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Sage blew air out over her lips and briefly closed her eyes. When they opened again, he saw her resolve. And when she finally formed the words, they shifted his world.
“I don’t expect anything from you, not money or time or involvement. But you should know that I am pregnant and the baby is yours.”
Tyce was still trying to make sense of her words, trying to decipher them, when Sage placed a swift, final kiss to the left of his mouth. “Goodbye, Tyce. It was...fun. Except when it wasn’t.”
* * *
Sage, having said what she needed to, took advantage of his astonishment and stood up. She was about to pick up her clutch and leave when his hand shot out and gripped her wrist.
When she looked at him she noticed that his eyes were pure black fire. “Sit. Stay.”
Those eyes, God, they still had the power to dissolve her knees. Eyes of a warrior, Sage thought. Because he made her feel off-kilter, she handed him a cool look. “I am not a puppy you are trying to train.”
Tyce gripped his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “God, Sage, just give me a sec, okay? You’ve just told me that you’re pregnant. I need a goddamn minute! So, yeah, sit your ass down, okay?”
Hearing the note of panic in Tyce’s voice, Sage slid back onto the high barstool and crossed her legs. She listened as Tyce ordered another whiskey from the bartender and watched the color seep slowly back into his face.
“We need to...” she began.
Tyce shook his head and held up his hand to stop her talking. “Another drink and some more time.”
Sage nodded and leaned back in her chair, a little relieved that she’d told him, that it was finally done. It had taken every gram of courage she possessed to send that text message asking him to meet, and she’d known that he’d think she was looking for another one-night stand. Could she blame him? Their entire relationship had been based around their physical attraction and he was a guy... Of course he’d think she just wanted sex.
But their crazy chemistry had led to a very big consequence...
Sage rolled her head, trying to loosen the tension in her neck. She’d sit here, let him take the time he needed for the news to sink in and after what she hoped would be a drama-free conversation, she’d leave. Then she could put him and their brief roller coaster—What should she call it? Fling? Affair? Madness?—behind her.
God, though it had been brief, their time together had been intense. They’d met at the opening of a small gallery around the corner from her apartment and the attraction between them sizzled. Sage would like to blame that on his mixed heritage, Korean and French, on his dark Asian eyes, square chin and blinding smile, and his tall, muscled body. But she’d grown up surrounded by good-looking men and looks didn’t impress her much. No, it was Tyce’s stillness, his control and his aura of elusiveness, and unavailability, that attracted her.
Tyce had told her, straight up and straightaway, that he wanted to sleep with her but that he wasn’t the settle-down, buy-her-flowers type. They could hang, enjoy each other, but she shouldn’t expect anything more from him. She appreciated his up-front attitude and it soon dawned on her that she was drawn to a younger, darker, less chatty version of her beloved uncle Connor. Connor had been utterly devoted to his adopted kids, had looked after his employees and had been a hardworking, focused businessman, but a monogamous, committed relationship never featured on Connor’s list of priorities. Trying to pin men like Connor and Tyce down was like trying to capture smoke in a sieve.
And maybe she’d found Tyce a little more attractive because she knew he would never offer her the very thing that scared her the most: an emotionally intimate relationship. She’d been the apple of her parents’ eye, the baby girl who had her entire family wrapped around her finger, loved and adored until she woke up one morning and heard that the biggest part of her life was gone and wasn’t ever coming back.
She’d avoided relationships outside of the people who lived in Connor’s iconic brownstone fondly referred to as The Den—her brothers, Connor, and Jo, Linc’s mom and the woman Connor hired to help him raise three orphans. She had girlfriends she enjoyed but whom she kept at an arm’s length, and she wasn’t much of a dater.
Tyce had been hard to resist. Sage had been in love with his art for years. His work was detailed and exquisite, full of angst and emotion. From their first meeting, admiration and attraction swirled and whirled and she’d quickly said yes when he suggested dinner. They didn’t make it to a restaurant; instead they’d tumbled into bed and Sage finally understood the power of addiction. She craved Tyce with a ferocity that scared her.
After six weeks of fantastic sex, Sage realized she was on the brink of falling in love with Tyce and couldn’t, wouldn’t allow that to happen. Terrified, she did what she did best, she made plans to run and immediately booked a ticket to Hong Kong, telling her brothers that their Asian clients needed her attention. The day before her scheduled flight to Asia, Connor passed away and her entire world changed. Connor’s death allowed her to put the distance between her and Tyce she’d been seeking with her trip to Hong Kong.
And Connor’s death reminded her of why it was better to keep her distance from people and that she was wise to avoid emotional and intimate relationships. It hurt too damn much when the people she loved left her life.
She had enough people to love, enough people to worry about. And now—Sage placed her hand on her stomach—she had a baby on the way, a little person who would become the center of her world. Her baby, she ruefully admitted, was one person she had no choice but to love, someone she couldn’t push away.
Well played, Universe.
What did having a baby mean to Tyce? Sage wanted to ask him but, judging from his give-me-space expression, he wouldn’t answer her. Would he walk? Would he want to be involved? If he wanted contact with his child, how would that work? What if he wanted to co-parent? What then? When she’d texted him she’d been consumed by the idea of telling him, needing to get the dreaded deed done. She hadn’t thought beyond that. Well, she had thought about how sexy he was and how much she wanted to make love to him again...
Like those thoughts were productive. Besides, them going to bed was exactly what led to their current predicament. Then again, one couldn’t fall pregnant twice. Jeez, Sage, pull yourself together, woman!
Tyce abruptly stood up, nearly tipping his barstool with the force of his movement. “I need to get out of here.”
“Okay, well...” Sage bit her bottom lip and looked around. “Give me a call if you want to chat about this some more.”
Tyce looked like a hard-assed warrior about to go to battle. “Oh, hell, no, we’re leaving together.”
Sage frowned at his high-handed comment. She wasn’t ready to leave. This cocktail party and exhibition of the Ballantyne family jewelry collection was the culmination of their latest PR campaign to attract new customers. Her family was all in attendance and she was expected to stick around. Not that anyone would notice if she left... Her brothers Jaeger and Beck were both slow dancing with their women—Piper and Cady—and she was the last thing on their minds. Her oldest brother, Linc, who’d brought Tate, his son’s temporary nanny, to the party, was nowhere to be seen.
Sage was sure that she could leave and no one would be any wiser but that would mean leaving with Tyce and that wasn’t an option. “I don’t think so.”
“Walk out with me or I swear, I’ll toss you over my shoulder and walk you out that way.”
His alpha bossiness only turned her on when they were naked but since they weren’t—and would never be again—his terse tone ticked her off. She opened her mouth to blast him and closed it again at the determination in his eyes. She could either leave walking or over his shoulder and she didn’t want a scene to ruin this fabulous evening. Sage glared at him, picked up her designer clutch and walked with him into the foyer of the ballroom. She collected her coat and went to stand by the elevators.
The doors opened, Sage followed Tyce into the cube and pushed the button for the first floor. As the doors closed, the spacious interior shrunk with a big, broad, freaked-out man inside.
Tyce slapped his hand against the emergency stop button.
“What the hell, Sage? You’re pregnant?”
Obviously, he was taking some time to process the news. Sage winced at his shout, his words bouncing off the wood paneling. She lifted her hands as the elevator shuddered to a stop.
“Okay, calm down, Tyce.”
Pathetic as it was, it was all she could think of to say. Even furious, he was ludicrously good-looking. Blue-black hair cut stylishly with short back and sides, equally dark eyebrows over those black sultry eyes. When he smiled, which was, in her opinion, far too rarely, he could charm birds down from trees, criminals into converting and start polar caps melting. Sage wished that she could say Tyce Latimore was just a pretty face but he was so much more than that. He was tall, a few inches above six foot and his body, that body she’d licked and explored and teased and tasted, was all muscle honed from a lifetime dedicated to martial arts. Tae Kwon Do, judo, Krav Maga...they’d all contributed to creating a body that was spectacular and spectacularly sexy. The hair on her arms lifted and her fingers ached to touch him. Her off-the-shoulder silk dress felt abrasive against her sensitive skin and want and need danced through her.
Focus, Sage. Sheesh.
Tyce pushed his jacket back to place his hands on his hips, his expression summer-storm vicious. “Are you messing with me?”
Sage just barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes at his question.
“Yeah, Tyce,” she sarcastically muttered. “I crave your attention that much that I’d make up a story like this to play games with your head!” Seeing his still skeptical face, she shook her head and, needing support, she leaned her back against the wall of the elevator. “I am pregnant. Since you’re the only guy I’ve slept with in the three months—” Three years, she mentally corrected, but she wasn’t telling him that! “—I think it’s safe to assume that the kid is yours.”
“But we used condoms,” Tyce said, pushing his shaking hands into his hair.
Sage blushed. “That first time...you did slide in without a condom. You put one on later but maybe...” Lord, this was embarrassing! “...something slipped past.”
Tyce stared at her, his hands linked behind his head and his expression stricken with panic and fear. “I can’t be a father, Sage. I don’t want to be a father. I don’t want kids!”
Sage assumed as much.
Sage reached around him to release the emergency stop button. “As I told you, that’s not a problem. I don’t expect anything from you. You can carry on living your life as you always have.”
“You can’t do this on your own!” he said and for the first time ever Sage saw Tyce a little unhinged. He banged his fist against the stop button to prevent it from going any farther and the car’s shudder reverberated through her.
“I am young, healthy, have huge family support and ample resources to hire the help I need to raise this child,” Sage told him, pushing a finger into his chest. “I don’t need anything from you.”
A little support would be nice, a kind word, but wishing for either was futile. Tyce wasn’t the kind, supportive type. Hot and hard, amazing, fantastic sex? Yes. Warm and reassuring? No. She’d only told him because he had the right to know and not because she expected anything from him. She didn’t want anything from him...or from any other man.
She was fine, safe, on her own.
“Miss Ballantyne?” Sage jumped at the disembodied voice coming from a speaker above her head. “Is everything alright in there?”
She nodded at the camera in the top corner of the elevator. “Everything is fine, thank you. We’re just having a chat.”
Chat? They were having a life-changing conversation. There was nothing chatty about it.
“Okay then.” The voice sounded dubious. “Um? Do you think you could, um, chat somewhere else? There are people waiting for the elevator.”
Sage nodded, walked to stand between Tyce and the light panel and pushed the emergency stop again. She pulled in a large breath and turned to face Tyce, who was staring down at the mulberry-colored carpet. “Tyce.”
He didn’t lift his head, so Sage called his name again. He eventually looked at her with those intensely dark, pain-filled eyes.
“I’m letting you off the hook. Look, I’m presuming that your statement from three years ago—when you told me that you don’t do commitment—still holds?”
“Yeah.” It was a small word but a powerful response.
Sage nodded. “I’m very okay with that—I’m not looking for someone to nest with me. Take my offer to walk away. This child will be raised a Ballantyne. No one will ever have to know that he, or she, is yours. I’m giving you permission to forget about this conversation.”
Something flashed in Tyce’s eyes and Sage frowned, not sure what she’d seen. Before she could say any more, the doors to the elevator opened and they faced a bank of people waiting for the tardy lift. Sage pulled on her practiced, cool smile and stepped into the throng. She swiftly walked into the lobby and she nodded when the concierge asked her whether she wanted a taxi. Sage pulled on her coat and tried to ignore Tyce as he stepped up to walk beside her, a silent, brooding sexy mass of muscle.
She’d barely stepped onto the curb when a taxi pulled up and the doorman hurried to open the door. Sage climbed inside and sighed when Tyce crouched in the space between the open car door and her seat.
“We’re not done discussing this, Sage,” he said, his voice a low growl.
“We really are, Tyce.” Sage forced the words through her tight lips. “Don’t contact me again. We are over.”
“Yeah, you can think that,” Tyce said, standing up. “But you’d be wrong.”
The slam of the taxi door was an exclamation point at the end of his sentence.
Three
In his converted warehouse in Brooklyn, Tyce stood at the massive windows that provided perfect light for his studio, his forearm resting on the glass. He’d been home an hour and he was grateful that he’d fought the impulse to follow Sage to her apartment. Instead of acting impetuously, he’d fought his way through the shock to slow his thoughts down, to think this situation through. He needed time to let the fact that he was going to be a dad sink in, to figure this out.
Tyce walked away from the window to the far wall, to a row of canvases that were stacked against the wall. Sitting cross-legged on the paint splattered floor, he reached for the most recent canvas, a portrait of Sage at her workbench, her brow furrowed in concentration, a pencil in her hand. He’d painted the portrait from a photo published in an arts magazine and it was, he admitted, as lifelike as the photo. Bending his knees, Tyce stared at the canvas, thinking that his child was growing her belly, that his DNA was joining with hers to create a new life.
God, what an awesome, terrifying, crazy thought. What the hell did Life think it was doing, asking him—the most emotionally disconnected person on the planet—to be a father? As a child he’d been consumed by anxiety, responsibility, overwhelmed by a world that asked him to deal with far too much, far too soon. Adulthood, his and Lachlyn’s, and his mother’s death, allowed him some measure of relief. But, because he never wanted to feel so unbalanced—scared—again he deliberately distanced himself from emotionally investing in situations and people because that would make him vulnerable. To Tyce it was a simple situation, vulnerability equaled hurt and pain was to be avoided. The logical conclusion was to avoid emotion altogether, like he had with Sage three years ago, or to disconnect, like he had learned to do with his mother.
Tyce supposed that, to the world, he looked normal, content, like he had it all. Nobody knew, not even Lachlyn, that on the inside, he felt hollow and empty. Kicking the crap out of his sparring partner at the dojo and pushing his body to the limit made him feel alive but the endorphins soon wore off. Art, mostly, provided a distraction and he, occasionally, felt the hit of adrenaline when he painted his oils or constructed his sculptures. Mostly he found the process easy and intellectually undemanding.
Tyce tipped his head back. Instead of seeing paint-streaked wooden beams and the steel pipes that were a feature of his converted warehouse he saw the faded walls of the small, two-bedroom apartment he’d lived in for most of his life. He was sitting on the cold floor outside his mother’s bedroom door, rocking a crying Lachlyn, wishing that his mother would unlock the door and tell him that she was okay. That they’d be okay. He’d always wondered what he was doing wrong, why his mother needed to hide from him and his sister. He remembered the hundreds of drawings he did for her, hoping that, maybe once, she’d acknowledge his effort, desperate for any attention from her.
His index finger traced the line of Sage’s jaw. At one time selling portraits—quick charcoal or ink sketches—had kept the roof over their heads, food in the fridge. In his early teens he’d sold rough sketches on street corners and in Central Park and later he sold his sketches to the women attending the art classes where he posed, naked, as an artist’s model.
He clearly remembered feeling anxious as his hand flew over the paper, working out how much he could charge, how many sketches he needed to do to cover the latest unexpected expense; a kid struggling to gather rent money. Eventually he managed to control the anxiety, the burning resentment, and he’d learned to do that by detaching. From things, from the need for support and affirmation and, eventually, from people. Sage was the only person who’d ever threatened his control, who tempted him to edge closer, to climb into her head and let her climb into his. He couldn’t do that, wouldn’t allow himself to open up again.
And her being such a temptation was exactly why he’d allowed her to walk away from him years ago, why he’d let her slip through his fingers. It had been self-preservation in action.
He’d been an adult all his life, had dealt with situations no child should have to, had raised his sister as best he could. He wasn’t scared of much but, God, Sage having a baby terrified him. Tyce linked his arms around his bent knees, as fear, hot and acidic, bubbled in a space just under his heart. And, like it or not, he and Sage were now joined together in an age-old way, through the mingling of their DNA. No matter how Tyce looked at it, as the mother of his child, Sage would be a permanent fixture in his life. Sage was also the only person who’d ever come close to cracking his armor and that meant that she was desperately dangerous.
He didn’t like it but the situation couldn’t be changed and all he could do was manage the process. How to do that? Tyce stood up and walked over to his desk in the corner of the studio, pulling out his battered office chair and dropping into it. First things first... Since he was going to be connected to the Ballantyne family for a long time to come, he had to come clean. About everything. First to Sage, then to her brothers.
And yeah, that was going to be as much fun as running around outside, naked, on a winter’s night in Siberia. But it couldn’t be avoided and it had to be done, and soon.
* * *
Sage, resentful that she’d been pulled away from her workbench to attend a meeting at Ballantyne International headquarters, stepped out of the elevator and immediately turned left, waving to the staff working behind the glass walls that were a feature of the Ballantyne corporate offices. Sage deeply appreciated the people who worked for their company, each one an essential cog to keep the massive organization running smoothly. She knew enough about business to contribute to the partners’ meetings but she trusted her brothers to run the company, just as they trusted her to translate their rich clients’ vague desires for “something special” into works of gemstone art.
But occasionally, as a full partner of Ballantyne International, she was expected to attend the meetings Linc called. She’d reluctantly shrug out of her work clothes—comfortable jeans and loose tops—and change into something more businesslike; today’s outfit was a red-and-pink geometric top and plain black wool pants worn over two-inch-heeled boots. Her makeup consisted of a swipe of nude lipstick and she’d pulled her hair into a long braid.
She had the jewelry-designer-to-Ballantyne-partner switch down to a fine art.
At the end of the hallway, Sage pushed open the glass door to Amy’s office, thankful to see the PA Linc and Beck shared at her desk, laconically typing on her computer. The walls to the offices on either side of Amy’s desk were opaque and Sage couldn’t tell whether Linc and Beck were in their respective offices or not.
“Why is your phone off?” Amy demanded, looking at her over the frames of her trendy glasses. “FYI, smoke signals are notoriously unreliable these days.”
Knowing that underneath Amy’s glossy and sarcastic shell was a gooey center, Sage leaned across her desk to drop a kiss on her cheek. “Sorry I worried you.”
“I nearly came to your place myself. I hate it when you don’t answer your phone.” Amy pushed her chair away from her desk, her eyes brightening. “So, what do you think about Linc and Tate’s engagement? Isn’t it fabulous?”
Sure, her life was in turmoil but Sage was genuinely happy for her brothers. Linc and Tate aside, there was more good news: Piper and Jaeger were expecting twin boys, Tate was going to adopt Linc’s son, Shaw, and Linc was going to adopt Ellie, Tate’s ward and niece. Beckett was going to raise Cady’s still-baking baby as his own. Sage felt no surprise at Beckett’s generous offer; in the Ballantyne family blood was a nebulous concept.
Love...love always trumped DNA.
“Are you okay? You seem anxious and stressed.”
As she always did, Sage shook her head and, wanting to distract Amy, ran her finger over the open face of a rose, bending down to inhale the subtle scent. “A gift from Jules?” Sage asked, thinking of Julie, Amy’s soon-to-be wife.
Amy smiled softly. “Yeah. She’s better at romance than I am.”
Between her brothers and Amy, she was the only one with no interest in the concept. Besides, she had far more pressing problems than romance—or the lack of it in her life—she was pregnant and only Tyce knew. And, speaking of her baby’s daddy, she couldn’t keep ignoring his calls and messages. They’d have to talk sometime soon...
When their baby was old enough for college?
Sage pulled a face at her silliness. She’d spent two weeks with her head in the sand; she couldn’t keep it there much longer. When this meeting was over she’d invite Tyce to her apartment for a chat. No, not her apartment, that was too intimate a space, too revealing. And her bed was up a short flight of stairs, above her sitting area. She’d spend the entire time looking at his mouth and hoping that he’d put her out of her misery and kiss her. His mouth had always been her downfall; their lips would touch and she’d immediately feel he was stripping her soul of all its barriers.
The fantasy was both wildly exciting and intensely dangerous and that was why she should keep the man out of her private spaces—her apartment, her body, her heart—and meet him in a public venue.
After they’d thrashed out where they stood, what they wanted, what their expectations were, she’d tell her brothers and the rest of the family about the pregnancy.
It was a plan with a hundred holes in it but it was, at least, a plan.
Amy looked at the massive clock on the wall behind Sage. “You need to move or else you’re going to be late for your meeting.”
“What’s this meeting about, by the way?”
“I don’t know.” Amy frowned, looking displeased. She loathed being outside the loop. “I know nothing except that the meeting is in Connor’s boardroom.”