She got up. “I need to move.” And she didn’t need to see compassion in Danny’s eyes. He’d never get it, not when he’d been raised in the most stable family situation Catie had ever seen. His older brothers though, Gabriel and Sailor, they got it.

That wasn’t just supposition. A year after Sailor married Ísa, he’d found Catie crying after Clive pulled some stunt Catie could no longer remember. Her brother-in-law had hugged her with those big strong arms, rocking her like she was a little girl; then he’d told her about the deadbeat who’d been his mother’s first husband, a man who’d walked out on his family after cleaning out their accounts.

“He came back into our life toward the end of his,” Sailor had told her. “Though I could allow that, allow compassion for a dying man, I couldn’t forgive him for all that he’d done. Trust was never going to happen between us.”

He’d squeezed her tight against the protective warmth of his chest. “I loved him as a kid, really loved him, even when he broke promises, even when he was never there when he said he would be.

“It’s okay to love the screwed-up people in our lives, Catie. But you have to also understand that they are who they are and learn to stop expecting them to change—that’s the only way you can survive without being hurt over and over again. You have to learn to create a distance between their actions and your heart.”

Catie adored her brother-in-law. It had taken time and a few more knocks, but she’d taken his words to heart. As she had her mother’s.

“Clive was a mistake,” Jacqueline had said to her once, then, in a rare moment of softness, added, “The only good thing I ever got out of that relationship was you.” A touch of Catie’s hair. “But don’t pin your hopes on him, Catie. He’s just not built to treasure them.” Sadness in her voice.

Catie had taken her mother’s hand, and they’d stood there, staring out the plate glass window of Jacqueline’s penthouse apartment in Auckland city, a rare moment of sympathy between mother and child.

But Danny wasn’t like Gabriel and Sailor. He’d grown up with not only two loving parents but two amazing big brothers. She couldn’t expect him to understand what it was to have a gambling addict for a father, an addict who’d nonetheless been there for her at the worst possible time in her life—he hadn’t ducked out to gamble even once.

Nothing was uncomplicated when it came to her relationship with Clive.

“Catie,” Danny began.

“I’m going to use the gym for a bit. Don’t join me.” She made the last an order before she headed to her room to change.