
I let him go and pushed up to my feet. Two men from the event security team had arrived. I nodded towards Blake, who was struggling to his feet now. “Get rid of him. I want him off the premises and in a taxi. I don’t care where it takes him, but he is not allowed back on the property under any circumstances.” They nodded and grabbed him under his arms to start dragging him towards the exit.
“Ollie, listen. I can explain,” Blake started shouting as they dragged him away. “It was all an accident. Claire! Tell him!”
Claire was still sobbing on Mum’s shoulder.
I knew I needed to check on Claire, but I couldn’t get the image of Lottie’s blank expression out of my mind. So, I moved to my sister, kissed her on the side of her head and muttered, “I’ll be back,” in her ear. As I strode across the room, scanning for Lottie’s caramel hair and gorgeous dress, a sense of dread settled over me.
My family are none of your fucking business.
My words from earlier filled my mind as I searched. What had I done?
Right, we were in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t have gone far. How hurt was she? I remembered how she flinched when I’d grabbed her elbow, and the nausea started to rise up again. I moved to one of the guys doing the valet parking.
“Hey, listen, I was out here earlier with a woman in a blue dress. Do you know who I mean?”
The man turned to me and gave me a hard stare. “I saw you, mate,” he snapped. Okay then. He was clearly not a fan of how I treated Lottie earlier. That makes two of us,mate. I took a deep breath to tamp down my frustration.
“Okay,” I said through gritted teeth. “Well, did you see where she went? I’ve searched the venue and I can’t find her. She doesn’t have a car here, so she couldn’t have left under her own steam and?—”
“Didn’t see her,” he interrupted, staring straight ahead. My hands went to my hips. This man was bloody well lying to me. I had to admire his balls, but at the moment I just needed to know where my goddamn fiancée was.
“We had a fight, and I’m worried about her, okay?”
He snorted but hid it behind a cough. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“It’s imperative that I find her,” I snapped.
“Oh well, if it’simperative,then of course I’ll help guv’nor.” This fucking guy was taking the piss. He knew where Lottie went.
“Now see here—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Yousee here, wanker,” he said, and I blinked in surprise. Nobody ever spoke to me like this. “If your bird wanted to see you, guess what? She would be here seeing you. From what I saw earlier, she won’t be wanting that for a good while.”
“Do you know who I am?”
He snorted again. “Yeah, yeah – Duke of Fuckingham. Doesn’t give you the right to treat women like shit. Feudal rule ended four hundred years ago, about the same time your bullshit titles should have ended. I’m not telling you dick.”
Chapter 36
Your love is conditional
Lottie
I set a timer.
Once I’d made it back to our old flat (the walk from the underground now felt dodgy, but I had to tell myself to woman up and get on with it – living in a posh area had made me soft) I texted Hayley to make sure she was okay at her grandparents, and locked myself in. Then I set a timer for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes felt like the right amount of time. Not quite half an hour, but longer than ten. Once the timer was set, I collapsed onto the bed, curled up into a fetal position and I cried. Not the silent way I normally cried either. No, this was wracking sobs, snot, torrential tears – maximum drama. But when the timer went off, I sat up, wiped my face, forced my hands to uncurl from the tightly held fists they were in and got ready for bed. The knocking started about an hour later, but fortunately I had earplugs (you needed earplugs to sleep in this block of flats) so I could ignore it.
By the next morning, there were no more tears. Anyway, I couldn’t afford to look a mess, not when confronting Hayley’s grandparents that evening.
“That’s an interesting jumper,” Brenda, Hayley’s grandmother, said after she opened the door to me. I tried to smile, but when she frowned down at me, I realised it wasn’t very convincing, so I gave up.
“Is Hayley ready to go?” I asked in a flat voice.
Brenda surprised me by opening the door wide and gesturing for me to come in. Usually only Hayley was allowed in their inner sanctum. I was treated as an annoying delivery person – someone whom they had to put up with in order to see Hayley.
Well, I wasn’t family, was I? So, what did I expect? I almost let out a hysterical laugh as I thought back to all the effort I’d put in with these people – the bright smiles, the cakes I’d baked, the endless attempts to justify my decisions for my sister when I was the one who knew her the best. The delivering of Hayley on Christmas Day at the exact time they specified with a tray of home-baked mince pies, only to receive a tight smile and have the door slammed in my face after they’d ushered Hayley inside. Not sure where they thought I could go on Christmas Day as I had no car, and public transport was minimal. In the end, I spent three hours freezing my arse off on a local park bench until I wasallowedto pick Hayley up.
