“What do you want to know and why?” Tyce asked, lifting an eyebrow at her imperious demand.
“Well, you want us to meet her. What does she do? What is she like?”
Tyce thought a moment, wondering what to say. He adored Lachlyn but he wasn’t in the habit of talking about her. Or his family. “Uh…eight years younger than me. She’s an archivist.”
“Really? Does she enjoy her work?”
Tyce’s mouth softened into a smile. “She loves it. She’s history, and book, crazy.”
Feeling antsy, Tyce rolled to his feet and walked across the room to look at the framed photographs on the wall. He smiled at a picture of a very young Sage in a tutu, attempting a pirouette, of Beckett on a diving board about to race, Jaeger and Linc in tuxedos at a wedding. All across the world were millions of walls like this one, holding ten billion memories.
He didn’t have a wall, neither did Lachlyn.
Like most New Yorkers, he’d watched the Ballantynes grow up. The press was consistently captivated by the closest the city had to a royal family. He remembered the day their parents died, devouring the reports about their plane crash. Tyce remembered reading about Connor, a confirmed bachelor, stepping in and scooping up his orphaned nephews and niece. The Ballantynes had been, were, a constant source of fascination to the mere mortals of the city for a long time.
He had been amazed when Connor adopted Linc, his housekeeper’s son, along with the three Ballantyne orphans. He’d wondered what type of man did that. Neither his own father, who’d bailed on him before he was old enough to remember him, or his stepfather ever gave a damn for anyone other than themselves. They’d both been so immature and unreliable, so it was no wonder that Connor’s easy acceptance of children who weren’t his made such an impression on him.
His mom just managed to keep it together enough to keep working, but navigating the world for a few hours a day sapped all her energy. She’d had nothing left to give to her son and her infant daughter. A month after he’d graduated from high school, his mom fell in on herself and refused to leave her room, to go back to work, to talk and to interact. Six weeks passed and Tyce knew that she wasn’t getting better and that it was up to him to support his family. He gave up his scholarship to art school and found a job to feed, clothe and educate his ten-year-old sister. Since he worked two jobs and their mother slept as much and as often as possible, Lachlyn grew up alone. She’d craved a family, siblings, teasing, laughter and support but she got a mother who stopped speaking and a brother who retreated into an impenetrable cocoon, his thoughts consumed by how to stretch five dollars into ten, what new argument he could use to placate their landlord.
He and Sage couldn’t be more different. They’d come from two situations that were polar opposites. She knew how to “do” family, to love and be loved in return. To support and be supported. He adored Lachlyn but love and support had fallen by the wayside when held up against his desire to keep them off the streets.
“What do you remember about Connor, about the time when he and your mom met?”
Tyce jammed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “As I said, my mom worked as a cleaner at Ballantyne International and I remember her leaving for work in the late afternoon and coming home as I got ready for school.”
“Who looked after you?”
Tyce frowned at her. “What do you mean, who looked after me? I was seven, I looked after myself.”
Sage’s eyes widened. “She left you alone?”
“It wasn’t like she had a choice, Sage,” Tyce snapped back. “There wasn’t money for a babysitter.”
Sage laid a hand on her heart and looked horrified. God, they’d had such different childhoods. Sage probably hadn’t been able to sneeze on her own at seven.
“Did she ever try to tell Connor about your sister?”
Tyce shook his head. “No. After she died, we found a letter she left for Lachlyn, telling her the truth. She said that she could see that she’d already reached the end of the road with Connor. She knew he was going to dump her.”
“Connor didn’t do long-term relationships,” Sage said, her voice trembling. “It was just who he was… He felt trapped by people, by women. He never married or was engaged.”
He could relate. He’d had the odd affair that lasted longer than a hookup but his relationships never lasted long because he always ended up feeling trapped. Funny, he’d never felt like that with Sage, possibly because they parted ways before he started to feel claustrophobic. But he had no doubt that it would’ve happened, that he would’ve eventually felt like he was running out of air.