Amy hated that Sage kept her arm's length but it wasn't personal, she kept everyone there, except, possibly, Linc. At the age of six she'd experienced a double whammy, the deaths of both her parents. So, really, was it any surprise that her biggest fear was that she'd lose anyone she loved, that she would be left alone? Her rationale at six still made sense to her: the more distance she kept between her and the ones she loved, the less it would hurt when they went away.
Sage fully accepted that life was a series of changes, that people came and went and that life required a series of emotional shifts. Loved ones, sadly, died. Friends moved away. Relationships broke up. They all came with their own measure of pain but Sage was very sure that she never wanted to be left behind again and it was easier to walk away than stand still and endure the emotional fallout.
Sage hauled in a deep breath. Her childhood had shaped who she was today. She looked after, as much as she could, the relationships she couldn't walk away from-her brothers, their partners and Amy-but she didn't actively seek new people to add to the small circle of people she loved to distraction. She dated casually, not allowing herself to fall in love. If she did find herself someone she liked, really, really liked, she never allowed the relationship to dip beneath the surface because she could never be sure of who would stay or who would go so she made it easy and pushed them all away. Somewhere between her sixth and seventh birthday she'd realized that it was easier to retreat from people and situations than to give them a chance.
Pushing people away, creating distance, it was her thing.
Tyce was the easiest and most difficult person she'd ever walked away from. Easy because she knew that he didn't want anything serious from her, difficult because she'd been so very close to throwing her innate caution and self-preservation to the wind. He'd tempted her to try, to see what the hype about relationships and commitment was all about, to take a risk. Already teetering, if Tyce had given her the smallest sliver of encouragement, she might have toppled into love. But he hadn't and she did what she did best; she'd walked away.
And he'd let her.
Sage shook her head, annoyed with her thoughts. She was focusing on the past and she wasn't going in that direction. Tyce might be the father of her child and she might be crazy, fiercely attracted to him but, baby or not, she intended to keep him on the periphery of her life.
She did, however, have to find another way to interact with him because-she glanced down at the screen of her cell phone showing the number of calls she'd missed from Tyce-he wasn't going away.
Sage stepped out of the elevator into the back room of the original Ballantyne jewelry store and smiled at an employee who was on her way to the break room. Stepping across the hallway, she punched in the code to access the private elevator that would take her up to the secret room on the top floor of the building, adjacent to rooms holding the safes and hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of precious gems.
Sage bit her bottom lip, resigning herself to the inevitable. When this secretive meeting was over, she'd call Tyce and set up a time to meet, to discuss how involved he wanted to be in the baby's life, how they were going to deal with each other when the baby arrived. She would be cool, calm and collected. She wouldn't lose her temper or slap or kiss him.
Sage stepped into the small boardroom. Her stomach immediately rebelled at the smell of coffee rolling toward her and she frantically looked around for a trash can or a receptacle in case her morning sickness turned nasty.
A hand on her back steadied her. Sage slowly lifted her eyes to look into that familiar face, the high cheekbones, the stubble covering his strong jaw. Hard, black eyes. "You okay?" Tyce asked her, holding her biceps in a firm grip. He'd catch her if she fell, Sage thought, relieved. If her knees gave way she wouldn't hit the floor.
"What are you doing here?" she whispered, wondering if she'd dropped down Alice's rabbit hole.
An indefinable emotion flashed in Tyce's eyes. "Now that's a long story. Take a seat and we'll get into it."
Four
Tyce guided Sage to a chair and stepped away from the table, deliberately walking over to the far side of the room and leaning his shoulder into the wall, crossing his feet at the ankle. It was an insolent pose, a deliberate maneuver to keep the Ballantyne men off-balance. Tyce had deliberately dressed down for this meeting; he wore faded, paint-splattered jeans over flat-heeled boots and a clean black button-down shirt over a black T-shirt, cuffs rolled back. Linc and Beck were dressed in designer suits; Jaeger was a little less formal in suit pants and a pale cream sweater.
Sage, well, Sage looked stunning in the clashing colors of pink and red, most of her hair in a messy knot on top of her head, tendrils framing her face and falling down the back of her neck. She was innately stylish, yet people assumed it took her hours to look so perfectly put-together, but he'd seen Sage on the move; she could shove her hair up in thirty seconds, could dress in another minute. Sage wasn't one for spending hours in front of a mirror.
Tyce looked at her face and frowned at the blue stripes under her eyes, at the pallor in her skin. She looked like she'd dropped weight and it was weight she could ill afford. She kept sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, darting anxious looks at his face. Tyce, deliberately, kept his expression blank, his face a mask. She could've avoided this meeting, he reminded himself; she could've taken one of his many calls; they could've done this differently. But, after trying to reach her for two weeks, her refusal to see him or talk to him limited his options so he contacted Linc and convinced him that a meeting would be beneficial to all parties.
Tyce watched as Linc stepped forward and placed both his hands on Sage's shoulders, his gentle squeeze conveying his support. Jaeger and Beck flanked Sage on either side, arms folded and jaws tense. Her brothers were very protective of their sister and he hoped that this conversation wouldn't turn physical but who the hell knew? When you were dealing with family and money and business, anything could happen.
"Since you asked for this meeting, Latimore, would you like to get the party started?" Linc asked, his voice as cold as a subzero fridge.
Tyce nodded, straightened and walked to the table, pulling out a chair at the head, another deliberate gesture. It was a silent screw you to their pecking order, telling Linc and his brothers that he wasn't going to neatly slot into their order of command.
Tyce rested his forearms on the table. He turned his head to look at Sage and wished that they were alone, that he could kiss her luscious mouth, trace the fine line of her jaw, kiss his way down her long neck to her shoulders. Peel her clothes from her body...
Tyce sighed. He was imagining Sage naked because, yeah, that was helpful. He ran his hand across his face and caught Sage's eye.
"This could've gone differently, Sage. If you had taken my calls, answered my emails, had a goddamn conversation with me, I wouldn't have had to do it like this."
Ignoring her frown, Tyce reached across the table and pulled his folder toward him. He flipped open the cover and withdrew a sheaf of papers and tossed them in Linc's general direction. "Share certificates showing that Lach-Ty owns around fifteen percent of Ballantyne's."
Four backs straightened, four jaws tensed. Linc picked up the share certificates, examined them and carefully placed them facedown on the table. "Would you care to explain," he asked in a dangerous-as-hell voice, "why you own fifteen percent of our company?"
Sure, that was why he was here, after all. "Technically, I don't own the shares. I just paid for them."
Linc gripped the table, his hands and knuckles white. "Then who does own the shares and why the hell did you pay for them?"
"My sister owns those shares because I thought it was right that she owned a percentage of the company her father left to you." Tyce hesitated and thought that he might as well get it all out there so that they could move forward from a basis of truth. "I thought that, since your sister is carrying my baby, it was time to lay my cards on the table."
And that, Tyce thought, his eyes moving from one shocked Ballantyne to another, was how you dropped a bombshell.
Shock, horror, surprise, anger...all the emotions he expected were in their faces, coating their questions, their shouted demands for more information. Tyce ignored them and kept his gaze focused on Sage, who stared at him with hellfire in her eyes.
She half stood, slapped her palms on the table and leaned toward him. "How dare you tell them without my permission?"
Tyce held her gaze and lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Because if I left it up to you, then you'd be ready to go into labor and you'd still be hemming and hawing about how to tell them, what to tell and whether you should."