Page 76 of That Defining Moment

Colin turned to face Hamish. “You’re his alpha. You should be there. I’m asking you to sit in the room while my son has a conversation with the man who—” Colin’s voice caught, and he pressed his lips together until they went white. His hand trembled on his mug. “With that man.”

Hamish set his knife down. He didn’t look at Colin, but instead focused on Lysander.

“Do you want me there, Sander?”

Lysander thought about Dane sitting across a table from him, those long legs taking up too much space, the easy grin and the charm offensive already loaded and ready. He thought about Hamish in the chair beside him, solid and calm and smelling like home. His whole body flinched away from the image. Dane didn’t get to sit in the same room as Hamish. Dane didn’t get to look at him, assess him, and dismiss him as the bloke Lysander had downgraded to. Hamish was a big part of the life Lysander had built on the other side of the worst thing that had ever happened to him, and Dane’s presence didn’t belong anywhere near it.

And beyond that, this was a door Lysander needed to close with his own hand.

“No,” Lysander said. “I want to do this on my own.”

“Okay, then.” Hamish picked up his toast and went back to eating.

Colin stared at both of them. Whatever he’d been about to say, he swallowed it down. He’d just watched his son make a decision that his alpha accepted without flinching, and there was nothing in Colin’s arsenal that could argue with that.

“You’ll ring me afterwards,” Colin demanded.

“I’ll ring you right after.”

Cassian had gone very still beside Lysander, his fork suspended halfway to his mouth. He’d never seen an omega parent pull rank on an alpha before, and he was taking mental notes.

“He’ll be fine,” Hamish said, and went back to his toast.

Cassian leaned into Lysander’s arm. “I think your daddy’s worried about you,” he whispered, at a volume that carried clear across the room to every person in it.

“Thank you, Cass. I hadn’t picked up on that.”

“You’re welcome.” Cassian speared the last longganisa and bit it in half. “Colin,” he said, around a mouthful of sausage, “would you like to look at baby hats on the iPad until you feel better? Because that worked really well the last time you were upset.”

Colin’s lips pressed together in a failed attempt at severity. “I’m not upset.”

“Bloomers maybe, if you don’t feel like hats today? Tala only has twelve, I counted.”

Diwa turned away to face the hob, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

After breakfast, Lysander took longer getting ready than he had for anything short of a professional shoot. He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and worked through his hair with product until it sat exactly the way he wanted it, then changed his shirt twice before settling on the black one that made his jaw look sharper.

Hamish was waiting in the hallway when he came downstairs. He held Lysander’s coat open without being asked, and Lysander turned and slid his arms into the sleeves while Hamish settled the collar flat across his shoulders.

Hamish turned him around, straightened his lapel, and kissed him, his hand resting briefly on the side of Lysander’s neck before he stepped back.

“If he gets too close,” Hamish said, “kick him right in the balls.”

Lysander laughed, kissed him once more, and walked out the front door to his waiting Uber.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Dane had picked a café on Duke of York Square. Lysander spotted him before he’d cleared the doorway, because Dane had chosen a table at the dead centre of the room, where the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows hit him at what was almost certainly a calculated angle.

He’d ruined the Skarsgårds for himself by setting up this meeting. That was the thought that arrived first, before anything useful. Dane looked like Alexander Skarsgård, and Lysander was furious about it, because he’d been perfectly happy watching Succession reruns with Hamish, and now every rewatch was going to come with a side of involuntary association.

Dane stood when he saw him, showing off his six-foot-three form to its full advantage. He kept his hair swept back from his forehead and his smile was wide and warm, as though they’d left each other’s company on excellent terms.

“Sander!” Dane’s arms opened. “Come here, mate. God, it’s been ages.”

Lysander walked into the hug because refusing it would have been a bigger statement than accepting it. He kept his hips angled back and his weight on his heels, one hand flat between Dane’s shoulder blades in the universal signal for this is a greeting, not a reunion, while Dane’s palm slid to the small of his back and lingered there for longer than it needed to.

Lysander stepped out of his hold and saw Dane’s friend.