"You had no right-"
Tyce pointed at her stomach. "That's my child in there too and, might I remind you, if you'd agreed to meet with me instead of ignoring me, then we could've resolved this and more."
"More? What are you talking about?" Sage demanded, her voice vibrating with fear and concern.
Linc placed a hand on Sage's shoulder and urged her back into the chair. "He's talking about the shares and alluding to Connor having a daughter."
"What? Connor never had any children," Sage emphatically stated. "That's crazy!"
"You're pregnant?" Jaeger yelled.
"Everyone shut up!" Linc ordered and looked at Sage. "Let's finish with Latimore first. Then he can get out of our hair and we can talk about your baby," Linc added in his CEO-everyone-must-listen-to-me voice. Yeah, well, Tyce didn't have to.
"Your optimism is amusing, Linc," Tyce drawled. "It's my baby too and, sorry to disappoint you, but I'm going to be around for a hell of a long time."
"No, you're not," Sage stated.
"Oh, honey, I so am. But we'll discuss that later," Tyce said, his voice quiet but holding no trace of doubt.
"Why would you think that your sister is Connor's daughter?" Linc asked, his jaw rock tight with annoyance.
"I don't think she is Connor's daughter, I know she is," Tyce replied. Tyce saw that they were going to argue and lifted his hand. "Look, let me start at the beginning and I'll talk you through it."
Where to start? As he said, at the beginning. Well, at Lachlyn's beginning, not his. They didn't need to know about his childhood, about those dark and dismal years before, and after, Lachlyn came along. As quickly and concisely as he could, Tyce recounted the facts. His mom had worked as a night cleaner at Ballantyne International, in this very building-something he had no reason to feel ashamed of; it was honest work and if the Ballantynes were too snobby to understand that, to hell with them-and, because Connor worked long hours, they struck up a friendship. His mom and stepdad separated, she and Connor started an affair and she became pregnant.
"My mom knew that she had no future with Connor so she went back to my stepfather hoping that he'd raise Lachlyn as his."
His stepdad, originally from Jamaica, took one look at Lachlyn, a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby, and lost his temper. Tyce took his disappearance that same day as a firm no on the raising-and-supporting-Lachlyn question. Those months following his stepfather's disappearance had been, by far, the worst of his life. His mom sunk into what he now knew to be postpartum depression, made a hundred times worse by her normal, run-of-the-mill depression. Looking after the baby had been a struggle for her. She hadn't had any energy left over for a confused eight-year-old boy.
"Did your mother ever tell Connor that he had a daughter?" Beck asked, his voice laced with skepticism.
"No," Tyce snapped back, frustrated. "Since Lachlyn's birth certificate states that my stepdad is her father, she didn't have a legal leg to stand on. She assumed that Connor would dismiss her claims."
"Which is exactly what we are going to do," Linc told him, his blue eyes hard.
Linc reacted exactly as he expected him to so Tyce wasn't particularly surprised. "You can, but it won't make any difference to my plans."
Tyce ran his hand around his neck, hoping to rub away the headache at the base of his skull. He darted a look at Sage and saw that her face was even whiter than before and her big, endlessly blue eyes were dark with pain and confusion. She looked like he'd punched her in the gut. The fight immediately went out of Tyce and he moved his hand across the table to cover hers. He desperately wanted to scoop her up, soothe away her pain, assure her that everything would be okay.
But Tyce, more than most, knew that life had a nebulous concept of fairness and had a shoddy record at doling out good luck.
Sage snatched her hand out from under his, as if he were contagious with some flesh-eating disease. She folded her arms against her chest and glared at him. He couldn't help his smile.
"You should know that your prissy, ‘I'm a princess and you're a peasant' look turns me on."
His comment also had the added bonus of pissing her brothers off. Score.
Sage lifted her hand, her lips thinning. "This is business so let's keep it to that, okay? You and I have nothing to say to each other."
Oh, they so did. "We have a great deal to say to one another and we will," Tyce promised her, lowering his voice.
"In your dreams, hotshot," Sage retorted, fire in her eyes.
Tyce reached across the table and pushed a curl out of her eyes with the tip of his finger. "You can fight this, kick and claw and scratch, but you and me, and that kid, we're going to come to an understanding, Sage. I'm not crazy about this arrangement, neither are you, but we're going to have to deal. I'm not going anywhere. Start getting used to the idea."
Because he so badly wanted to frame her face with his hands, to lower his mouth to cover hers-God, it had been so long since he'd held her, tasted her, feasted on her-Tyce stood up and jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Feeling wiped, he blew out a breath before locking eyes with Linc again. It was time to get this done.
"I've purchased enough shares to earn a seat on the Ballantyne board. I'm going to take that seat, I will oppose every decision and I will vote against every motion you make unless you actively try to establish whether Lachlyn is Connor's child or not. Do not underestimate how much trouble I can cause. I'll undermine your position and I'll actively campaign to have you removed as CEO."
Linc's face paled at the threat. But because he was a deal maker and a strategist, Linc then asked the question he was expecting. "So if Lachlyn is Connor's daughter, how much do you want?"
These rich people, they always thought it came down to money. "I don't want any of your money," Tyce replied, enjoying the surprised shock on their faces. "If the DNA results come back saying that Lachlyn is not Connor's daughter, then I will sell the shares."
"What's the catch?" Beck demanded.
"If Lachlyn is Connor's daughter, then I'd like you to give her a chance...to get to know you, to become part of your family. She missed out on that, having a family."
So had he but that didn't matter. Lachlyn was the one who'd spent her childhood and teenage years in a dismal house permeated with the sadness of a perpetually depressed mother and a too tense, uncommunicative brother. She deserved the chance of being part of a close, happy family. And nobody, apparently, did family better than the Ballantynes.
Tyce held the back of a chair, his hands white against the black leather. He didn't drop his eyes from Linc's face, didn't break the contact. Linc, confusion all over his face, frowned. "I don't understand any of this. You spent tens of millions buying those shares but all you want is for us to give your sister a chance to get to know us?"
Tyce nodded. "You'll be happy to hear that she's a lot nicer than I am."
Linc's mouth twitched in what Tyce suspected might hint at amusement. He leaned back in his chair and folded his big arms across his chest. "This is batcrap insane, Latimore."
"Probably," Tyce admitted, darting a look at the still-fuming Sage. Oh, that reminded him. Hardening his expression, he looked from Linc's face to Jaeger's and then to Beckett's. "I have one more demand..."
Beck groaned and Jaeger swore. Linc just waited, his eyes narrowed.
"My last demand is that you leave us, Sage and me, alone. Having a baby, becoming new parents, is something new to both of us and we don't need her three angry, protective brothers muddying the waters."
God, he was tired of this conversation, so tired of it all. All he wanted to do was to climb into bed with Sage and wrap himself around her. He would even forego sex just to hold her and sleep.
Sage held up a hand and stopped what he was sure was going to be a hot response from Jaeger. Hot seemed to be Jaeger's default setting.
"You three don't need to fight my personal battles," Sage said, her voice clear and determined. "Tyce and I will deal with our personal situation, ourselves. Not-" Sage sent him a look that was designed to shrivel his balls "-that we have much to discuss."
"Are you sure, shrimp?" Jaeger asked her, doubt in his voice.
"Very." Sage nodded. "I can handle him."
"If he lays a finger on you, we will rip him from limb to limb and bury him so deep that no one will ever find his body," Beck added, his voice so flat and so bland that Tyce had no choice but to believe him.
"Tyce is an ass but he's not violent," Sage told them.
So nice to know how she really felt about him.