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Million Dollar Lover: 4. Rewards of Love

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4. Rewards of Love

BBC Radio 4 - Million Dollar Lover, 4. Rewards of Love

When a homeless man moves in with a rich widow is it true love or something much darker?

With Carolyn and Dave ripping up an agreement to safeguard her family assets, it feels like a spending spree is coming. Can her daughters stop it and what happens if they can't?

One of the consequences of the family falling out about Dave is that Carolyn has decided to take back control of her bank accounts from her daughter, Sally, who had always helped her Mum in the past. Carolyn’s daughters fear that she will start giving money to Dave and that there is nothing they can do about it.

In the early days of the relationship, the daughters had got Carolyn and Dave to sign a legal agreement protecting her money and properties. But now they fear that the pair have effectively ripped up that agreement, which they are perfectly entitled to do. Could this be the start of the nightmare scenario they have been dreading ever since Dave moved into the family home?

There is a childlike quality in Carolyn when it comes to Dave that does make her vulnerable. She guards him as if he is some kind of rare treasure and when he is out late drinking with friends, she sometimes sets out in the dark to find him. Her neighbour Marie, who cares for more than a dozen wealthy old women in Cayucos, says it is something she sees a lot.

Marie has warned Carolyn about Dave, but to no avail. The story captured the attention of the BBC Journalist Sue Mitchell, as it was unfolding on her street. She spends a lot of time in California; she married an American and her award-winning journalism has been about the lives of people like Dave who inhabit the dangerous margins of society.

Is Dave really a tender carer who will cherish Carolyn to the end as he promises, or is he a dangerous interloper who will fleece Carolyn – breaking her heart and her family?

Million Dollar Lover is produced at BBC Audio by the team behind The Boy in the Woods and is presented by Sue Mitchell.

The series is scripted by Winifred Robinson; the producers are Sue Mitchell and Joel Moors; the dramaturg is Flo Dessau and sound design is by Tom Brignell

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Million Dollar Lover is a true story recorded in real time about how homelessness and wealth collide in a luxury Californian resort when a millionaire widow falls for her handyman

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4. Rewards of Love

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