Little Secrets:Unexpectedly Pregnant(10)

While he wasn't a talker, he did concede that sometimes the only way to  move forward was to communicate. Dammit, something else he wasn't great  at.

"Are you still mad because I deliberately set out to meet you?" Tyce asked, keeping his voice mild.

"You used me!"

Initially he had. He'd asked her out that first night because she was  Sage Ballantyne, because he'd just found out that Lachlyn was Connor's  daughter and, in his anger, he'd thought that Sage was living Lachlyn's  life. He'd expected to find a pampered princess, someone he would  despise, but Sage had turned out to be totally different. She was funny,  down-to-earth, a little crazy.

"Within an hour of meeting I established that, while you adored your  family, you wouldn't talk about them. I also quickly realized that you  weren't that interested in the business side of the company."

He caught the defiance in her eyes but he knew she was listening.

"If I was only interested in you for business information, I wouldn't  have bothered to call you again," Tyce told her. "I paid a fair price  for every share I purchased. I bought enough shares to bring Lachlyn to  your attention, which was my eventual goal. Hearing that you are  pregnant with my child moved my schedule up a bit. I haven't cheated  anyone out of anything."

"You're blackmailing us!" Sage retorted but he saw the doubt in her  expression. Tyce didn't feel offended, realizing that she was just  trying to find solid ground, trying to make sense of this situation.

"I'm asking for DNA to be tested and if that DNA proves my theory, I am  asking for my sister to meet you and your brothers. I am not asking for  money, time or involvement." Tyce rested his forearms on his thighs, his  eyes steady on her face.

Sage picked at the rip on her thigh, opening up a hole in the denim that wasn't there before.

She looked so lost and alone, out of her depth. Easily able to identify  with those emotions, Tyce ignored his brain's insistence to play it  cool. He moved across the bare wooden floorboards and dropped in front  of her, bending his knees and linking his hands. "I wanted to tell you  first, Sage, but you wouldn't take my calls."

Sage opened her mouth to argue and abruptly closed it again. Yeah, she  couldn't argue that point. "You wouldn't talk to me so I went on to plan  B."

Sage looked past him, to a painting on the far wall, and Tyce followed  her gaze. It was the back view of a ballerina but unlike Degas's pretty,  perfect renditions of the dancers, Tyce's piece was full of angst,  accurately capturing the pain and persistence a dancer went through to  achieve perfection. The dancer, dressed in a grubby tutu, her hair  falling out of her bun, was massaging her toes, fatigue and pain  radiating from her. It was one of his early pieces but emotion poured  from it. It was good, he supposed. Not great, but good. Tyce idly  wondered when Sage had bought it and why. He knew that she loved ballet  but it wasn't, after all, a Degas, an artist whose work she could  afford.         

     



 

"Tell me about your sister," Sage commanded, her eyes clashing with his.

"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.         

     



 

Getting back to the subject... "When I heard that Lachlyn was Connor's  daughter I tried to contact Connor but I couldn't get beyond his  personal lawyers. They told me that many women have tried to scam  Connor, saying that they had birthed his child. They told me to subpoena  his DNA but I had no grounds to do that, especially since Lachlyn's  birth certificate stated that my stepdad was her biological father. I  couldn't prove jack."

"So you decided to buy Ballantyne shares." Sage bit her bottom lip, her  eyebrows raised. "God, Tyce, that must have cost you a fortune."

Practically everything he had. "Yeah. But, at least, Lachlyn now owns a  portion of what Connor created." Tyce rubbed the back of his neck. This  was the longest conversation he'd had in a long, long time. But he still  had more to say. "We both understand that Connor left his assets to his  kids. He didn't know about Lachlyn and that's the card life dished out.  I dished another card and she now owns shares in his company. That's  enough for her, and me."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," Tyce answered her, holding her eye. It was important that  she realize he didn't want anything from her or her family. All he  wanted was for Lachlyn to have a chance to meet them. Anything that  happened after that was in the lap of the gods.