Page 21 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

“Kate, these people a—”

“I’ll stay in the car,” she bargained with him fiercely. “I’ll wait outside for you with the rest of your security team. I’ll be as safe as can be.” She took his hand, her sweet doe eyes burning away his resistance. “Don’t shut me out again, Warren. Please.”

“Fine,” he gripped her chin. “But you’ll do as I say. Understood?”

A breathy sigh escaped from her lips. “Understood.”

Pulling his focus away from the double meaning—and Kate’s reaction—Warren escorted her from the restaurant and bundled her into the car. Plugging the postcode into the car’s satnav, they set off.

They pulled up on a dirty street just past midnight, sheltering under a graffiti-laden bridge next to an overflowing bin. Paint was peeling from the shopfronts, and litter dotted the kerbs. “Is this it?” Kate asked.

He nodded his head towards something on the pavement, grimacing in revulsion. “What do you reckon?”

“Ew,” she muttered, her face scrunching up at the sight of the discarded condom slapped onto the pavement.

Taking the keys from the ignition, he placed them in her hand. “Lock the door whilst I’m gone.” He checked in the rear-view mirror to ensure his security team were close enough for his liking. “The others will keep an eye on you from their vehicle. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He paused, suddenly remembering something. He took a small box out of his pocket. “I was going to give this to you at the restaurant.”

Frowning, she accepted it. “Oh,” a small smile curved her face. “My mother’s locket.”

“I found it on the ground after your attack. It must have been broken…”

Kate picked up where he left off. “When the attacker was strangling me.”

“I had a jeweller put a new chain on it.” A proper chain, not the cheap tat she had been using.

“Will you put it on me?” She handed it back to him, turning around and pulling her hair over one shoulder.

Unable to resist a bit of teasing, Warren trailed his fingers across her neck, enjoying the shivering of her shoulders as he did so. After clasping the two ends of the chain together, he pressed a soft kiss to the back of her neck. “Perfect,” he whispered, breathing in her intoxicating scent before sliding out of the SUV and bracing himself to shut the door.

“Warren?” Kate gave him a small grin, fingering the repaired locket and nodding towards the brothel. “This is the worst apology dinner I’ve ever been on.”

5

Kate

Katespentthefirstfifteen minutes fiddling with the little tablet built into the car’s dashboard, amazed by all the different functions. Until she switched to the different cameras the car had and found herself staring at a close-up of the discarded condom.

Ugh.

She sighed. She’d watched Warren go into one of the blocks of flats that dominated the landscape, smothered in jealousy that she wasn’t quite sure she was entitled to feel.

His leg.

She hadn’t imagined it. His leghadbeen bent at a right angle that day those men tried to kill them in the woods, but it hadn’t been bone that was broken. His prosthetic had simply been kicked off.

And,god, her father…

Just when she thought he couldn’t disgust her any more than he already had. The image of an eighteen-year-old Warren pleading for help, and instead getting framed for a crime he hadn’t committed.

Warren could do whatever he wanted to Paul fucking Charlton. He’d earned it.

Kate took a closer look at her surroundings before she thought too hard about what horrors her father was currently enduring. Depressing wasn’t the word—in both instances.

At least she’d had some greenery surrounding her growing up. The only green she’d seen around here were the traffic lights. The shops all spoke of poverty too. Some were boarded up, whilst others were low-end discount shops or bookies.

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