Gold Digger
: Chapter 2

Ollie

Her chocolate brown eyes widened for a moment as they met mine, and I felt the familiar jolt of arousal that seemed to be totally out of control around this woman. And then of course, of course , she fell. I’d never encountered a human being as clumsy as Lottie Forest. Only last week, I’d found her on a fucking stepladder in the living room. When I’d barked “What the hell are you doing?” at her (which, I’ll admit, was probably not the best plan), the ladder wobbled, and I was only just in time to catch her when it crashed to the side.

Holding Lottie in my arms was not the best plan in terms of suppressing this ridiculous attraction to her. The flush on her cheeks, her lips parting in shock and the feel of her soft body against mine, combined with her fresh floral scent, was enough to make me almost lightheaded with lust as all the blood left my brain, heading south. Why the hell this woman with her baggy dungarees, multiple ear piercings, messy caramel hair that was permanently piled on top of her head in one of her colourful scarves, and zero make-up made my body react so violently (not least when I’d felt barely anything for my last put-together, effortlessly sexy, glamourous ex-girlfriend) was a complete mystery. I’d been so shocked by my visceral reaction that once she’d got her feet on the ground, I’d pushed her away like she was on fire.

“Be more bloody careful,” I’d snapped.

“I wouldn’t have fallen off the blooming ladder if you hadn’t been blustering around shouting at me,” she’d snapped back, and I felt another surge of attraction to her. In general, Lottie was deferential and quiet. Although I regularly noticed some fire behind her eyes, she almost never broke the lowly cleaner persona. Her actually answering me back gave me way too much of a thrill. But after a moment of silence, the colour drained from her face, the fire in her eyes died and she looked down at the floor. “Sorry, sir,” she muttered. “Of course, you’re right. I’ll be more careful.”

I had felt irrationally angry at her sudden compliance, my arms crossing over my chest as I looked down at her.

“Why the hell do you think you need to be up on a stepladder anyway? You clearly don’t have the required coordination.”

Her eyes had flicked up to mine, and for a moment, there’d been another flash of that fire before she closed them and gave her head a quick shake as if to clear it. “There are cobwebs on the ceiling. I was getting rid of them. Your mother said?—”

“You do not work for my mother,” I snapped. “You work for me . No more stepladders.”

She’d taken a step back, her eyes still downcast, and I’d felt my chest tighten at her retreat. Some very basic part of my brain had screamed at me not to allow her to back away. In fact, her backing away had felt all kinds of wrong.

And now she’d fallen again, but this time I hadn’t been near enough to catch her. I made it to her just as she crashed to the wooden floor, landing on one leg and then falling onto her outstretched wrist and her hip, hard.

“For Christ’s sake,” I said as I crouched next to her, concern making my tone unnecessarily harsh. “You are the most accident-prone human being on the planet.” One of my hands went to her shoulder, the other moved to push back her hair that had, for once, escaped from the confines of that ridiculous topknot. She flinched away from the contact, and I felt that crazy sense of loss again as she shuffled back out of my reach. I clenched my jaw in frustration, but when her tear-filled eyes met mine, my stomach hollowed out.

“Hey, sorry,” I said in a softer tone. “I’m being a dick.” Surprise crossed her expression, making me feel like even more of an arsehole. “Listen, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, clearing her throat and swiping a tear from her cheek.

“Let me help you up,” I said, offering her my hand.

“I said I’m fine ,” she forced out through her teeth, ignoring my hand and then wincing when she tried to push up to standing using the wrist she’d fallen on.

“Lottie, you need—” I reached for her again, but she rolled away, to transfer her weight to her other hand.

“I’m fine ,” she said in a stronger voice now. For some reason, she glanced behind her up to the mezzanine for a moment before refocusing on me. “I don’t need any help.”

I held up my hands. “Okay, okay,” I muttered.

“Oliver, are you in here?” We both flinched at the sound of my mother’s voice. “Oh! Lottie, are you quite alright?” Mum said as Lottie used her good hand to get to her feet, trying to mask another wince as she put weight through her ankle.

“No, Mum,” I said. “She’s not alright. She fell down the bloody stairs.”

“Oh golly!” Mum cried, hurrying across the room to where Lottie and I were now standing facing each other. “What rotten luck, darling. Are you okay? Do we need to…?” Mum trailed off, her gaze focusing on the mezzanine above for a moment. She frowned slightly, her head tilted to the side before her eyes widened and shot to me. I felt my forehead furrow in confusion and was about to turn to look at whatever caught Mum’s eye when she snapped, “Oliver!”

“Yes, Mum?” I asked after a long pause. Mum bit her lip and glanced at Lottie, whose face had paled even more. Mum cleared her throat as she transferred her gaze back to me.

“Er… maybe you should get back to work. I’ll take Lottie to the emergency department.”

“Honestly, I’m fine, Margot,” Lottie put in, her voice high-pitched and more than a little panicked. I scowled. Lottie’s easy familiarity with my mum was in sharp contrast to her stiff formality with me. I’d told her to call me Ollie ages ago, but she still insisted on sir . At least she wasn’t using Your Grace anymore. “No need for anything like that. Just a couple of bruises.” She smiled despite the pain I could see etched on her features, and I wanted to shake her.

“You’re not fine,” I said, my waning patience making my voice harsh. “You’ve fallen down a set of metal bloody stairs. You should?—”

“Honestly,” she interrupted, taking one of the multitude of hairbands she kept on her wrist and using it to tie up her hair again, clearly favouring her good hand. I was unreasonably disappointed to see the long mass of caramel waves re-confined in its elastic prison. I hadn’t realised how very long her hair was or how it would frame her delicate face. “I’ll just get on if that’s okay.” She started to walk towards her cleaning cart, but when her left ankle almost gave way, she limped along instead.

“Stop,” I snapped, but, as seemed to be typical for her, she ignored me. “I mean it, Lottie. Mum’s right. You need an X-ray of your wrist and ankle.” She pulled the furniture polish out of her basket with her good hand and then hobbled over to the sideboard to start dusting. Fucking dusting. I strode over to her and took hold of her elbow gently, trying to ignore the zing of electricity that shot from her bare skin to my hand. My intention was to support her and help her to the sofa so she could take the weight off her ankle. But the stubborn woman flinched away from me and nearly fell over again.

“Lottie,” I said in a warning tone. “Put the furniture polish down, and let me help you over to the sofa so you can put your foot up.” The pain in her expression was making my chest feel tight. Why was she being so stubborn?

“Your Grace,” she started, and my hands clenched into fists. Great, we were back to the Your Grace bullshit. “I’m perfectly fine. I do not need to put my foot up or have any X-rays. I’d much prefer to finish my shift.”

I threw up my hands in frustration as she limped around me to start dusting again. “I wasn’t aware that you had completed a medical degree, Miss Forest.” It was subtle, and she’d been side-on to me at the time, but I was pretty sure she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t need a medical degree to know I’d be wasting everyone’s time going to the hospital,” she said through her teeth, belatedly adding on, “sir.”

Then the bloody stubborn lunatic, no doubt attempting to walk without a limp, put all her weight through that ankle. She couldn’t hide her wince this time as all the colour drained from her face. When she swayed on her feet, I’d had enough.

“Right, that’s it,” I snapped, striding forward and then sweeping her legs from under her to catch her in my arms. She gasped in shock as I spun around with her securely held against my chest.

“What the Fraggle Rock are you doing?” she said in a horrified whisper while I carefully deposited her on the sofa, then took a rapid step back. I cleared my throat and shoved my hands into my pockets.

“Er… darling?” Mum put in. “We can’t just go around picking up the staff and plonking them onto furniture on a whim. Maybe last century, but I’m quite sure even your great-great-grandfather would have drawn the line there.”

Lottie glanced at Mum and started to spin her legs around to put them on the floor. Okay, maybe what I’d done wasn’t completely appropriate, but I was not going to witness that stark pain on Lottie’s face again. So, before she could touch the floor, I’d pulled my hands out of my pockets, leaned down, grasped her slim calves in my hands and placed them back up on the sofa, pulling a throw cushion from the side and putting it under her feet. This unexpected move meant that Lottie was forced to lie back against the arm of the sofa. She stared up at me in disbelief.

I heard a muffled snort from Mum, which I very much suspected was a laugh.

“ I’m taking you to the hospital,” I announced, and Lottie’s mouth fell open in shock.

“Oh actually, darling, don’t you have that meeting with the developers?” Mum put in, and Lottie shot her a grateful look. What the fuck is wrong with this woman? I’m offering to personally take her to get checked out. Me, Oliver Harding, the Duke of Buckingham, offering to take his cleaner to the hospital and she was looking at me like I’d grown another head. Women – and, truth be told, people in general – tended to do what I wanted them to do.

“You are not taking me anywhere, sir,” Lottie said, that fire back in her eyes. “I’m staying and finishing my shift.”

“As your employer, I cannot in good conscience allow you to work with a possibly broken ankle and wrist.” And there it was, another eye roll. Unbelievable. “You will be coming to the emergency department right fucking now.”

Her eyes flashed. Flecks of green appearing in the brown. Bloody hell, she really was beautiful.

“Go to your meeting,” she snapped, and my eyebrows shot up.

“Might I remind you, Miss Forest,” I said in a soft but lethal tone. “You are my employee. The only orders issued between us are going to be from me to you , and they will be obeyed. If you want to continue in my employment, then that is how this is going to work.” I immediately regretted the softly delivered threat. Her face paled again, this time so badly that she looked a little grey, and that green fire died in her eyes to be replaced by a look of almost panic, which I found myself absolutely despising. She glanced up at the mezzanine for a split second before looking back at me. Before I could turn to see what she was looking at, she sat up, and her small hand shot out to enclose my wrist. Again, the contact was almost electric. My heart rate picked up as I felt her skin on mine.

“Of course,” she said, her voice now devoid of the previous fight, and my chest tightened. “I understand. I’ll… I’ll leave for the day. I’ll get an X-ray. I promise. B-but I can’t allow you to take me.”

I looked down at her hand on my wrist, and she immediately released her hold. When my gaze lifted to meet hers it was like time stood still. The warm brown of her expressive eyes was impossible to look away from. That feeling of… connection, even possession, swept through me.

But it was even more than that. It was as if my very soul was looking straight at hers through her eyes and simply saying, “Oh, it’s you . There you are.”

It was official: I was losing my damn mind.

“Just go to the meeting, darling,” Mum put in. Lottie flinched, and the spell was broken. Christ, I’d forgotten Mum was even in the room. “You told me how important it is, and you can’t leave Vicky to deal with it on her own.”

I frowned in frustration. No, there was no way I could let Vicky walk in there without me. “Fine,” I bit out, checking my Rolex to see that it was already five minutes later than I’d wanted to leave. I shook my head to clear it, attempting to claw back my sanity and ignore the slight panic I felt at Lottie being hurt. She was my cleaner for fuck’s sake. And lately, she’d been taking up way too much of my headspace, which I could not afford to lose to a too-young, stubborn, scruffy girl who wouldn’t even call me by my first name. So, I forced myself to ignore the part of me that wanted to sack off the meeting, leaving Vicky right in the shit, in order to take care of my employee who didn’t even seem to like me. It was also clear that I wasn’t helping the situation. All I seemed to have done was piss her off and then scare her by threatening her job.

“I don’t have time for this anyway,” I muttered under my breath, before turning back to Lottie. “You’d better be going to the hospital,” I said, pointing at her to emphasise my point. “And you,” I transferred my point to Mum, “better make sure she takes one of the town cars.”

“Yes, darling,” Mum agreed in a bright voice, which immediately made me suspicious. My mother was not, in general, an agreeable human. I narrowed my eyes at her for a moment, but she just smiled. “Off you go then to make the family another pile of money it doesn’t need.” Now, that was more like the mother I knew and loved. “Toodle-pip.”

I glanced between Mum and Lottie, unable to shake the feeling that something was happening here that I didn’t understand, and then I stalked out of the room.

And, of course, the meeting was a complete disaster because my head wasn’t in the game enough to stop Vicky from insulting everyone there. No, my head was still focused on the way Lottie’s face had paled when she put weight through her ankle and what possible motivation she could have had to pretend not to be hurt.