Page 101 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

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Kate

Katedepositedthefinalbox into the room, rubbing the side of her—admittedly enormous—stomach. Leo trotted in behind her, hopping up onto the armchair to survey his new kingdom: the nursery.

God knows he was in for a shock when their baby arrived.

She eyed the hospital bag in the corner, chewing her lip. The pain had woken her up this morning, long after Warren had left for his meeting at Stone Holdings in London.

The last meeting he’d attend before taking his paternity leave.

She glanced around the nursery, still feeling that itch to dosomething.The baby wouldn’t be needing these books for months yet. Even so, Kate organised them on the bookshelf, currently mostly occupied by black-and-white books with large, easy-to-see writing.

Padding around the room, Kate reasoned with herself. The baby would be staying in their bedroom for months yet. The nursery didn’tneedto be perfect.

And yet…

She eyed the boxes of baby wipes and nappies in the corner with a twitch of her lip. That could be organised.

With some difficulty—and a handful of ungainliness—Kate knelt and got to work, stacking the baby wipes in the bottom drawer of the changing table. All the right way up and facing the same way, of course. Four boxes of baby wipes later, she was satisfied.

Then she started on the nappies, organising them by size from left to right, side eyeing Leo hopping down from the armchair and toddling from the room, abandoning her to her work. She should really have bought little separating boards like she’d done with the wardrobe, where she could easily tell newborn clothes from three to—

A sigh from behind made her jump. “I told you I’d do that,” Warren grumbled, his hands slinking underneath her arms. “Come on. You’re thirty-eight weeks’ pregnant. You should be laying on a sun lounge being fanned and fed grapes.”

“I mean, it’s literally snowing outside.” Kate allowed herself to be helped up, leaning back against Warren’s firm chest. He still wore a suit, but his tie had been loosened. The top two buttons of his shirt had also been undone, exposing the faintest hint of the tattoos and chest hair that lay beneath. “But then why do you not come bearing grapes?”

She twisted around in time to see the faintest hint of nerves on his face. “Well,” he said, “it’s not grapes, but I do come bearing gifts.”

“Oh?”

He pulled a long, flat jewellery box from his pocket. A familiar one. “This isn’t so much a gift as something I found when I was unloading the boxes from the old house. I was worried it had gotten a bit banged up, but it survived.”

Kate opened it. “My mother’s locket,” she whispered, running her thumb over the faded heart. Her other hand drifted down to her stomach. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately.”

He lifted it gently from the box to place around her neck, pulling her closer to clasp it. “You’re missing her?”

“Is it silly to miss something you’ve never had?”

Warren pulled back to hold her gaze. “I think that’s when you miss it most of all.”

Her breathing was a jumpy mess, not helped by the soreness across her stomach, but she ploughed through. “She must have done this with me, you know. Prepared clothes and nappies and muslin cloths and breast pumps and dummies. Written out a birth plan. Read baby name books until their covers fell off. Gone through her hospital bag twice a day, just in case anything had made a break for it.” Kate took his hand, looking at the floor. “And then I came home from the hospital, and she didn’t…”

A firm hand lifted her chin until Kate stared into Warren’s intense eyes. “You’re not going to die,” he said, as though he could ensure it by sheer force of will. “The midwives are aware that your mother haemorrhaged, kitten. They’re going to be on high alert for that eventuality. Medicine has advanced since you were born. You’re going to be fine.”

Kate let herself be pulled into his arms—as much as she could be with her belly in the way. She fiddled with the locket as she did so, stilling when she felt something moving around inside it. Reluctantly stepping back from Warren’s embrace, Kate paused. “I think the glass in here might have been broken in the house move.”

But when she opened the little heart, it wasn’t just the glass that fell out.

The tattered old photograph of her pregnant mother, her father, and Aaron fluttered to the floor. The closest thing Kate would ever come to a family portrait.

Followed by a microSD card.

Warren bent to pick the glass, photograph, and the little memory card up. “Did you know the SD card was in here?”

She shook her head, rubbing the sore spot on her stomach. “Do you think it could be family photographs?” she asked hopefully. “Photographs of my mother.”

“I don’t know if microSD cards had been invented back then,” Warren mused, pulling his phone out of his pocket and depressing the memory card slot. It popped out. Warren slid the microSD card into place with a grim expression. “Perhaps I should see this first. Some of the videos from your father’s club were horrif—”

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