by Joss Wood
Tyce lifted one arrogant eyebrow but she saw the hint of uncertainty in his eyes. “A fabulous artist?”
“Just all round fabulous.”
Tyce smiled, lowered his mouth to hers and gently kissed it. His mouth held a hint of passion but it went deeper than that; she could taste his promises, the suggestion of a future together. The hope that this time they could make it work, that they could be better and braver.
“What’s your plan of action for the day?” Tyce asked her when he lifted his mouth from hers.
“Um... I have a client meeting at Ballantyne’s and then I’m heading home as I have to finish the Saudi princess’s ring.” Sage glanced at the taxi driver. He wasn’t looking impatient yet so she had a minute or two. “And your plans?”
“When you fell asleep, I started to think about all the work I’m dying to do so I might hole up here and just...work. Fall into that zone.”
Sage smiled, immediately understanding what he was trying to say. “So, if you don’t answer my calls or respond to my texts I mustn’t panic?”
“That okay with you?”
Sage smiled and nodded. “Very okay. Let me know when you come up for air. But it had better be before Thursday morning as we have a ten o’clock appointment with Dr. Charles, the obstetrician.”
“Day after tomorrow at ten. No problem,” Tyce told her. “I’m pretty sure that my need to have you again will bring me back to the land of the living way before then.”
Sage stood on her toes to slant her mouth over his in a hot, openmouthed kiss. “Can’t wait. Have fun.”
Tyce opened the passenger door to the taxi and when she was seated, he bent down to kiss her again. His fabulous eyes were full of mischief when he pulled back. “Oh, and maybe I should tell you that you have blue streaks running through the back of your hair.”
He slammed the door shut but Sage could still hear his laughter. She pushed her hat off her head and pulled a hank of hair in front of her face. Lifting her eyes upward, she immediately noticed the strands of French ultramarine.
Dammit! She spun around to look out through the window at Tyce and saw that he was looking down, his eyes on the screen of his phone.
Ten seconds later her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Want to come back? I’m have this idea of tossing paint onto a canvas and rolling around in it with you. It would be a piece for my very private collection.
Sage smiled, shuddered with longing and flipped another look over her shoulder but Tyce had gone back into his building.
So tempted, Sage typed back, But I doubt the Saudi princess, or my boss brother, would understand me blowing off a meeting with one of our biggest clients to play with paint. Rain check?
Eleven
“Do you want to get some coffee?” Tyce asked Lachlyn as they left the small, warm studio and stepped into the icy wind barreling down the street. Lachlyn had asked him to meet her at a new gallery she’d discovered, thinking that he’d enjoy the eclectic pieces sourced from all over the world. He had.
“Sure.” Lachlyn looked around. “There’s a coffee shop at the end of the block.”
“Sage’s apartment is around the corner. She’s at a meeting at Ballantyne HQ but her coffee is fantastic.”
Lachlyn nodded her agreement and they started walking in the direction of Sage’s apartment. “How is Sage?” she asked.
“Fine. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, because when you told me you were moving in with her after her accident, you said it would just be for a couple of days. It’s been a couple of weeks and you’re still there. Did she crack her spine or is her arm paralyzed?”
Tyce narrowed her eyes at his sister. “Smart-ass.”
But it was fair question. Why was he still living with Sage? Every day he made the trek to Brooklyn, worked in his studio and at night he made his way back to SoHo. It was because making love with Sage was like a Class A drug and he was hooked. He couldn’t imagine a day without her in it, not waking up next to her, exploring her body every night. God, that sounded like he was...
No, don’t say it, don’t think it. His need to be with her had nothing to do with the L-word, or a future they could spend together, a life they could make. He was still the reserved, taciturn, need-to-be-alone artist he always was.
Except that his actions, every damned day, contradicted his words. Crap.
“So, what did you think of The Den?” he asked in a deliberate attempt to change the subject. They hadn’t had any time to talk about her meeting the Ballantynes and how she felt about her new family. Talking about The Den, and Lachlyn’s extensive tour of the house with Jo, Linc’s mother, was his way of easing into that conversation.
“Oh, Tyce...it’s definitely the most amazing house I’ve ever seen.” Lachlyn shoved her gloved hand into the crook of his elbow and snuggled in. “There is a Picasso hanging in a small sitting room, Lalique glassware everywhere and, I swear, what I thought might be a Fabergé egg.”
Remotely possible but not likely, Tyce thought.
“You only saw the one lounge and the formal dining room but Linc and Tate mostly use a massive room that’s as normal as any I’ve seen. There were toys on the floor, drawings on the fridge. Okay, admittedly, most people don’t have purple crayons squished into Persian carpets but I liked that room. I could see that Tate and Linc lived there.”
Lachlyn continued her description of the iconic brownstone occupied by generations of Ballantynes and he let her ramble because he was interested in the house Sage grew up in. His ears pricked up at the mention of Linc’s state-of-the-art gym and climate-controlled wine cellar in the basement.
“And Sage?” Tyce asked, his heart picking up speed. “What did you think of her?”
Sage and Lachlyn were the two women who were going to be in his life for a long, long time. It was important that they liked each other. And they were also now part of the same family. That was important too.
“She’s a little prickly.” His sister frowned. “Maybe that’s not the right word... Scared? Vulnerable?”
“But do you like her?” Tyce persisted.
“Yes, I suppose I do.” Lachlyn frowned again. “We were supposed to have dinner this week but she postponed. I’ve sent her a couple of texts trying to reschedule but she’s booked up at the moment.”
Tyce frowned at the note of hurt he heard in Lachlyn’s voice. Trying to reassure her, he put his arm around her shoulder and hugged her close. “I have heard many mutterings of a picky Saudi princess who can’t make up her damn mind.”
They turned the corner onto Sage’s block and, like a homing beacon, Tyce’s eyes were drawn to a slim figure at the end of the street, wearing black pants tucked into black boots, and a scarlet coat. Sage was looking down at her phone and wasn’t paying attention to her surroundings.
Tyce nudged Lachlyn. “Sage is home early—her meeting must have been rescheduled. Let’s catch up with her.”
Lachlyn looked anxious. “Let me give her a heads-up, tell her that I’m here.”
“Nah, let’s just go,” Tyce insisted. “It’s too cold to hang around.”
Lachlyn shook her head and pulled out her phone, pressing buttons. Tyce looked down, saw that her phone was dialing Sage’s number and looked across the road. He watched Sage look down at her phone and when she grimaced, he knew that she had read the caller ID. Instead of answering Lachlyn’s call, she shoved her phone back into her coat pocket.
His temper bubbled and when he clocked Lachlyn’s miserable expression, it burned a hole in his stomach. His sister blinked away her tears and tried to smile. “Yeah, so I guess it’s me and not work that’s the problem.”
“Lach—” Tyce said, at a loss for what to say. He looked down into her bewildered face and, in that moment, his baby sister was wearing the exact expression that was a feature of her childhood
spent with their mother.
I love you—what’s wrong with me that you can’t love me back? Do I make you sad? Am I the problem?
Lachlyn reached up to kiss his cheek. “It’s okay, Tyce. Maybe she’s not ready for me.” Lachlyn patted his arm. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Tyce watched Lachlyn walk away, anger and disappointment rolling through him. He looked across the street, all his anger directed at Sage, who was walking, head down, toward the front door of her place. Tyce took his own phone and dialed her number...
* * *
Sage looked down at her phone and saw Tyce’s name flash on her screen. Lifting the phone to her ear, she stopped and turned toward the side of the building, putting her back to the wind. “Hi.”
“Hey.” Tyce’s voice sounded funny but Sage thought that it could just be the wind playing tricks with her ears.
“I’m with Lachlyn and I thought that we could come to the apartment for coffee. Are you going to be home soon?”
Yeah, he definitely sounded weird. Almost angry, Sage thought. Sage rubbed the back of her neck, trying to massage the tension away. Her princess had arrived ten minutes late for their meeting and stormed out in a huff after another five, declaring that Sage’s designs were all rubbish and plebeian and that she hated every one.
She felt battered and tired and all she wanted was to climb into a hot bath and to go to bed early. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Tyce, tonight. She felt like she hadn’t had a moment alone for the month and all she wanted was an empty apartment and some quiet.
“Sage? Are you there?”
“I’m still at work.” The lie ran smoothly off her tongue even as it burned a hole in her stomach. But if she told him the truth, then he’d demand to know why she needed time alone, what was bugging her, why she was avoiding him and his sister. She just didn’t have the energy to deal with any of it.
“I’m going to be working late so—” she hesitated “—maybe you should stay at your place tonight?”
“Okay then.”
Sage looked down at her dead phone and winced. God, she hated lying and wished she hadn’t. She should’ve just told him that she needed some time alone; of everyone she knew, Tyce was the person most likely to understand that. And he was a big boy; if he asked what was wrong and she said that she didn’t feel like talking, he’d understand. There was no need to lie...yet she’d done it. Sage felt acid coat her throat, feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself.
She’d have to confess the lie and that wasn’t going to be fun.
But she was a big girl and she’d done the crime, so she’d take the consequences.
Sage looked down at her screen and saw the “missed” call she’d ignored from Lachlyn and remorse swamped her. And she felt guilty for blowing their plans, for using work as an excuse to avoid her.
Sage sucked in some cold air thinking that it was bad timing, that she did need to get on top of work; she didn’t really have the time to start a new relationship. With Tyce living with her and taking up her time at night and the tiredness from the pregnancy hormones, and the horrible weather...
And the famine in the Sudan and the bomb blast in Pakistan and the phase of the moon...
God, she was just one crazy, twisted knot of excuses.
The truth was that she was scared. No, terrified. Scared of what she felt for Tyce, scared of what she could feel for Lachlyn. Scared of being hurt, left alone, lost.
But, most of all, she was scared to live. To love.
Sage wrapped her arms around her waist as she walked the last yards to her building. A series of pictures flashed into her head and they were of the last vacation she’d spent with her parents. They’d flown to Hawaii and she remembered they’d all taken surfing lessons. Her brothers had picked up the skill immediately but she and her dad had struggled to find their balance. On the cinema screen in her head, her mom, who was a Californian girl, was skimming down what looked like, to her, a monstrous wave. Her dark hair was flying, she was whooping like a maniac and she had the most enormous smile on her face.
Her dad had looked at her and grinned. “That’s your mom, Sagie. Wild and free, so in love with life.”
Sage wiped a tear off her face and thought that she might look like her mom but she wasn’t anything like her. She was cautious and closed off and a slave to her fears. Yes, she’d experienced incredible personal loss but she’d survived it and if it happened again, she would survive that too. Hearts might get dinged and broken but they didn’t actually kill you.
She could, Sage realized, spend the rest of her life in a cage where it was safe and, yeah, boring, or she could break out of jail and start to explore her world. She was young, rich and reasonably smart; she could have a wonderful life if she found a little bit of her mom’s courage, her bold spirit.
Someday, not today, she would have to try. She owed that to the memory of her parents, to Connor...
“So, working late, huh?”
Sage let out a low scream as Tyce appeared beside her, a yard from the steps leading up to the front door. Sage slapped her hand against her heart as she caught her breath. “Dammit, Tyce! I hate it when you do that!”
“Yeah?” Tyce’s eyes were as hard and cold as frozen coal. “Coincidentally, I hate it when you lie to me.”
Oh, crap, she was so busted. Sage scratched her forehead, looking for the right words. Tyce didn’t give her a chance. “So, who were you blowing off? Me? Lachlyn? Both of us?”
Sage shoved her shaking hands into the pockets of her coat. Before she could reply, her phone rang and she pulled it out. Blessing Linc for the interruption since it gave her a little time to construct a decent apology, she answered his call. Linc was hoping for a date night with Tate and was wondering if she could babysit Shaw and Ellie.
“Sorry, Linc, not tonight. I’m exhausted and I have a headache and all I want to do is climb into a hot bath and go to bed early.” Sage forced herself to look at Tyce, sighing at his hard expression. This is what she should’ve said to him instead of that stupid lie. “I just need some time alone.”
“No worries, I’ll ask Beck and Cady. Later.”
Sage disconnected the call and before she could speak, Tyce did. “So, you need some space, huh? No problem.” Tyce started to walk away but Sage caught his sleeve and tugged, her actions asking him to stay. Suddenly she didn’t want to be alone. She just wanted to step into his arms, allow his strength and solidity to suck the tension from her. In his arms, she realized, was the place she felt safest.
“Tyce—”
Tyce’s snapped-out swear was the perfect accompaniment to his pissed-off scowl. “I am so mad at you, Sage. You lied to me and that’s a pretty big deal to me. I don’t deal in lies. But worse than that, you hurt my sister. I’m not sure what games you are playing, but she wants to get to know you, to be your friend, that’s all she’s asking.” Tyce pointed to a spot down and across the street. “We saw you walking. Lachlyn called you and you pulled a face when you saw her name on your phone. That was strike one. You let her call ring out and Lachlyn watched you do it. Strike two.”
Sage felt like he’d stabbed her in the heart. Ah, no, damn, no.
“She walked away from me, crying. Then you freaking lied to me? Strike three, Sage.”
“You set me up!” Sage retorted. “You wanted to see what I would do, say.”
“That’s your defense?” Tyce gripped her arms in his big hands, bending down so that his face was level with hers. “Bad move, Ballantyne. Lachlyn and I spent our childhoods with a mother who didn’t love us enough to want to get better, who didn’t want us around and gave us no attention. She certainly had no interest in getting to know us, on any level. It was far more fun being a chronic depressive. My point is, we know when we’re not wanted.”
His voice, so calm and so controlled, cut through her. Sage felt h
ot tears running down her cheeks. “Tyce, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make either of you feel like that.”
Tyce dropped his hands, held them up and stepped away. “As I said... You want space? Take as much as you need.”
Sage held her fist to her mouth as she watched Tyce stride away. She called out to him in the vain hope that he would turn around and come back. Tyce just broke into a jog, leaving her standing in the icy wind.
Ashamed and annoyed at herself, and so very embarrassed, Sage looked up at her building and considered going up. She could take that bath and try for an early night but she knew that the chances of her sleeping were minimal at best. She was exhausted but sleep would be elusive unless she found Tyce and apologized. Sage thought about using her cell phone to call him but that would be too easy, the cowardly way out. She needed to look him in the eye and take her medicine like the big girl she now was.
Where would he have gone on a cold winter’s night? To the apartment in Chelsea or the studio in Brooklyn? He’d go to where his art was, Sage decided. If he was half as frustrated as she was, then he’d try to lose himself in his work, to fall into that space where pesky problems and annoying people faded away.
But before she went to Tyce, she had to mend a blown-up fence. Sage pulled out her phone. She held her breath, knowing that the chance of her call being answered was slim to none.
“Hello?”
“Lach?” Sage heard her voice break as she used Tyce’s pet name for his sister. “I’ve really messed up. Firstly, I’m sorry that I ignored your call—I’m not very good at letting people in and I got scared. I’m really, really sorry.”
“Okay,” Lachlyn replied, her tone cautious.
“You are so like Connor, Lachlyn. It’s taking some time to get used to.”
“I can’t help that,” Lachlyn said, her voice cool.
“I know,” Sage replied. “Just give me some time, please? I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.”
“So am I, Sage.”
God, she’d never considered the situation from Lachlyn’s point of view, she’d never thought about how hard it had to be to step into a family and wonder if they’d like her, even love her. Sage had been so selfish, so caught up in her own drama.