Gold Digger

Lottie

“It’ll be okay, lovebug,” I said as I squeezed Hayley’s hand. But my heart was sinking as I took in the sheer number of people filing into the room. It seemed as though it was just myself and Hayley against an army. Her grandparents had brought a solicitor with them. That idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. A lawyer? I thought we were deciding where Hayley would be happiest? We didn’t need a lawyer for that, did we? And for some reason, everyone was invited into the room before us. We were left waiting outside whilst they’d been in there for over twenty minutes. How could they be deciding anything without speaking to me and Hayley? Laura, our social worker, popped her head around the door then and gave us a tight smile.

“Right, you’re okay to come in now,” she said with a forced, bright tone, and my panic ramped up again. I’d seen that expression before. It was the expression people used when they had to let you down. I’d been let down a fair bit since childhood, so I knew what the mixture of pity and resignation meant. Hayley and I followed behind her into the room. Looking at Brenda and Tony there wasn’t the normal defiant anger I’d seen from them before. Instead, Brenda was fiddling with her sleeves and looking uncomfortable. Tony only made brief eye contact with me.This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

“Do you have anyone else with you today?” Laura asked almost hopefully. I shook my head and was about to answer when the door into the waiting area slammed open, and Ollie stormed through it. He looked utterly panicked, windswept and totally gorgeous. I knew it shouldn’t, but at the sight of him, relief, so strong I almost collapsed under the weight of it, swept through me. His eyes flicked between me and Hayley, and I saw the same relief reflected in his eyes. He came straight to me, grabbed my hand in both of his, and I felt something slide onto my ring finger. He kissed the side of my head before moving his mouth to my ear.

“Trust me,” he whispered before moving back to give Hayley a hug.

“Stowaway! Fancy seeing you here,” he said brightly. “Let’s get this boring stuff done, and then we can go get pancakes, right? At least you get to skive a day off school.”

Hayley smiled for the first time that day and my heart clenched.

“Terribly sorry we’re a touch late.” I startled at the sound of Margot’s voice, as she, Vicky and Claire all crowded into the space then proceeded to hug me and Hayley in turn.

Laura took in my now huge entourage with an increasing bewilderment.

“Shall we?” Ollie said smoothly, extending out his arm for Laura to precede us into the conference room.

“R-right,” she stuttered. Ollie opened the door for her, and we all filed past him. Brenda and Tony’s eyes were wide as they took in the number of people that filled my side of the table. After many previous meetings with just me on this side, they were probably finding the shift in the power imbalance impossible to process.

Denise, the safeguarding lead, cleared her throat. “Okay,” she said, using a bright tone to hide her shock. “I knew we were expecting Hayley as well as Lottie today. Hi, Hayley.” Hayley gripped my hand harder but didn’t say anything in response, which didn’t surprise me – she was now talking to small groups, but this was way too intimidating an atmosphere for her to say anything. I felt a surge of anger that she was even put in this position but tamped it down. “But I don’t think we were aware of the additional support accompanying Lottie today. Shall we go around the table introducing ourselves?”

Once all the introductions had been made, Brenda and Tony were starting to look a little pale. When Ollie introduced himself as Oliver Harding, the Duke of Buckingham, the silence that followed was thick with tension. It was the first time I’d heard Ollie use his title as a weapon since the school incident. His aristocratic tone told everyone in the room that he was the one in charge, that hundreds of years of breeding meant that his authority should go unquestioned. Even in the toughest business negotiations, he’d never sounded quite as commanding.

“Right, okay,” Denise said gamely into the stunned silence. “So, if we’re ready I’ll start. This meeting is to help assess what would be best for Hayley. After speaking to Brenda and Tony I think that it might actually be better to have a quick chat whilst Hayley pops out for a bit with Laura for a hot chocolate, then Hayley can come back and say her bit too. Okay, Hayley?”

Hayley had shrunk into my side, and her grip on my hand was almost painful.

“It’s okay, lovebug,” I muttered into the side of her head before kissing her on the temple. “Have a hot choccie and then you’ll be back in no time.” She shook her head, but then Claire came around to crouch down next to her.

“Come on, sweetheart,” she said softly. “How about Vicky and I take you? I’ve got some Skittles in my bag. We can sneak them together.”

Hayley’s eyes flew to Ollie, she pressed her hand to the centre of her chest then to the centre of mine. I had to blink rapidly to stop tears forming. Ollie turned away from everyone in the room as if we were on our own. He pressed his hand to his chest then to mine then to Hayley’s.

“I’ll look after her, darling,” he said firmly. She kept eye contact with him for a long moment before she slowly nodded, let go of my hand and allowed Claire and Vicky to lead her out of the room.

“So, Brenda, Tony,” Denise said. “Did you want to start?”

Brenda cleared her throat, shooting a nervous glance at Ollie, who was sitting back in his chair now, giving the impression that he was completely relaxed, but I could feel his coiled tension and razor-sharp focus as he stared Brenda down.

“Well, as I’ve said before, the child is?—”

“Hayley,” Ollie said, his voice cracking across the room like a whip. “ Not the child, Hayley.”

“Y-yes, of course,” Brenda said, clearing her throat before continuing. “Hayley would be much better off in our care. Lottie’s proven she’s too young for this type of responsibility. She’s not meeting Hayley’s needs like she should be. That child still isn’t speaking, and Lottie just lets her get away with it. She clearly needs more boundaries in the home environment. She does not have the resources to adequately support our granddaughter. It’s a child looking after a child. Totally inappropriate. And then there’s this newspaper article. God knows what she’s involved in. Taking a large amount of money for… well, I wouldn’t like to say what for.”

I froze in my seat in shock. It was only then that I noticed the newspaper sitting in the middle of the table. Before anyone could say anything, I flew to my feet and snatched it up.

“Oh my giddy aunt,” I breathed as I sunk back down into the chair, staring at the now-crumpled paper in my hand. There was a photo of Ollie and me in the corridor of the fundraiser. He was kissing my neck, my head was thrown back, and my mouth was slightly open. The headline read, “Duke Pays Cleaner Fifty Grand for Services Rendered”. For a moment I felt like I was going to throw up. There was a low ringing in my ears, and all the faces in the room started to blur. Then I felt Ollie’s large, warm hand around mine, heard his voice through the fog, and it anchored me into the present.

“Breathe, Lottie,” he murmured. “Trust me, remember?”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Ollie cleared his throat and straightened in his chair. I was just about aware enough of my surroundings to notice the atmosphere in the room shift when he started speaking.

“I wasn’t aware that the musings of tabloid newspapers featured heavily in discussions regarding custody arrangements for children,” Ollie put in smoothly, staring Brenda and Tony down. Tony swallowed, and Brenda’s face flushed red. “Mum?” He held up the newspaper over his shoulder, not breaking eye contact with Brenda.

“No problem, darling,” Margot piped up happily as she grabbed the newspaper from him, took it to the bin in the corner of the room, screwed it up with undisguised enthusiasm and dumped it inside.

“But seeing as tabloid gossip has been brought up,” Ollie went on, “we may as well discuss it before moving on to the real issues. My mother came to know Lottie and Hayley during Lottie’s time in my employ. Miss Lottie Forest took a loan from my mother. This loan was to cover the extra tuition costs for her sister. I believe you have the educational reports from nine months ago describing the recommendations for Hayley? Hayley’s school was not able to meet these educational needs. Indeed, her SEN money was never used specifically for Hayley – it was put into a pot with the rest of the specialist funding. This was totally inadequate. Hayley was not making progress, and at that time Lottie did not have the means to fund private educational psychology. The loan she took covered these additional expenses, and it has now been fully repaid. I have my mother’s bank statement proving this. My relationship with Miss Forest has nothing to do with any financial transaction between her and my mother.”

“I am not in the business of buying women for my son,” Margot put in. “As you can imagine, he has always been quite capable of attracting interest from that quarter without my input or any money changing hands.”

“Well, I?—”

“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we,” Ollie put in smoothly, his tone turning lethal now as he leaned forward over the table. “Are you suggesting that I paid Miss Forest for sex?”

“Lord Harding,” Denise said in a high voice. “I’m sure we don’t need to go into?—”

“It’s Your Grace .”

“W-what?”

“The correct way to address me is, Your Grace.”

“Oh, I just meant that?—”

“Do you think I have to pay for sex, Mrs Corbett?” he asked Denise, whose mouth fell open in shock. A snort from across the table drew my attention. Laura’s face was bright red, and her lips were pressed in a tight line, clearly trying to stop herself from bursting out laughing.

“I very much doubt it,” Denise finally said in a choked voice, and Ollie inclined his head in acknowledgement.

“No, the real question here is why Hayley’s grandparents, with the much better resources they purport to have at their disposal, did not offer Miss Forest financial help for this extra psychological and educational support for Hayley?”

Tony cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, we didn’t really think that… we didn’t know…”

“You didn’t know what?” Ollie asked, raising a single eyebrow. “Were you unaware of the extra costs Miss Forest was incurring?”

“We didn’t think all that nonsense was necessary,” Brenda spluttered, and the room fell silent.

“Did you read the educational reports?” Ollie put in, his voice now low and dangerous, real anger bubbling underneath his tone.

Brenda rolled her eyes. “That’s all just a bunch of tosh. The girl just needs boundaries. Not some fancy therapy. Load of American rubbish.”

At that, I’d had enough. I was going to take my lead from Ollie. It was time to stop walking on eggshells with this woman.

“Because boundaries and emotional unavailability worked so well for your son?” I put in.

“How dare you!” Brenda snapped.

“The reason my sister doesn’t speak is not because of a lack of boundaries.” I was surprised by how clear my voice was, but this was my family I was fighting for, and I could feel Ollie’s hand around mine. I could do this. “It’s nothing to do with how I’ve looked after her. She wasn’t speaking at all when she came to me. She was damaged. Now, why is that?” There was a heavy silence as Brenda looked at Tony, and Tony seemed to shrink in his chair. “Where is your son now?”

“That’s not fair,” Brenda spat. “If he hadn’t got involved with your mother, he never would have?—”

“I am not defending my mother,” I said. “Believe me, I will never defend my mother. But your son chose to have a child with her, and your son also chose to leave his family when my sister was only five. He left her with an unstable woman who slipped back into alcoholism. Something he knew would happen. He did not ring me to tell me he’d done it. He just left. I was the one to go and check on my sister. I was the one who found the flat a complete disaster. To find my hungry sister sitting in filthy clothes, her voice hoarse from crying, whilst my mother was passed out on the sofa. I reported it to social services. I took my sister home with me, and I looked after her. I jumped through all the hoops I had to in order to foster her. I pushed and pushed for psychological assessments when she stopped speaking. And, by the way, she may have stopped speaking to other people, but she never stopped speaking to me. I comforted her at our mother’s funeral. I’ve been there for her since she was a baby, unlike your son and the both of you.”

“We couldn’t see her when she was with your mother,” spluttered Tony. “She was completely unreasonable, and we didn’t approve of any of her?—”

“My mother was not a reasonable person,” I said. “Sober, she was a very difficult woman. Very difficult . Drunk, she was hell on wheels. She consistently let me down, neglected me and emotionally abused me. However, she was deemed responsible enough to retain custody of my sister after she was born. At that time she was sober, but I knew that wouldn’t last. So, I made sure I maintained a relationship with her. I did this to look after my sister. The alternative was estrangement, and where would that have left Hayley? Did I have to jump through my mother’s hoops? Yes. Would I have walked through fire for my sister? Also, yes. The fact is that both of you washed your hands of my mother and, in turn, your granddaughter for years.”

“It appears to me that the only adult to have put Hayley’s needs first in all of this is Lottie,” Ollie put into the silence that followed. “You’ve made it clear how much you dislike Lottie. Yet she still facilitates your relationship with your granddaughter. She still brings Hayley to see you. She even brought Hayley over for Christmas Day last year. Didn’t she? She trekked all the way out to your house on public transport on Christmas Day.”

Brenda and Tony started to look uncomfortable at this point. I wondered where Ollie was going with this.

“Did Lottie spend those hours in your house also?” Ollie asked, it was then I caught the shot of white-hot anger running through his tone.

“No, of course not,” Brenda snapped. Tony looked down at his hands.

“Do you know where Lottie spent the three hours that Hayley was with you?”

“How is that any of our business?”

“Did Hayley ask you if her sister could come too?”

Brenda looked away at that. “I don’t remember.”

“It was below freezing on Christmas Day last year. Did you know that?” Ollie turned to me. “Lottie, where did you spend those three hours?”

“In the park round the corner,” I said.

“Right, because everything is shut or fully booked on Christmas Day, isn’t it?”

“We should have asked the girl in,” Tony blurted out. “Hayley begged us, and we…” he looked up at me then. “I’m sorry, love. We should have asked you in. We should have?—”

“Tony, for God’s sake,” Brenda snapped. “What are you doing? She’s nothing to do with us! She’s?—”

“She’s Hayley’s sister. Bloody hell, woman. Can’t you see what he’s trying to point out to us? She’s family . Maybe not by blood, but we should have treated her like family. We didn’t deserve the effort she made to include us in Hayley’s life.”

A hush fell over the table, Tony’s words still hanging in the air, and for a moment no one spoke. Then, at last, I broke the silence.

“Apart from your attitude to her therapy, you’re good grandparents to Hayley,” I said eventually. “Of course I wanted you involved in her life. The more family she has, the better.”

Brenda shocked me then when her eyes filled with tears. “Oh,” she managed before she turned onto Tony’s shoulder and started sobbing.

“Er… right,” Denise said, sounding unsure. “So, I’m not sure if we should?—”

“I’m sorry,” Brenda interrupted, her gaze fixed on me, completely ignoring Denise. “Your young man is right – Tony’s right. We should have treated you like family, and we didn’t. We lumped you in with her, and we were so very, very angry that…” She started crying softly again.

“The last weekend we had Hayley, we upset her so much that she stopped speaking again,” Tony told everyone. “And we’re sorry. We thought Lottie was part of the problem, and we were too blind to see what was really going on. Of course, Hayley should be with Lottie. We’re sorry that we suggested separating the girls.”

“Okay,” said Laura slowly. “So what custody arrangements are we going to have moving forward? I see there were concerns here about lack of support and stable home?” Laura glanced briefly around at my entourage and hid a small smile. “I’m not sure that is a huge concern. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Accommodation-wise, Hayley and Lottie can choose between my three UK residences, my villa in Tuscany, my apartment in New York or my chalet in Verbier,” Ollie said. Laura snorted again but managed to smother it with her hand. He took my hand in his, lifted it to the table so that the ring was showing, catching the light from the bulb overhead.

“I have also secured another rental property in Kensington. It’s a garden flat which we are due to move into in two weeks,” I told them.

“You aren’t living together?” Laura asked with a confused frown.

“I am not a married woman yet,” I told her. “Until that time, we will have our own property separate from the Buckingham Estate.”

Denise sighed, slammed her file on me and Hayley shut with a decisive thump and turned to stare at Brenda and Tony.

“I deal with a lot of child protection cases,” she told them. “Our caseloads, as you can imagine, are unbelievably full.” Her eyes flashed. “I’m sorry, but this is beginning to look like a waste of our time. Is it really your assertion that this child is unsafe in the care of her sister?”

Tony looked down at his hands, and Brenda swallowed as she met Denise’s furious gaze.

“Do you have contact with your son currently?”

Both Brenda and Tony shook their heads.

“Other children? Other family?”

Another head shake.

Denise cleared her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “Might I suggest then that a better plan would have been to make room in your family for not only your granddaughter, but also her sister?”

The silence stretched out after that statement until Tony looked up and caught my eye.

“Sorry, love,” he said in a quiet voice. I felt my eyes sting but blinked to clear them as I gave him a small nod of acknowledgement.

Denise sighed then went out to fetch Hayley and Claire back into the room. Before anyone had a chance to speak, Hayley stood up and slammed her little hand down on the table.

“I live with my sister,” she said in a loud, clear voice which carried around the room. A tear did slip down my cheek then. It was partly pride, partly relief, but primarily pure joy. For Hayley to stand up and speak to a room full of adults was something I would never have thought possible a few months ago. “We are the Sister Team . I’m gonna let Ollie, Claire, Vicky, Margot and Florrie on our team. Oh! And Lucy, Felix, Mike and Legolas. It’s a big team now. Granny and Grandpa, you can join our team too if you want, but not if you’re going to be mean to Lottie. No mean people are allowed on the Sister Team.”

“We’re not going to be mean to your sister, love,” Tony said softly.

Hayley crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at him and Brenda. “You’ve been super mean to her before. You say you love me, but there’s no me without Lottie. So you hafta love her too.”

Brenda stood up and walked around the conference table to get to Hayley. When she reached her, she crouched down to her level.

“I’m sorry, darling,” Brenda said softly, pushing Hayley’s hair back from her forehead and behind her ear.

“We’ll do better, love,” Tony, who’d come around to stand next to his wife.

Hayley tilted her head to the side and hesitated for a moment before she took the step forward into Brenda’s arms. Brenda’s breath hitched as she hugged Hayley back, her eyes screwed up, a tear leaking down her cheek and a fierce expression of relief on her face. When Hayley was transferred to Tony’s arms, Brenda turned to me.

“I was wrong,” she said, her voice stiff despite the tears now free-falling down her face. She swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

Tony and Hayley had separated now. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath as Brenda and I stood watching each other. Then Brenda did something I would never have expected. She grabbed me into a hug. It took me a few seconds to work through my shock and hug her back, but I managed it.

“You kept her safe,” Brenda said, her voice now broken with her sobs. “You were just a baby yourself, and you kept her safe.”

“It’s okay, Brenda,” I muttered, completely overwhelmed. Then Tony hugged me as well, talking about how he was a “stupid bugger” and how sorry he was.

“Right, well, that sorts that,” Denise said as Tony and I separated. Her voice was thick, and when I looked at her and Laura, there were tears in their eyes.

“Wonderful,” Margot put in. “Well, if that’s all wrapped up, might I suggest lunch at The Ivy? Ladies, you’re welcome to join us.”

Laura smiled. “I must say I have never had one of these meetings conclude with an offer of lunch at such a fancy restaurant!”

“Darling, their salmon en cro?te is to die for.”

Denise laughed. “We’ve another meeting, so we’ll have to settle for a pasty from Gregg’s, but thanks.”

We all filed out of the building. After the last emotionally charged hour, it was more than a little awkward. I’d assumed Tony and Brenda would rush off, but the biggest surprise of that day was yet to come. Because once we were on the pavement, Tony moved to Ollie and put his hand on his arm.

“I… er, well—” he broke off to clear his throat, clearly working up to something. After a moment, he puffed out his chest. “Lottie doesn’t have other family so?—”

“Yes, she does,” Margot interrupted. “We’re her family.”

“He’s not married her yet,” Tony put in and Margot pressed her lips together in frustration. Tony turned back to Ollie, his face set with determination. “What I mean to say is that we’re her family now.” He looked away for a moment, clearing his throat again. “Y-you should know that I won’t have some rich fly-by-night messing her about. I know you’ve upset her. Clearly, she’s let you off the hook, but we’ll be watching you now too. So your intentions better be honourable.”

I blinked in shock. How had we gone from Tony looking at me as if I was dirt on his shoe to him blasting Ollie in case he might mess me about ?

There was a pause. I thought Ollie was going to let rip at Tony again. But instead, his expression softened. “Okay, consider me thoroughly warned. And, just so you know, I might have let Lottie down before, but that is not going to happen again. I love her and Hayley very much.”

Tony swallowed and gave him a sharp nod.

“Right, we’d best be off,” Brenda said into the uncomfortable silence.

“Of course not,” Margot put in, linking her arm through Brenda’s. “There’s lunch to be had. We’ll all be going together, then we can talk about you and Tony popping up to the country estate next month.”

Everyone started walking down the pavement with Tony and Brenda swept along for the ride. I was having trouble keeping up, what with going from the fear of this morning, to the shock of the entire Harding clan showing up at the hearing, to the relief that Hayley wasn’t going to be taken from me, to the utter mind-boggling shift from Brenda and Tony being my enemies to them wanting me as their adopted granddaughter. And then there was Ollie…

“Bringing the entire family might have been overkill,” I told him as he took my left hand in his, holding it firmly. We were both at the back of the group. Hayley was walking between Claire and Tony, Vicky was walking with the dowager and Brenda.

He shrugged and grinned down at me, totally unrepentant. “I didn’t want there to be any doubt in anyone’s mind who you and Hayley belonged to.”

I rolled my eyes. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

“But maybe you’ll give me a teeny, tiny, wafer-thin chance?”

I bit my lip, looking out onto the road and thinking back over the last few weeks. Ollie walking me to and from the flat. Him keeping his promise to Hayley. Showing up for me today with his family in tow. And, I mean, the sex from before wasn’t half bad either… Okay, sue me! Any woman would have to factor that in – look at the man, for Fraggle Rock’s sake.

“Maybe, just a wafer-thin one,” I said softly.

He jerked to a stop.

“Ollie?” I said in confusion, turning to him. His expression was fierce as his hand went up to the side of my face.

“D-do you mean it?” he said. It was the first time I’d ever heard this man sound anything other than supremely confident and it was that thread of hope in his voice that made my heart swell. It was like I could feel some of my broken pieces fly back together, and the numbness seeping away. “Lottie, baby. Do you mean it?”

“Yes,” I whispered. His eyes closed slowly as he rested his forehead against mine and breathed out a long, relieved breath, totally ignoring the London pedestrians streaming past us on either side.

“Thank fuck,” he said, his voice rough with emotion as he pulled me into him in a fierce hug, kissing the top of my head. “I love you. You know that right? You know how much I bloody love you?”

I smiled into his chest. “Of course I know it, you numpty,” I said as I pulled back slightly to look up into his eyes that, to my shock, were glassy with unshed tears.

“You’re right. I am a numpty.”

“Well, you’re my numpty. Because I love you too.”

One of his hands went around my back, the other slid into my hair, and right there in the middle of one of London’s busiest streets, right in the middle of the day, the Duke of Buckingham kissed me. There were of course paparazzi, but Ollie knew that, and he didn’t give a Fraggle Rock.