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Ruari’s knee screamed when he returned to the driver’s seat. He flexed it twice beneath the steering wheel, waiting for the worst of it to pass before he trusted the leg to manage a clutch pedal.

Cassian shifted to the passenger seat, buckled himself in, and once again propped his feet on the dashboard.

The drive to Notting Hill took twelve minutes, and Cassian talked throughout all of it. When they arrived, Ledbury Road was quiet. The egg-yolk yellow of the front door glowed under the porch light, and Ruari pulled up at the kerb and cut the engine.

He walked Cassian to the door. Cassian opened it with his key, and pulled Ruari inside by the wrist.

Colin was in the kitchen. He had Tala asleep on his shoulder and a mug of tea in his free hand. His head turned the moment they crossed the threshold, nostrils flaring, and the mug came down onto the counter with a crack that made Cassian flinch.

Chapter Fifteen

The scent of fresh alpha come hit Colin before the pair walked into the kitchen. It was layered over Cassian’s own sweetness, and just smelled wrong, like someone had poured gravy on a pavlova. It filled his home, saturating the space where his daughter slept, and Diwa scented Colin and Tala every time he left the house.

Cassian stood with Ruari Thorne’s massive hand on the back of his neck. His lips were swollen, his hair was wrecked, and the entire lower half of his outfit carried the fug of the alpha’s spend.

“What have you two been up to?”

Colin’s hand pressed into Tala’s back where she slept at his shoulder, and the soft pulse of her breathing was the only thing keeping him from saying something that’d put him at odds with Cassian.

He’d talked this scenario through with Diwa, sitting on their bed at midnight with his alpha’s annoyingly reasonable voice walking him through the argument he didn’t want to hear, which was: “Cass is twenty-two, Col. He’s got a divorce solicitor and a hefty settlement incoming. He has the legal right to do whatever he pleases with whatever alpha he chooses to do it with.”

“I fucking know that, Diwa. But he learned everything he knows about alphas from a man who tied him to a bed on their wedding night.”

Diwa’s arm had tightened around him. “I know this is hard. Because Cass is basically your third child, ever since Lysander brought him here. The moment you laid eyes on him, he was yours, and I knew you weren’t going to let Sander take him and bounce him around Europe to wherever Hamish is doing a shoot next, because that’s not what Cassian needs and you clocked it before anyone else did. So treat him like you treated Stephen and Lysander. Be hands off. Let him make his mistakes. Be there when he needs you.”

Colin had kicked him, delivering a sharp jab of his heel to Diwa’s shin under the duvet. “Let’s see how you handle it when Tala starts dating.”

“I’ll be totally zen, Colin. All that stuff, it’s the natural cycle of the circle of life.”

Which was easy to say when your daughter was still shy of her first birthday. Colin had raised twin boys through puberty in a two-bed council flat and knew the sinking feeling of having your seventeen-year-old come home at two in the morning with a love bite the size of a satsuma, and a story that didn’t hold water about why their shirt was so badly misbuttoned.

Diwa would learn.

Colin breathed in, held it, and let it go.

Cassian’s shoulders had crept towards his ears, but his face cracked into a smile. “Colin!” Cassian cried out. “Ruari bought me a car!”

“Did he now?”

The bloody alpha was trying to put Cassian, who had the attention span of an excitable spaniel, behind the wheel of a vehicle. But Colin couldn’t hate him. He’d tried. He’d spent a solid fortnight marshalling evidence about why the alpha was so wrong for Cassian, and each time he got close to a decision, he’d catch Ruari teaching Cassian to spell a word on a paper bag at the counter, patient as anything.

“It’s a Mini Cooper, Colin, and it’s green.” Cassian was already fumbling with his mobile, thumbing past notifications, and thrust the screen at Colin’s face with both hands. “Look. Look.”

The photo showed Cassian kissing Ruari’s cheek in front of a Racing Green Mini with a ludicrous red bow on the bonnet, the pair of them lit by the fluorescent wash of a showroom.

“Lovely,” Colin said.

“It’s got heated seats,” Ruari offered from behind Cassian, his hands shoved into his pockets. “And a six-speed manual. Cass needs to learn on a proper gearbox. None of that automatic nonsense. The steering’s tight, visibility’s great for a smaller driver, and the boot could fit a baby elephant.”

“Nice.” Colin tucked Tala higher on his shoulder. Her presence was the only thing that kept him from asking Ruari whether he’d also like to buy Cassian a motorbike, or perhaps a small aircraft, to help him further along the road to self-destruction. “We’ll need to have a chat about this car, though, Cass. You haven’t got a licence yet, and you need proper lessons before you go anywhere near a road.”

Cassian’s gaze flicked sideways to Ruari, and Colin braced for the explosion.

Instead, Cassian nodded. “Okay. Diwa said I need a provisional first anyway. So the car can wait until I’ve got one.”

“Thank you, Cassian. That’s a very sensible decision to come to. Right then.” Colin turned to Ruari, who was still looming behind Cassian. “Busy morning ahead for you, Ruari?”

Ruari rocked onto his heels. “I want to trial some Earl Grey madeleines.”