It takes a while for her to adjust but, for the first time in his life, a blood relative actually puts his needs first and does as he asked.
Margot moves on, although he can tell it’ll plague her after.She doesn’t really deserve it.Family secrets are like illness, hard to break when cloistered.
His cousin tells him that the kids are little miracles who drive her crazy.She tells him what pisses her off at work.The group chats she hates.She tells him about this incredibly cool position she gets routinely offered that she refuses every six months.
‘Why do you refuse it?’
‘I mean, I needed to be nearby for Aunt Jocelyn,’ she tells him gently.‘That and the cost of moving to a different country.I just—’
‘Do it,’ Lachlan says without hesitation.‘She’s gone now.I’ll give you my advance when I get it in two weeks.That’s half a million.Just go.I’m being serious,’ he adds when she laughs.
Slowly, the humour drains away.‘What?’
‘She left you the house, right?’
‘The kids, technically.’
‘So do what you gotta do.You’re a lawyer.I don’t want anything from here, so sell it, donate it, do what you like.Take the position next time they offer it.Go to Canada.I’ll send you the money as soon as I get it.’
‘Lachlan,no!That’s your money, holy shit.You’re working so hard!’
‘I’m not ever gonna do anything with it.’
‘Sure you will.’She stares at him worriedly.‘You’ve got three years left on your contract but then you can do whatever you like with it.Start fresh.’
‘That’s not gonna happen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’d make me really happy to know the money went towards something good for you, Evan and the kids.’
‘Lachlan, this is crazy.’
‘Sell your house.Take the money.Go.’He pats her arm, pushes off the countertop.‘Live your best life.’
He kisses her cheek before he leaves, doesn’t speak to the kids who are playing with Evan, their Dad.It’s better not to mingle.
He leaves his dead mother’s house.
Doesn’t look back.
No rearview.
No replays.
He won’t see Margot again for a year and a half until she flies back into the country to stand as his lawyer, when the world as Lachlan knows it has ended, when the people who were his whole life are no longer alive, and when he’s forced to take the fall for the deaths of Julian and Jessamine Penhalyx.
He can’t know that now.
Driving away, he feels free of something he didn’t even realise was weighing him down.He just wants to gethometo his princess and Jules and Blaire and Vasily and even Danya, the crazy fucker.
Lachlan Tanner has no idea how sharply the universe is about to prove that pride really does go before destruction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Tell me who hired Iron Star seven years ago.’
He’s looking at Riley, but it’s Lachlan who answers.
