“Are you?”

He thought of sitting by the water in the moonlight and having a conversation with his dead father. “More than I might have believed. In my case, my parents didn’t give me life. They gave me the life. This life. In yours,” he considered, “since you’re the good daughter, is there a bad daughter?”

“My sister has always been difficult. Certainly she’s been a disappointment to my parents. And the more disappointed they’ve become in her, the more they expect from me.”

“You’re supposed to be perfect.”

“Exactly, and I can’t be.” Wanted to be, tried to be, couldn’t be. Which, of course, equaled failure. How could it be otherwise? she mused.

“Perfect is boring,” Phillip commented. “And intimidating. Why try to be either? So what happened?” he asked when she only frowned.

“It’s nothing, really. My mother is angry with me just now. If I give in and do what she wants . . . well, I can’t. I just can’t.”

“So you feel guilty and sad and sorry.”

“And afraid that nothing will ever be the same between us again.”

“As bad as that?”

“It could be,” Sybill murmured. “I’m grateful for all the opportunities they gave me, the structure, the education. We traveled quite a bit, so I saw a great deal of the world, of different cultures, while I was still a child. It’s been invaluable in my work.”

Opportunities, Phillip thought. Structure, education, and travel. Nowhere had she listed love, affection, fun. He wondered if she realized she’d described a school more than a family. “Where did you grow up?”

“Um. Here and there. New York, Boston, Chicago, Paris, Milan, London. My father lectured and held consultations. He’s a psychiatrist. They live in Paris now. It was always my mother’s favorite city.”

“Long-distance guilt.”

It made her laugh. “Yes.” She sat back as their salads were served. Oddly enough, she did feel a little better. It seemed slightly less deceptive to have told him something about herself. “And you grew up here.”

“I came here when I was thirteen, when the Quinns became my parents.”

“Became?”

“It’s part of that long story.” He lifted his wineglass, studying her over its rim. Normally if he brought up that period of his life with a woman, what he told was a carefully edited version. Not a lie, but a less-than-detailed account of his life before the Quinns.

Oddly enough, he was tempted to tell Sybill the whole, the ugly and unvarnished truth. He hesitated, then settled on something between the two.

“I grew up in Baltimore, on the rough side. I got into trouble, pretty serious trouble. By the time I was thirteen, I was headed for worse. The Quinns gave me a chance to change that. They took me in, brought me to St. Chris. Became my family.”

“They adopted you.” She’d had that much information, from researching everything she could find on Raymond Quinn. But it didn’t give her the why.

“Yeah. They already had Cam and Ethan, and they made room for one more. I didn’t make it easy for them initially, but they stuck with me. I never knew either of them to back off from a problem.”