Page 39 of The Pleasure Contract

He couldn’t take that on board. Catriona had always been so solid, so stalwart when everything else around them was noise and fury.

“But you...”

“Here’s the thing, Lachlan.” And his sister’s gaze was steady. Direct. “You’ve spent all these years doing your best not to end up like Dad. Because you’re so sure you know what happened on that plane and you’ve made it your mission to make your life a monument to being anything at all but that.”

“We both know what happened on that plane.”

“But what you’re forgetting is that Dad didn’t have that relationship by himself.”

Something in Lachlan stilled.

Catriona kept going, even though Lachlan was pretty sure she knew that her words had clobbered him. “If he crashed that plane deliberately—”

“He did.”

Catriona nodded, slowly. “I agree. But then you know that Mom goaded him into it. You know she picked and prodded and laughed all the way down. That’s who they were, Lachlan.”

Lachlan shook his head, reeling. That storm he’d taken into himself was wrecking him. Howling, raging—but his sister still wasn’t done.

“Their relationship took both of them.” Her gaze was intent on his, a piercing blue that rivaled the bright summer all around them. “I want you to take that on board, for once. They were both toxic. And they were both responsible.”

But all he could do was shake his head. “You know Dad...”

Catriona waited as his words trailed off.

“Alone, neither one of them could have done so much damage.” She held up the index finger of each of her hands, then moved them both together to make one. “Together they might as well have been napalm. They made their own tragedy. Deep down, I know you know this.”

Maybe he did. Maybe it was easier to blame his father.

Because maybe it was easier to have someone to blame.

“If I blame him, it’s better,” he managed to get out. “Because...”

“Because if there’s a villain, then they didn’t race to their inevitable conclusion without a single thought for the kids they were leaving behind,” Catriona finished for him. “I’ve thought all this myself. But they did.”

Something in him shifted, big and hard like the huge boulder his sister was sitting on, surprisingly easy after all these years. As if it had been waiting all along for him to get here.

To understand that he’d wanted the anger. The fury.

He’d found it clarifying.

Because there was nothing on the other side of it but grief.

Even all these years later.

“They did,” he agreed, his voice rough. “They really did.”

“As for you and me? It’s easy.” Catriona separated her fingers. “Don’t pick an atom bomb, Lachlan. Don’t be an atom bomb. And you’ll be fine.”

“I thought that’s what I was doing. What I’vebeendoing. You like to call the precautions I takesqualid.”

“Please.” His sister scoffed. “You’ve been hiding. And how will you ever know who you really are or what you’re capable of if you don’t stop hiding?”

Lachlan hated that darkness in him. He hated what it told him, what truths it laid bare. “I already know what I’m capable of—what I could be capable of. We’ve seen it play out right in front of us.”

Catriona only shook her head, as if he made her sad. “If you only let fear talk, baby brother, fear is all you’ll ever hear. Soon enough, it’s all you’ll have. And at that point, you might as well have gone down with them.”

“Jesus Christ, Catriona.”