Linc nodded. "Okay. So this is what you need to know... Sage loves you."
She'd said that and maybe she believed it to be true but it wasn't enough. Love, sex, attraction wasn't enough. It was easier, better, safer to be on his own. "So?"
"We're here because my sister is miserable and looks like a corpse."
"Again, so? What do you want me to do?"
"I thought you said he was intelligent," Reame said to Jaeger, still sounding amused.
"I was wrong," Jaeger replied. "He's as dumb as a post."
Linc tossed him a curse and threw up his hands. "Can you all please concentrate?" He gripped the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Back in control, he looked up at Tyce again. "What I, we, want you to do is to tell her that you love her and then tell the world that you are thrilled to be the father of her child. I want to be able to tell the world that our family is expanding and we're excited that you and Lachlyn are part of our family. But really, I-we-just want Sage to be happy."
Tyce felt like he'd been hit by a piece of Canadian maple. He just stared at Linc, trying to assimilate his words. He knew that Linc was happy to have Lachlyn as part of the family but he never thought that Sage's brothers might feel the same about him.
Jaeger cleared his throat and Tyce's eyes bounced from his to Sage's second-eldest brother. "Did you ever consider that maybe your quest for Lachlyn to be part of a family was something you, subconsciously, needed? Maybe you were projecting your need for a family onto her."
"That's deep," Reame mocked, his mouth quirking.
"Shut up, half-wit," Jaeger muttered.
Tyce ignored their insults, thinking about Jaeger's comment. Was there any truth in his statement, any at all? Tyce gripped the banister as he considered his question and faced the obvious truth. Yes, he'd also wanted to be part of a family, wanted people he could lean on, people who would stand in his corner, who would fight for and with him.
He was used to walking alone, fighting his own battles. It was what he knew, what he felt comfortable doing and when Sage offered him something bigger, something he didn't know how to handle, he shot her down in flames. He thought he'd, one day, be okay with it. After all, he knew how to be an army of one.
He wasn't okay with it and walking away from her had frickin' ripped his heart and soul in two. Not to be melodramatic or anything.
"Do you know how much courage it took for Sage to open herself up to you, to ask for something more?" Linc demanded.
"She pushes people away!" Tyce protested, trying to grasp a straw that wasn't there.
"Sure, until she asked you to step in the ring with her. And you still haven't realized that when Sage pushes the hardest is when she most wants someone to push her back and not take no for an answer."
Jaeger sent him a cocky smile. "She might be our sister but she's a hell of a catch, Latimore. And you walked away from her? Moron."
Linc's fist slammed into Jaeger's biceps. "You are not helping!"
Tyce was barely aware of the hissed argument going on below him. He felt like Linc had handed him a new pair of glasses and a fuzzy world had just become clear. Linc's words resonated deep inside him and he knew them to be pure truth.
Sage had stepped way out of her comfort zone to ask him to love her and, God, he now, finally, could appreciate it. With this new knowledge, the last pieces of the puzzle that made up the full picture of his lover, his only love, fell into place.
She was his it, that indefinable, amazing, better part of his soul. He needed to go to her, to sort this out, but...
Hell. There was a damn good chance that he'd blown his opportunity with her, that she'd refuse to allow him back into her life. Tyce pushed his shoulders back, determination coursing through him. To hell with that. He did love her and Sage did need someone to push her back, to not take no for an answer. And he was the man to do it. He'd bucked the system all his life but, at the most important time, he'd walked away from the most vital thing in his life.
Jaeger, this one time, was right. Tyce was a moron.
He walked across the catwalk and jogged down the stairs to the concrete floor below. He looked at Linc. "I hear you."
"Hearing is one thing but are you going to do something about it?"
Tyce nodded. "I am."
Beck cleared his throat and sent him a smile that shriveled his sack. "Good to know. Now, there's just one more thing we need to do."
"What's that?"
Jaeger cocked his head. "You made Sage cry," he said, sounding like he was ordering a cup of coffee.
Oh, crap. They said they'd rip him apart if he made Sage cry and judging by their hard expressions, she'd been crying a lot. Well, he was a fighter; he could tolerate three punches. Once it was done, they could all move on.
"Jesus," he muttered as he stood in front of the three Ballantyne brothers, bracing himself for what was to come. "Okay, take your hit."
Jaeger and Beck exchanged looks and Reame just grinned. Jaeger lifted a dark eyebrow, his eyes dark and cold. "You're going to make it right with Sage?"
Tyce nodded. "I already said that, didn't I? Yeah, I'm going to make it right." Damn, waiting for a punch was worse than the punch itself.
"If you hurt her again, we'll set Reame on you and he's a sneaky son of a bitch with mad skills. He'd do some damage," Beck told him, echoing Jaeger's icy demeanor.
"Understood." Tyce nodded. He looked at Linc, relieved that he'd avoided being hit by Sage's hotheaded brothers. They were more gracious than he might have been if some guy messed Lachlyn around. Linc looked like he always did, calm and controlled.
Okay then, dodged a bullet. Phew.
Tyce pulled in a breath, started to take his hands out of his pockets, thinking that he'd invite them upstairs. The big fist came out of nowhere, slammed into his jaw and he dropped backward, his butt connecting with the cold and very hard concrete. Crap, that hurt. Tyce looked up at Linc, who had a self-satisfied smile on his face.
Right, he hadn't seen that coming, Tyce thought, holding his jaw. "God, it hurts like a mother," he moaned.
"Good." Linc held out his hand to Tyce to pull him up. "You got coffee? We still have business to discuss before you go groveling back to Sage. And you will grovel."
"I will grovel," Tyce agreed, allowing Linc to pull him up. Holding his jaw, he lifted his eyebrows. "What business?"
Linc gestured to an amused Jaeger and Beck. "We're going to repay you the money you spent buying Lach-Ty shares. We inherited Connor's money so we'll spend it to reimburse you for Lachlyn's share of the company. We'll also add her as a co-owner of the assets we own jointly, like the art collection, the properties and the gem collection."
Holy crap, now he was really seeing stars. Tyce wiggled his jaw and started to lead them to the stairs. As his foot hit the bottom stair, an idea popped into his head. "If I ask you to, do you think you could get Sage somewhere for me?"
"Possibly," Linc replied.
"And instead of reimbursing me for what I paid for the shares, could we do a swap?"
"What swap?" Jaeger asked, his eyes still amused. Yeah, it would be a while before he lived that punch down.
"There's a red diamond ring in your family collection that Sage loves. I'd rather have the stone than the money because I'd like to put it on your sister's finger."
Linc looked at him, then looked at his brothers. Some sort of silent communication happened between them and Linc finally nodded. "I think we can work that out."
Reame was the last one up the stairs and Tyce heard his chuckle. "I have to say that life is never boring with you Ballantynes."
Now there was a statement Tyce fully agreed with.
Thirteen
Sage didn't want to go to an art exhibition and she deeply resented her bossy future sisters-in-law-sadly, her brothers were rubbing off on them-turning up at her apartment and bundling her into the shower. Amy had always been bossy so that wasn't anything new. Art exhibition, cocktails and clubbing, they told her. Just the five of them setting Manhattan alight.
Ugh. The last thing in the world she felt like doing was having a girls' night out: the point of which was to drink copious amounts of alcohol to make you forget about your lousy man and to give you the courage to dance with, possibly kiss, some random guy. She was pregnant and the thought of kissing anyone else but Tyce made her want to throw up. What she most wanted to do was to go over to Tyce's warehouse to beg him, again, to reconsider her offer, to plead with him to love her.
Stupid heart, wanting what it couldn't have. So, not having an excuse to stay in-being pregnant and miserable wasn't a good enough excuse for the women in her life-she was out and about and wearing this silly dress with her bigger-than-normal boobs on display. It was a baby doll dress in a multicolored print and it effectively hid her blossoming baby bump.