Page 42 of Heart of Stone (Dark Billionaires)

“It’s one of myfavouritememories,” Warren called after him. “I really don’t know how you got past the smell. And the taste,” he mock shuddered. “I bet it’s still there on the back of your tongue.”

Rhys wiped his mouth, looking distinctly unwell. “I will never fucking forgive you for letting me do that.”

“Mate,” Warren said innocently, “you’re the one that offered.”

Sitting back down in his seat, Rhys took a sip of water. “You may not be defective. But you are a cunt.”

“Cuntiness aside,” Aldous pulled out his phone, looking mildly bored. “The venue that Mum booked for her sixtieth has had to pull out. A fire’s gutted the ground floor apparently. Her party planners haven’t been able to find a new one on such short notice.”

“I did suggest the local community centre,” Rhys piped up. “Apparently their colour scheme of brown-on-brown isn’t quite what she had in mind.”

“Whatdidshe have in mind?” Warren asked.

“Somewhere big enough to accommodate 200 people, sufficient parking, a champagne reception, an in-house casino, and a fireworks display,” Aldous listed off his mother’s requirements.

A long way from the council estate on which Rhys and Aldous had been raised, in other words. Alison had worked long hours as a midwife to raise her two boys, and occasionally caring for Jensen too. Warren knew first-hand how devastated she had been when Rhys and Jensen were sent to prison. They’d already been locked up for eighteen months when Warren arrived as Rhys’s new cellmate.

At first, he’d been bewildered by how many letters Alison wrote to the two of them, particularly as they’d been sent down for murdering a pensioner. Then the jealousy began. In Warren’s first twelve weeks in prison, he didn’t receive a single letter. The fact didn’t escape Rhys’s notice.

And then one day Warren received a letter from Alison too.

“She can have her party here,” Warren offered, remembering the woman who’d welcomed a motherless criminal into her heart. “There’s plenty of room in the garden for a couple of marquees. We’re in the middle of nowhere, so fireworks won’t be a problem.”

“What about parking?” Jensen queried.

“The fields abutting the house are all mine too. I’m not using them for anything.”

Jensen ran his thumb over his stubble. “Alison did like the house when she first visited, if I remember rightly.”

“I’ll run it by her,” Aldous said, tapping away at his phone. He stood, picking up his keys off the desk. “I do need to get going though. I’ll let you know what she says.”

“You’re welcome to stay. All of you,” he offered. “It’s not like there aren’t enough bedrooms.”

“Or cells,” Aldous muttered darkly. “But no. I want to get home.”

Jensen was of a similar mind. “So do I. I’ll see you soon, boys.”

“You’re staying, I assume?” Warren asked Rhys when the other two had disappeared into the night.

“If you don’t mind.”

“Linda’s already made up your usual bedroom,” he said, climbing the stairs. He left Rhys at the landing, heading for his walk-in wardrobe-turned-bedroom. Out of habit, he glanced in the two-way mirror, smiling when he saw Kate in the other room, intensely clicking away on her laptop.Probably on that bloody game with Mattie.

Shedding his clothes, Warren strapped the 3D-printed shower prosthetic to his leg and let the hot water wash his worries away. He was just leaving its embrace when a knuckle rapped at the door. “Yep?” he called, sitting on the large rectangular ottoman in the walk-in wardrobe, replacing the 3D prosthetic with his normal one.

The bedroom door opened.

That was when he realised his mistake.

Kate stood in the doorway, and Warren watched as her focus left him. It landed on the mirror that ran almost the entire length of the room—the mirror that gave him a front row seat to anything she was doing in her room.

“What the fuck is that?” she whispered, her face a stomach-turning combination of furious and humiliated.

“Kitten,” he began.

She cut him off, shutting the door behind her and raising her voice. “You can see into my bedroom?” She pointed a finger at the camp bed underneath the mirror. “This is where you sleep?”

Warren nodded, standing to his full height, holding the towel around his waist. He should feel ashamed, but he wasn’t.

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