The second floor of Bistro Chatelaine accommodated few tables, but the intimate seating kept down noise levels and allowed a modicum of privacy. Its high-glassed walls met with domed glass ceilings, showcasing downtown Aurora on the horizon, and the sweeping night sky overhead. Rows of grape-sized globe lights hung in looping strings overhead, casting a dim glow that supplemented the stars, and sending shadows plummeting from the lush leaves of the gardens that divided the floor into sections. Broad-bladed scandent vines crept up strategically placed trellises and flowered in stunning purples and whites. Some had begun to grow along the wires of the globe lights, wrapping each luminous orb in foliage. Whether it was a product of overgrowth or clever design, Mal didn’t know, but he appreciated the sight all the same.

At seven on the dot, Vincent was escorted up the stairs by a kind hostess and led to Mal’s table. He wore a pale gray shirt, the weave of its fabric textured, the top button undone flirtatiously. Black slacks showed off the shapeliness of his thighs and—Mal wagered, at the correct angle—the curve of his ass. His hair was coiffed and his beard was neatly trimmed, kept so that it was barely past the stage of scratchy stubble. In feeble lighting, he looked younger, and for a moment, a pang of apprehension detracted from Mal’s enjoyment of his presence.

Vincent was young—maybe young enough to be his son, if he fudged the numbers. What was he doing coming to see Mal for dinner?

Destructive thoughts like those faded quickly enough when Vincent arrived at the table, his eyes on Mal, his smile for him, and him alone. The same affectionate mirth that shaped his mouth danced in his eyes. He was glad to be at dinner. The expression on his face told Mal that he was worth Vincent’s time.

“It’s good to see you again,” Vincent said as Mal stood. He held out his hand, and Mal shook it. When the handshake broke, Vincent gestured at the restaurant at large. “Nice pick.”

“Thanks.”

“How did you hear about it?” Like it was nothing out of the ordinary, Vincent showed Mal to his chair and saw him seated before he went to seat himself. The moment had passed casually, but Mal was too aware of everything Vincent was doing to overlook it. Vincent was making an effort to create conversation and put Mal at ease. It was so seldom that anyone wanted to listen to anything Mal had to say that the gesture made an impact. More than ever, Mal regretted having left during the early morning hours after the wedding. Vincent was kind in ways he’d seldom seen in others—focused on the comfort of those he was with before his own needs, even when those individuals had wronged him in the past.

Mal would find a way to make it up to him. This time around, he wouldn’t leave.

“A long time ago, I was a gardener.” The memories were fragmented, but the parts that remained were still vivid. The scent of rugosa roses in late spring, the feel of cool, loose dirt between his fingers, and the sensation of sunlight soaking into his hair all the way to the root. They were happy, for the most part. The parts Mal didn’t care to remember were blissfully obscured in the darkness of his mind, lurking in the shadows in wait for the moment he grew foolish enough to plumb their depths. “In the spring, I’d always have to go make these large purchases for soil, and mulch, and all kinds of stuff you probably don’t care about.”

Vincent’s lips twitched with a laugh.

“Sometimes, the distributor I worked with would send me home with gardening-related magazines—the kind that really helped me make the switch from bumbling apprentice to someone who knew what the heck he was doing.” Mal twitched his nose. There’d been nights when, while the knob of his bedroom door jiggled, he’d distract himself with articles about maintaining soil pH, or how best to shape a topiary. They were skills he’d never need again, but they’d saved him from exhaustive fear, and he appreciated them for it. “There was this one column I liked to read that showcased different ornamental gardens. Whenever I got my hands on one of the magazines, I’d read the article and imagine what it was like to visit those places. Castles, estates, art installations… and then one month, it featured the rooftop terrace of Bistro Chatelaine. According to the article, the owner was a former gardener who’d decided to unite his passion of plants with his culinary prowess. At the time, he was the gardener responsible for the ornamental displays here, but since then, I’ve heard he’s retired, and a gardener has been hired on. I regret not having been able to visit it before the garden changed hands, but I’m really glad to be here now. The garden is stunning.”

“How long ago did the change-over happen?” Vincent asked.

Mal scrunched his nose. “Ten years, I think, and I first heard about Bistro Chatelaine ten years before that. I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

“Time’s a finicky thing, isn’t it?” Vincent folded his arms on the table, glanced down at his arms, then looked at Mal again. “Every year that passes, I wonder where the time went… and why I feel the same when everyone else has changed.”

“God, tell me about it.” Mal laughed and pushed a hand through his hair, more at ease with Vincent than he’d been with anyone for a long time. “I’m still partially convinced that I’m stuck in some kind of time loop. I look after kids part-time, and seeing them grow up, get married, and have kids of their own while I’m stuck the same old me I was the year before has convinced me that there’s something I’m missing, like I’m driving around in a roundabout and missing the exit over and over.”

“I know how you feel. I have a daughter who’ll be six this month, and I just…” Vincent chuckled and shook his head. “I look at her and think, ‘Six? Yesterday I was changing your diapers.’”

“A daughter?” The change of surname tugged at the back of Mal’s mind, demanding an explanation. Usually, alphas didn’t change their names after marriage, but it wouldn’t surprise Mal if someone like Vincent was progressive enough to have done so.

“Hard to believe, right?” Their menus arrived, as did ice water, and the conversation tapered to a natural stop while everything was distributed. Then, when the waiter left, Vincent picked up from where he’d left off. When he spoke, there was fondness in his voice that Mal recognized—it was the same kind he saw in the eyes of new parents, pride and love and amazement all melded into one. The way it painted Vincent’s face left him more gorgeous than he’d been before, both soft and sturdy, rugged, yet unafraid to emote. To Mal, there was no more attractive a quality. “Her name is Nikki, and she’s the smartest, sweetest, sassiest little thing I’ve ever known. Easily the most important person in my life.” Vincent cast the menu a quick look, then set it down. “The last few years have been hard on her while her mother and I divorced, but she’s held on like a warrior, and she impresses me every day with her strength and determination. When I feel low, like I have no more fight left, she’s the thing that keeps me going.”

A divorce. Maybe the business card Vincent had given him was old. It didn’t explain why he would have changed his name, unless his ex was giving him so much grief that he’d done it for the sake of anonymity. What a horror that had to be. No wonder Vincent had packed up and moved thousands of miles away. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It happened a few years ago—it’s okay.” Vincent flashed him a reassuring grin that managed to lift Mal’s spirits. “Things between us ended because they needed to end. I regret that we had to put Nikki in the middle of it, but I don’t regret that I’ve broken off and started my life over. It’s healthier for me this way. I wasn’t true to myself while I was with her, and I couldn’t keep living a lie. In the end, all of us are better off—Nikki will grow up in two happy households instead of a single toxic one. It’s worth the fight if only for that.”

“Is that why you’re here in Aurora, now?” Mal asked, then paused and refocused his question. “You said you wanted to start fresh.”

“More or less.” An introspective look muted some of Vincent’s enthusiasm, and he glanced down at the menu again. “Work offered to transfer me to its sister location in Aurora. I was unhappy back home, so I decided to go for it. Melissa—Nikki’s mom—was less than thrilled, but we worked out a custody arrangement that all three of us agreed was fair, and I packed up and moved with Nikki. It’s only been two weeks, and the house is still in boxes, but I’m happier than I’ve been in a very long time.” Vincent lifted his gaze from the menu and met Mal’s eyes. “Thank you for coming out with me tonight.”

The words were ice water on a hot summer’s day. They tumbled through Mal, contouring his throat, his lungs, and his heart, until he was so aware of himself that even the gentle breeze that stirred the hairs on the back of his neck sent goosebumps plunging down his arms. “You’re welcome.”

The air had changed. It had happened in gradual, unhurried moments, in subtle ways that left Mal unaware of what was happening until he was in too deep to escape it. What had started as a casual conversation had become charged with meaning. The chemistry he’d felt in the storage closet, when Vincent had pinned him to the wall and expertly guided him through the early stages of his heat, had returned. It filled Mal with the same kind of delightful chill, constricted the muscles in his back and chest in the same, delicate way, and opened his mind to the possibility that the impossible might not stay that way for much longer.

He wanted to speak—to tell Vincent how glad he was that Vincent had found his way back to Aurora—but before he could, the waiter returned. Scrambling, Mal selected something at random off the menu, prayed he’d like it, and waited until the man had gone to return his attention to Vincent. By then, the charge in the air had lessened, although it hadn’t completely vanished.

Mal didn’t think it ever would.

“But, while we’re on the topic of work…” Vincent folded his arms on the table and leaned forward just enough so that he looked comfortable. “If I’m being honest, I invited you out tonight because I wanted to talk about the trial.”

Oh.

Of course.

Mal swallowed the saliva that had pooled in his mouth from out of nowhere and nodded. It made sense that Vincent would want to talk business. Mal hadn’t anticipated meeting him at the clinic, and he was sure that it had to be an awkward situation for Vincent, who hadn’t been expecting him, either.

“Right. I understand.” Mal offered him a reassuring smile despite the compacting sense of defeat that flattened his enthusiasm. “It’s a little awkward.”

“I want to be clear with you, not to frighten you, and not to make you feel indebted to me…” Vincent’s lips twitched with hesitance, like he was afraid if he spoke too soon, he’d say the wrong thing and ruin everything. “… but to make sure that you understand where I’m coming from, and why I’m doing what I’m doing.”

Mal said nothing. He couldn’t. A feeling lingered in the air that told him Vincent had left words unspoken. He’d wait for them.

“I should have had you excused from the trial,” Vincent said. Tension pinched his shoulders, disrupting his cool, composed appearance. “There needs to be a divide between physician and patient, and what we shared at the wedding… well…” He sighed. “As much as I’d like to argue that it’s an ambiguous gray area, I’m not sure the policing party from the Science and Ethics Advisory Group would say the same.”

Try as he might, Mal couldn’t stop his heart from leaping into his throat. Vincent had said “should,” but the idea that he might be denied the treatment he wanted because he’d shared a moment of passion with a stranger was too cruel to shoulder.

Vincent continued before he could speak. “I chose not to say anything.”

Mal looked him over, searching his face for clues as to what was coming next. To know that the fate of his future had been in jeopardy earlier that afternoon was jarring. The happiness he wanted was so close, but it wasn’t certain. Mal had to remember it.

He did his best to work himself down from his fear while Vincent expounded on what he’d said.

“I remembered how you were in the storage closet,” Vincent admitted. He reached for his glass of water and set it in front of him, tracing his fingers around the perimeter of the glass. “In heat, desperate, clearly prepared for what was to come, but still willing to risk being out in public… and when I read your medical charts, and I saw what you’d been through…”

All of the details that Mal kept quiet had been bared to Vincent. His struggle with fertility had been laid out in black ink, each failure marked for Vincent to read. There was no hiding, no denying, no saving face. Vincent knew. Maybe it was why he’d been so forthcoming about his divorce—a struggle for a struggle.

Mal exhaled slowly, reminding himself that it didn’t matter. Vincent had read all about his fertility issues and he’d still invited Mal out for dinner. He’d looked at Mal with eyes aglow from affection and smiled in that small, knowing way that had made Mal’s heart skip a beat. He had nothing to worry about. Vincent didn’t mind.

“I didn’t want to keep you from what could be your last shot at conception.” Vincent’s fingers pushed down the glass, then settled at its base. “I couldn’t. So I said nothing. I pretended like nothing was going on… but I’m going to need the same discretion from you. I’m putting a lot of faith in you by keeping what’s between us a secret. If you tell someone, I could lose my job.” Vincent’s lips pushed thin, and he looked across the table at Mal imploringly. “I want to help you. I want to make you happy. But in order to do that, you need to help me. For the duration of the trial, I need you to help me keep us a secret.”

A question, timid, tumbled from Mal’s lips. “Us?”

Vincent smiled, and the tension in his shoulders and on his face relaxed. “You didn’t think I invited you out just to talk business, did you?” A playful flash illuminated the browns of Vincent’s eyes. “I want to keep seeing you, Mal.” Vincent spoke with certainty, never once stumbling over his tongue or confusing his words. He spoke directly, letting Mal know that what he said came from a place of sincerity. “I haven’t been able to forget you since we met at the wedding. I’d planned to get back in touch when Nikki settled and the house was unpacked, but life expedited the process. I’m not going to take you out tonight just to leave you guessing… I want to give us a shot.”

Embarrassment and elation wove together in Mal’s chest, one fluttering and flighty, the other stretching and limitless. It pushed at the boundaries of his ribcage, rattled the space behind his clavicle, and made his heart tremble like a skittish dog caught in a thunderstorm.

Vincent wanted him.

Before Mal could reply, the waiter arrived with a basket stacked with fresh, steaming bread and an oil dip, and the conversation was cut short. By then, Mal had already made his choice. It was the only one his heart would allow.

He wanted to give them a shot, too.