Page 89 of That Defining Moment

“No, Hamish. I love Tala.” Cassian pressed a hand flat to his chest, wounded to his core. “I wouldn’t do that to her.”

He turned and disappeared through the door of Proving Ground before either of them could argue the point and mention all the other instances when Cassian had commandeered more than his fair share of treats.

Lysander watched the door swing shut behind him and smirked. “He absolutely does love her.”

Hamish made a sound of agreement. “That’s not in question. But he’d still eat that bun right out of her hand, if it came down to it.”

Lysander laughed and moved towards the door. Hamish caught his sleeve.

“One more thing, before we go in.”

Through the window, Cassian had already reached the counter and pressed both palms flat against the display case, his nose an inch from the glass while Ruari waited on the other side of it, arms folded, in no hurry at all.

“I’ve got a meeting on Thursday,” Hamish said. “With the BBC. It’s a commissioning, not promo for the Family of Light doco. They’ve been circling since the numbers came in, and they want to talk about a series. My format, their money. Filmed here.”

Lysander went very still. “Here as in—”

“Here as in the UK. It’d mean basing myself in London for a year at least. Possibly more, if it gets a second run.”

A market trader two stalls down was arranging crates of oranges, and the traffic on Portobello carried on around them. Lysander stood on the pavement, the beginnings of a smile brightening his expression.

“I was going to tell you last night,” Hamish said. “But then you called me a coward and stormed off to sleep somewhere else, so the timing felt a little off.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Which does bring me to the one thing I need to confirm before Thursday. You’re not done with me, are you? Because I’d hate to restructure my entire career around a man who doesn’t want me around anymore.”

Lysander grabbed the front of his shirt with both fists and kissed him so hard their teeth knocked. Hamish tasted coffee and the faint sweetness beneath it that was just Lysander, and his hands found Lysander’s waist and pulled him in until there was nothing between them but cotton.

When Lysander finally pulled away, he smacked one hand against Hamish’s chest. “I’m nowhere near done with you, you idiot,” Lysander said. “And when we get home, I’m going to ride you until neither of us can walk. Then you can call the BBC from bed and tell them yes while I’m still sitting on your knot.”

Hamish’s brain shorted out. “That’s — I’d struggle to sound professional under those circumstances, Sander.”

“Good.”

A sharp, furious rapping on the glass behind them made Lysander flinch and Hamish turn. Cassian’s face pressed flat against the bakery window, his palms spread wide on either side of his head.

“Ruari says you’re putting off the customers!” Cassian’s voice came through the glass, muffled but carrying the force of deep indignation.

Lysander wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, grinned at Hamish, and they went into the café.

Epilogue

Alison Ward was terrifying.

“Cassian, are you listening to me?”

“Yes,” Cassian said, which was mostly true if you defined listening as holding the mobile against his ear while the woman on the other end delivered a monologue so dense with legal terminology that entire sentences passed through him without leaving a mark in his memory.

“The critical point,” Alison said, “is that you were never really married at all. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Cassian?”

Cassian did not understand what she was telling him, and said so.

“It means we’re not ending a marriage. We’re proving there was never one to end. You were twenty-one years old. You had never met the man. You had no independent legal advice, no notion that refusing was even an option, and you were handed to him by an organisation that had spent your whole life teaching you that saying no to an alpha was a sin.” Something on Alison’s end made a sharp, percussive sound that might have been her palm hitting a desk. “That is not consent, Cassian. And a marriage without real consent is not a marriage. It’s void. In the eyes of the law, it never happened.”

He couldn’t find anything to say to that, and so stayed quiet.

“This brings me to my favourite part,” Alison went on. “Nine days after the ceremony, Townsend signed a ‘donation’ over to the Family’s foundation and transferred forty acres of land into their name. He put it in writing. He has, in his own paperwork, documented that he didn’t take a husband. He made a purchase. And here is the truly remarkable thing. Getting an annulment doesn’t mean you walk away with nothing, Cassian. We’re going to get you what you’re owed, more than enough to support you for the rest of your life.”

Cassian sat on the bottom step of the staircase at the Ledbury Road house with his trainers already on, one lace tied and the other trailing across the hallway floor. Yes, this was all very important, but he needed to leave. He had needed to leave since the twenty-minute mark, when Alison had said “one more thing” for the fourth time, and his brain had told him to say I have to go now, Alison.

But he’d kept his mouth shut, because he was scared of her.