Page 34 of That Defining Moment

Colin grunted. He adjusted the MacBook on his bump and the camera lurched, giving Lysander a brief, vertiginous tour of the ceiling before settling again. “Tell me something interesting. I’ve been horizontal for so long that I’ve memorised the crack patterns in the plaster above the bed, and I’ve started naming them.”

“That’s not concerning at all.”

“The big one’s called Gerald.”

Lysander pulled Hamish’s duvet up around his shoulders and settled deeper into the pillows, angling his mobile so the bedside lamp wasn’t blowing out half his face. Down the corridor, Cassian’s bedroom door had been shut for the last hour, and the cottage had gone quiet enough that Lysander could hear the branches of the lemon tree tapping against the kitchen window in the breeze.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Honestly, Daddy?”

Colin’s mouth pressed together. “Tired. Sore. Enormous.” His hand drifted to the swell of his stomach beneath the jumper, his fingers spread wide over the fabric. “The baby’s sitting on my bladder like it’s a dumbbell, so I have to wee into a bottle every twenty minutes, and my ankles have disappeared entirely. Diwa says they’re still there. I have to take his word for it.”

On cue, Diwa’s face appeared over Colin’s shoulder, his dark hair rumpled from the pillow, his chin coming to rest against the side of Colin’s head. “His ankles are there,” Diwa confirmed. “I checked this morning.”

“Show him,” Colin said, flapping a hand at Diwa. “Go on. Let Sander see what you’ve done to me.”

Diwa took the MacBook and tilted it, panning down the length of Colin’s body. The bump was enormous, straining the front of the jumper into a taut curve. Colin’s hand rested on the crest of it, pale against the navy wool.

“Jesus, Daddy.”

“I know.” Colin retrieved the laptop and propped it back on his stomach, where it sat at a slight angle, rising and falling with his breath. “Your brother is half this size with his. I’m carrying a prop forward.” Colin’s expression shifted, the dry comedy dropping away. “I can’t even go to the hospital when Stephen’s admitted on his due date. The doctor won’t let me off bed rest, and the hospital’s thirty minutes away in traffic. My baby’s going to be in labour and I won’t be there.”

Diwa’s arm came around Colin’s shoulders, drawing him in so that Colin’s temple rested against his jaw. “That’s all right,” Diwa said, his mouth against Colin’s hair. “Ryland’s promised to stay on the mobile the whole time. You won’t miss a second of it.”

Colin’s hand came up and gripped Diwa’s forearm where it crossed his chest, his fingers pressing into his tanned skin. He didn’t say anything.

Lysander hurried to fill the silence. “We had a dinner party tonight.”

Colin’s eyebrows rose. “A dinner party. In Hamish’s little cottage. Did you all fit?”

“Barely. Cassian’s got a bloke.”

“Cassian’s got a bloke.” Colin’s face caught between delight and horror.

Lysander tucked his chin against the duvet and watched his father brighten. “The bloke’s name is Uriel. He’s from the same community. Big alpha, shoulders like a wardrobe. Cassian’s been besotted with him since he was fourteen, and Uriel showed up at a screening of Hamish’s documentary and kissed him in the cinema’s toilets.”

“Romantic.”

“Isn’t it. He turned up tonight with native flowers and sat through Hamish’s full interrogation without breaking a sweat.” Lysander paused. “Hamish is even less convinced than I am.”

“You sound worried, Sander.”

“That’s because I am. Daddy…I want Cassian to have everything he wants out of life. But what if the person that he’s desperate for isn’t any good for him?”

Colin was quiet for a moment. Diwa’s hand had appeared at the edge of the frame, his fingers working slow circles against Colin’s temple, and Colin’s eyes had gone half-lidded under the pressure.

“You have to let him make his own mistakes, Lysander.”

“I know, but—”

“I speak from experience.”

The words landed precisely, because his father never said things by accident. They dragged to the surface eight years’ worth of family discord over how he and Dane had chosen to make their money.

“That so, Daddy?”

Colin’s gaze was steady as Diwa’s fingers moved against his scalp. “You watch him. You lay down the ground rules, and you make it so that he’s comfortable having this alpha round yours and Hamish’s, where you can see them together. You let him make up his own mind, and his own mistakes.” His hand shifted on his bump, fingers spreading wider. “And you make sure that the thought of going back to that fucking husband of his, and that Family of Light is so unpalatable that it doesn’t even cross his mind. You give him better alternatives, Sander. That’s all you can do.”

“So let him eat all the pastries and sweets he wants, then?”