Gold Digger

Lottie

Hayley and I both startled at the knock on the door and then exchanged worried looks. Unannounced visitors often did not bode well for us, unfortunately. Not since Brenda and Tony had filed concerns with social services last month in a bid for Hayley to live with them full-time. Laura, our social worker, was lovely, but it was still a scary process. And a slap in the face, to be honest. I knew Brenda and Tony didn’t like me, but I’d gone out of my way to encourage their relationship with Hayley. It wasn’t easy or cheap for me to schlep all the way across London to facilitate contact, and I’d been nothing but nice to them. When they’d first come back into Hayley’s life, I was actually excited. I was na?ve enough to think that they might be extra support, even that they might become like family. But I was wrong. They may have considered Hayley family, but the same could certainly not be said for me.

Anyway, I wasn’t in the best of moods after seeing the pictures of Ollie online. I knew he was going to the foundation gala, and I knew it was a high-profile event. I couldn’t go. Not only did I have nothing to wear to something like that, but I’d had to be with Hayley for her session with the new counsellor, and it was lucky I was there given that she made a huge breakthrough.

Ollie wasn’t pleased, and I knew I needed to give him a better explanation, but I just hadn’t been ready to make everything so heavy between us by telling him about Hayley. And my life was heavy. I had a lot of baggage. Granted, I would do anything for that particular baggage – she was my only family, and I loved her to pieces. But the story of why I was my sister’s guardian, why she needed specialist counselling, what we’d both been through… I needed some time to explain all that. Time when I wasn’t supposed to be on the clock cleaning his freaking house.

“Don’t worry, lovebug,” I muttered. “It’s probably just Ada about tonight.” It was frivolous, I knew, letting Ada babysit when it wasn’t for work. But I never did anything for myself, and I simply wanted Ollie. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere – people like me did not end up with people like him. But the last few years had ground me down so much that this chink of light, something that wasn’t just the unrelenting pressure and struggle, was impossible to pass up. I know Ollie had said he was obsessed with me, those words had replayed in my brain over and over again for the last two weeks, but I also lived in the real world. I was essentially a single mother, and there were skeletons in my cupboard that would very likely be deal breakers. But I was going to let myself stay in the light for just a little longer.

The walk from our makeshift kitchen table to the door was only a couple of steps; everything in this flat was only a couple of steps. I wasn’t joking when I said the snug at Ollie’s house was double the size of my entire space. I frowned as there was another knock on the door.

“Ada, I… oh!” I snapped my mouth shut and stared at the Dowager of Buckingham on my doorstep. “Er, Lady Harding. Hi.”

“Hello, dear,” she said, peering around me to wave at Hayley. “Please try to remember to call me Margot. And hello, Hayley. Sorry to pop in like this. Unforgivably rude of me, but I’m afraid this just wouldn’t wait.”

“Oh, right,” I said, moving back from the door. “Please, come in. I’m sorry, but we don’t have that much space. Can I get you a cup of tea? I’ve got some custard creams.” I was rambling now, but having an actual lady in my tiny flat, not least one who was the mum of the man I was fairly certain I’d fallen in love with, was a little overwhelming.

She gave me a kind smile as she moved into the cramped space, glancing around at my charity shop sofa, the chair which I’d tried to jazz up with colourful throws, the tiny kitchen complete with a small, scuffed table and rickety chairs that I’m ashamed to say I retrieved from a skip. I cleared my throat. “Would you like to come and sit down?”

“Thank you,” she said, showing no reaction to any of the décor. “But don’t let me interrupt Hayley’s dinner.”

“Oh, she’s finished anyway,” I said quickly. “Haven’t you, Hails?” Hayley nodded as her eyes flicked between me and Margot. I hated that her default was suspicious caution, but that was how she was eyeing Margot despite how much she’d seemed to like her the last time they met.

“Thank you, Hayley,” said Margot through a smile. “Do you mind if I borrow your sister for a minute?” Hayley shook her head. “I brought you something.” Margot walked over to Hayley, fished in her handbag for a minute and then pulled out a beautiful sketchpad, a huge set of colouring pens and one of the toffee sweets she knew Hayley liked. “I found the drawings you left up in the mezzanine that day. My particular favourite was the rainbow unicorn. I thought you might like these.” Hayley’s eyes went wide as she took the gifts and hugged them to her chest. She looked up at Margot as her free hand went to her chin and out.

I cleared my throat. “She’s signing, thank you ,” I said.

“You’re welcome, darling,” said Margot, then she turned back to me.

“Hails, why don’t you go to your room and make a new picture for the fridge.” Hayley smiled at me and shot out of the room. Any excuse not to be around a relative stranger and to draw, she would jump on. Once alone, I cleared my throat again.

“Tea?”

“Lovely, dear.”

“Please take a seat. Oh no not that one!” I stopped Margot just in time before she could sit on the dodgy chair. She looked at me, and I grimaced. “Sorry, it’s just that one is liable to collapse – only Hayley’s got the knack. Maybe we’d be safer on the sofa?”

I ushered her over, feeling my cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Er, could you sit on the left side? It’s just the springs are a bit better there.”

I finished making the tea and brought it over to her. She smiled kindly at me as she took it, then her eyes drifted around the space as she sipped from the chipped mug, which had Best Sister Ever painted on it in Hayley’s rubbish writing from the time I made the mistake of taking her to one of those make-your-own-pottery places. I mean it was great, but they’re rip-off merchants – fifteen quid for a mug? Daylight robbery.

“Lottie, I understand that my son is taking you out tonight.” Her gaze was fixed on me now, and there was a sharp quality to it I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I nodded, not really knowing what to say. The last thing I expected was a visit from someone’s mum before they picked me up for a date. Is this how the upper class did things? Bizarre. “You may or may not know that my Oliver has had some unfortunate experiences… with women.”

My eyebrows went up. “Oh, no, sorry we… I mean, we haven’t discussed exes yet. It’s all a bit new at the moment. But I promise you I could give him a run for his money in the dodgy ex-stakes; some of mine are real pieces of work.”

The dowager nodded. “So you’ll understand why I have to exercise caution. Last time, everything was so horrendous… he hasn’t been himself for years. I know he comes across as a bit…” she paused, searched for the right words, “…sure of himself.” I stifled a laugh; there was an understatement if ever I heard one. “But really, he’s quite a sensitive boy.”

“Oh right, well…” I trailed off, not knowing how to reply. I stared at the dowager, focusing on the energy coming off her – anxiety, pity (annoying, but okay, I get it, given the state of my flat), determination and just the vaguest hint of hostility. She had not come here to tell me how excited she was that Ollie was showing an interest in me. I squared my shoulders. “Margot, why are you here?”

She flinched at my direct approach, then cleared her throat as she set her tea down on the small coffee table. “I know you need money,” she said, and I blinked.

“W-what do you mean?”

“You need money for Hayley. The funding you’re getting via the school isn’t enough to deal with her selective mutism. You are going to have to fund that privately, and that is very expensive. I know you’ve had some sessions with a therapist, but you’re going to struggle to afford more. There is also the matter of funding the next module of your Open University degree course.” Margot indicated to the numerous textbooks strewn over the coffee table.

“How on earth do you know all this?” I said in alarm, starting to feel a little sick.

“I have extensive resources, Lottie,” Margot went on almost casually. “My investigators are extremely thorough.”

“B-but that’s all private information,” I spluttered. “You can’t?—”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“I can, and I did,” Margot stated firmly, and, as had happened so many times before in my life, I sensed the powerlessness I had in this situation. My chest felt tight. I had thought that Margot liked me.

“What has this got to do with me and Ollie going on a date?” I managed to get out in a stiff tone.

“I also know about Hayley’s grandparents and how they want custody of Hayley and how you’re having to prove that you’re a better caregiver than them.”

I shot out of my seat. Some tea spilt over my hand before I could shove it onto the coffee table, but I barely felt it.

“Y-you can’t just go poking around in someone’s life like this!”

She sighed. “I’m sorry if it upsets you, but I’m very protective when it comes to my children. Given your situation with Hayley, I’m sure you can understand.”

“I-I-I can’t… I’m sorry, but that is not okay!”

She shrugged. “I apologise for the intrusion, but I felt it necessary to have all the facts. You can’t be so na?ve to think that a man with Oliver’s wealth and influence can get involved with people without them being vetted first? I’m not quite sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. This family has held its hereditary title for over five hundred years. It was created by Henry VI himself in 1444. We own an embarrassing amount of London, most of Surrey as well as properties in Asia, Europe and North America. We have investments in food and agricultural companies all over the world. Oliver’s net worth is estimated at over nine billion pounds.”

I felt the colour drain out of my face as I walked back slowly to the sofa to sit down. “What?” I breathed. Nine billion? That was more money than I could comprehend. How could anyone be worth that much? I let out a shaky laugh thinking about the five pounds seventy-five pence I had in my wallet and the meagre amount sitting in my bank account. “Cheese and rice.”

“So, as you can see,” she continued, all business now, “we do have to vet people. It’s just what?—”

“Just because you’re rich doesn’t actually give you the right to have people investigated, you know,” I told her, my shock receding and my anger rising now. “It doesn’t change the fact that it’s just plain rude. Having money doesn’t make you above everyone else; it doesn’t make you better people. It just means that your great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were mates with the king, and he gave you a load of dosh and land, whereas my great-great-great-great-great-grandparents worked the land or something.”

The dowager blinked at me, and then she shocked me by smiling. “I knew I liked you,” she said, and my eyebrows went up. “And yes, you’re right, it was rude. I am sorry.”

I huffed.

“But, just so you know, not all Oliver’s wealth is inherited,” she added. “He’s nearly doubled the family’s holdings with his investments.”

“’Cause you really needed to double your money,” I said dryly. “God forbid you couldn’t buy and sell entire countries. What would the neighbours say?”

She laughed. “Touché, Lottie. I can see how you’d think that. But Oliver’s set up more charitable foundations than any of his predecessors as well. We are trying not just to hoard all our wealth.”

I rolled my eyes. Clearly, with a net worth of nine billion, he wasn’t trying that hard.

“I’ll ask again,” my tone was firm now. “What do you want? You didn’t come here just to list all the ways you’re a boatload wealthier than me.”

“Right, well…” she looked away and cleared her throat before looking back at me. “There’s no easy way to approach this, Lottie. But I’m here to offer you a severance package.”

“A… what?”

“A severance package… from your employment.”

“Listen, Ollie said there wouldn’t be a problem with me keeping my job. He promised that?—”

“Oliver doesn’t know I’m here. This would be a private arrangement between you and me.”

I blinked at her. “What?” I whispered.

“If you leave your job now, I will transfer fifty thousand pounds into your account. Today.” She was serious, I could sense that, but there was something else too, almost like… hope? What was she hopeful for?

“Why would you do that?”

She looked to the side. “For my son,” she said when she looked back at me.

“How is this helping your son?”

“It wouldn’t be just severance from your job, Lottie. It would be severance from Oliver .”

“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, maybe even 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 of family these 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 him and that blonde with the tagline Duke of Fuckingham Strikes Again underneath. 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. Five thousand pounds. 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 simply couldn’t speak 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.”