by Joss Wood
These Latimores certainly had a way of making her see herself clearly.
“I can forgive you for hurting me, Sage, but I will never forgive you if you hurt Tyce. If you ask me to pick a side between you and your brothers, or Tyce, I will, always, always pick Tyce. Do not doubt that.”
Sage appreciated the sentiment and she respected Lachlyn’s loyalty to her brother.
“I’m going to head to his studio to apologize.”
“That’s not a good idea and he won’t appreciate it. Give him some time and space to deal with his anger,” Lachlyn suggested.
“Okay.” Sage rubbed the back of her neck. “I am sorry for earlier, Lachlyn. And I need you to know that it’s not my intention to hurt Tyce.”
“Really?” Lachlyn sounded skeptical. “For someone who is acting unintentionally, you’re doing a damn fine job of doing just that.”
* * *
The next evening, Sage stood in the doorway of the sitting room of The Den holding Ellie. She looked across the space to the Ballantyne women. Piper and Cady sat on the Persian carpet on either side of Amy, and Tate sat on the big leather couch close to them. Each of them held a book containing fabric swatches but only Amy was flipping through hers and cursing like a sailor. There were four books of open fabric samples on the carpet in front of her and another five on the coffee table. From her position in the doorway, Sage could only see minuscule differences in the shades of cream.
Sage rubbed her cheek against Ellie’s curls and cuddled the little girl closer. Linc had bundled her into her arms as soon as she stepped into The Den, telling her that Shaw had accidentally emptied an entire bottle of bath bubbles into his bath.
Accidentally-on-purpose, Sage was sure.
“What are you doing?” Sage asked the women.
Four heads swiveled around and Tate crossed the room to her, giving her, and Ellie, a warm hug. Ellie deserted Sage by tumbling into her mom’s arms.
Sage greeted everyone and gestured to the books. “What are you trying to decide? Can I help?”
“The exact shade of cream for the reception tablecloths.”
Behind Amy, Cady rolled her eyes, and Sage hid her smile. There had been murmurs of Amy turning into Bridezilla but only when they were very, very sure that Amy wasn’t around. Amy, as Linc and Beck’s PA, was the power behind the Ballantyne throne.
“Jules told me that I am driving her mad with the wedding arrangements and she’s threatening to kidnap me and take me to Vegas.” Amy pushed out her bottom lip. “I just want it to be perfect.”
Sage bent down and gave her a hug. “You’re overthinking it, honey. Choose one—they are all pretty much the same.”
Amy glared at the books. “I will. After I look through the books on the floor once more. How are you?”
Sage shrugged, thinking that there was no point in lying. “Horrible.” Sage plopped down into the corner of the couch and rubbed the back of her neck. “I really messed up. Again.”
Four sets of sympathetic eyes rested on her face and, for the first time ever, the words tumbled out of her as she explained what a complete idiot she’d been and how she’d hurt Lachlyn. And Tyce.
“I apologized to Lachlyn and I’ve tried to call Tyce, repeatedly, but he’s ignoring me,” Sage said.
She shoved her hands into her hair and saw the sympathetic faces. She lifted up her hand. “Don’t feel too sorry for me, guys—this was all my fault. I knew that if I allowed myself to get close that I’d get hurt.”
Sage stared at the books of fabric swatches, her eyes wet with tears. “I love him. I do. I think I always have but as soon as he gets too close, I push him away.”
Tate sank to the floor next to her legs and rested her temple against Sage’s knee. “Oh, honey. What are you going to do?”
Sage shrugged. Since this was the first time she’d frankly and openly admitted that she loved Tyce, to herself as well as to her family, she hadn’t given the next step much thought. “I don’t know. I know I need to apologize but I can’t do that unless I speak to him. And I don’t know if I can do the whole sleeping-together-without-love thing anymore. I want to tell him that I love him but I think that he might run. Fast and hard.” Sage placed a hand on her stomach. “And, man, that will hurt like a bitch and you guys know how hard I work to avoid being hurt.”
“So you love him?” Tate asked.
Sage nodded. “Yes, I love him.” Of that much she was sure. “I always have.”
“So do it,” Tate said, her voice firm.
Sage frowned. “Sorry, what?”
“So you’re scared, so he might run. Do it anyway,” Tate said, resting her hand on Sage’s thigh. “We think that we have to get rid of the fear first when, actually, what we have to do is act first. Only then does the fear go away.”
Cady nodded. “The only way to stop being afraid of loving someone is to love them.”
Sage stared at her flat biker boots. “But what if he leaves?” she quietly asked. “Or dies?”
“Then he leaves or dies,” Piper said. She climbed to her feet and, moving behind her, leaned over and wrapped her arms around Sage’s waist, her chin on her shoulder. “We can’t be responsible for, or try to control, what other people do, baby. We only have control over our actions. We can only worry about what we can control.”
Sage hugged Piper’s arms to her, her eyes filling with tears. This was what a support base felt like, what belonging to a tribe of strong women felt like. These were the Ballantyne women—Sage had always thought that Amy should change her name to Ballantyne and be done with it—and they were a unit. And, her blurry eyes focused on her niece, who was sitting in Tate’s lap, they were raising another generation of strong Ballantyne women.
Their wise counsel made sense and she was grateful for it. She wasn’t sure if she’d take their advice but she’d certainly think about it. She’d think about it a lot.
“Wine!” Amy said, standing up. “I know that Linc recently bought a case of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. He won’t miss a bottle, or three.”
Tate groaned. “He’ll kill us, Ames. It’s one of the most expensive wines in the world.”
“Pfft.” Amy waved her concerns away.
“Touch my wine and you’re fired,” Linc said, striding into the room. He walked into the center of the carpet, dropped a kiss on his wife’s head and grinned when his daughter held up her arms, her face splitting into a huge smile at the sight of her dad.
Sage fought tears and tried not to think of her baby looking at Tyce like that. She owed it to their child, she owed it to herself, to tell Tyce how she felt, to express what she wanted. If she didn’t, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.
She needed to be brave because if she wasn’t, how would she teach her child to be courageous, to take a chance?
Yes, it was scary; yes, terror was congealing her blood but Tyce was worth a little fear.
Sage just stared at the carpet—Was that a purple crayon buried in the threads?—as determination pushed fear into a corner, holding it at bay. She could do this. She would do this.
Sage stood up, smiled and headed for the door. The last thing she heard as she bolted out was Tate’s cheerful statement. “That’s our girl. Ames, the case of wine is still in the hallway—neither Linc or I have had a minute to take it down to the cellar. Go grab a bottle. Or three.”
Twelve
We really need to talk.
Tyce looked at his phone and sighed. Yeah, they did. Where are you?
Tyce waited for her reply message to appear on his screen. Sage was at The Den. Of course she was; when her world fell apart she had a place, people to run to. He didn’t. Neither did Lachlyn.
I can come to you. Are you at your studio?
Tyce shook his head, a futile gesture since Sage couldn’t see it.
Just finishe
d dinner with my agent. I’ll come to you.
Okay. I’ll wait.
Tyce stepped off the pavement and raised his arm to hail a taxi, cursing when the cab cruised past him. He jammed his bare hands into the pockets of his leather bomber jacket.
Another yellow cab turned down the street and Tyce held up his hand, thinking he’d lose it if the cab didn’t stop. It did and he yanked the door open and climbed inside, tossing the address to the driver. He dropped his temple to the cool window and, staring at the rain-soaked city, he became aware of the headache pounding his temples.
Too much talking, he thought. His argument with Sage left a sour taste in his mouth and a stain on his soul. Every time he felt like they were moving forward, Sage pushed them backward.
Tyce felt the hard knot of tension in his stomach, knowing it was there because he was sure that she was going to call it off, to put them firmly in the friends and co-parent category.
He couldn’t blame her because how could they keep taking five steps forward and six backward?
They’d been together for nearly a month and their expiration date was closing in on them. Sage had to be feeling antsy and, like before, she wanted out.
Tyce ordered his heart to pick itself up from the floor. Breaking up wasn’t a bad move, Tyce rationalized, because he knew that being alone was so much easier. When he was alone he didn’t feel drained. Lonely? Sure. Emotionally exhausted? No.
He hadn’t been so at sea since before his mom died, and he’d forgotten what it felt like to feel. It wasn’t fun. Tyce felt like he was walking along the edge of a precipice, one slip and he’d crash and break. Yeah, he could move on from this fight but there would always be another, and another...
He’d escaped a life of emotional drama; he’d run from relationships because he hated feeling like he was a vessel constantly being emptied and never refilled.
These fights, dealing with Sage’s issues, sucked him dry. His thoughts were a million miles from his art, from his livelihood and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He had a bank account to replenish and he’d need every ounce of energy he had to deal with becoming a dad, being the best father he could.
So when Sage called it quits, he’d kiss her on the cheek and walk away because, dammit, he was better off alone. He knew how to be alone. Loneliness didn’t scare him; emotion did. When he lived his life alone, he had control, he was in his comfort zone.
Sage, this up-and-down relationship, took him way out of his comfort zone. He’d started to rely on her when he’d only ever relied on himself.
That scared the living hell out of him. What had he been thinking?
Enough of that, Tyce suddenly decided. He couldn’t, wouldn’t do that anymore.
If she, he, they, called it quits today—and that was going to happen—then they’d have four or five months on their own to get used to the idea of not sleeping together—of not sharing a life together. They’d be able to act like mature adults as they figured out a way to raise their child together.
But he’d always want her...
Don’t think about that, dingbat. Don’t go there... You have to do this or else you are going to be miserable for the rest of your life.
Okay, more miserable, he clarified.
His decision made—God, it might be the right one but it still sucked—Tyce moved on to problem number two. Before the week was out, their lives—all their lives, his, Sage’s, Lachlyn’s and the rest of the Ballantynes’—would be turned on their heads. Turned on their heads? Tyce snorted at his choice of words. There was a crap storm coming and there was no hiding from it.
Earlier Lachlyn called and told him that she’d been accosted by a reporter on her way to work and had been subjected to a barrage of questions. Was she Connor’s daughter? Did the Ballantynes know? Was she owner of Lach-Ty, the company that’d made bulk purchases of Ballantyne shares? Lachlyn sounded like she was on the verge of tears and Tyce could hear the relentless yapping of the reporter in the background. He’d rapidly changed directions to go to Lachlyn, to see who was harassing her and to try to ascertain how much the reporter actually knew.
The guy knew a lot more than Tyce was comfortable with. When he arrived on Lachlyn’s doorstep, Tyce got into his face, demanding to know where he’d stumbled across this information. The young reporter, at least a foot shorter than Tyce but ridiculously confident, refused to divulge his sources. Tyce endured fifteen minutes batting off his pointed questions, hoping for a hint of the source, but he earned nothing more than a headache.
After the reporter left, he spent another hour with Lachlyn, watching her pace her living room and listening to her rambling commentary about the Ballantynes and whether she wanted to become a member of the famous family or not. Of course she did; she liked all of them. She was just rattled by the reporter’s verbal attack.
Whether she wanted to or not, Tyce knew that she no longer had a choice. The story was going to break sooner rather than later and all they could do was manage the process. Maybe they should just announce Sage’s pregnancy at the same time; it might get lost in the bigger news of a brand-new Ballantyne. If they announced it at a later stage, it would just give this story legs. Damned press, why couldn’t they just leave them the hell alone to walk through the chaos of their lives on their own?
Realizing that the taxi had pulled up outside The Den, Tyce paid the cab driver and walked through the gate and up those imposing steps.
This would be the last time, for a while at least, that he’d stand in front of this door, the last time he’d see Sage.
They had to do this, he reminded himself, placing his hand on the door. Because a little hurt now would avoid open heart surgery later.
He didn’t need her; he didn’t anyone. He never had.
* * *
Sage, sitting on a stair halfway up to the next floor, saw Linc open the front door to The Den and looked through the slats down into the hallway and watched Tyce step into her childhood home.
This is it, she thought, do or die.
She knew that if she didn’t ask for what she wanted, she had no chance of getting it, that if she didn’t step forward she’d always be in the same place.
It was an easy concept to think about but putting those words into action was going to be an act of epic proportions.
Oh, God...she was about to risk her heart, her pride, her damned safety when she told Tyce that she wanted more, needed more... What the hell was she doing? Was she mad?
Do it anyway, a little voice said inside her. Whether it’s mad or not, safe or not, do it anyway.
Sage stood up and Tyce immediately looked up, frustration and something that might be fear in his eyes. Sage walked down the staircase, her hand resting on her belly, noticing the purple stripes under Tyce’s eyes.
Yeah, she hadn’t slept much either.
“Hey,” Sage said, stopping on the last step, her hand gripping the banister.
“Hey.”
“Thanks for coming over.”
Tyce jammed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and shrugged. “Sure.”
Sage heard footsteps and looked past Tyce’s shoulder. Oh, God, the crew from downstairs were now all in the hall, their faces alight with curiosity. Did they really expect her to spill her soul in front of them? It was a strong possibility.
“We’re all heading out,” Amy said, holding a book of fabric swatches under her arm.
“Give us five seconds to grab our coats and we’ll get out of your way,” Piper said, her eyes darting between her face and Tyce.
Tyce waved them into the room. “Hell, come on in,” he said. “When have Sage and I ever had a conversation that you lot haven’t, in some way, been a part of?”
He sounded blasé but Sage could see the tension in his body, the anger in his eyes.
“That’s not fair!” Sage hurled th
e words at him. She reined in her temper and concentrated on her breathing. If they started a fight now, if they waited for the crew to leave, she’d never say what she needed to.
Ignoring her family, Sage focused on Tyce, moving up to him and placing her hand on his heart. “I’m sorry. I was so completely out of line and I’m asking for your forgiveness.”
Tyce pushed an agitated hand through his hair and stepped back, breaking the contact between them. When she didn’t speak again, Tyce lifted an eyebrow.
“That it?” he asked and gestured to the door. “If yes, then I’m going to head out because I’m pretty beat.”
Sage heard, and ignored, the gasp from her audience. “No, that’s not it,” Sage said, forcing steel into her spine. Putting her hands behind her back, she twisted her fingers together.
“I can’t do this anymore.” Sage picked out her words, careful with each one.
Tyce handed her a quick, jerky nod. “Yeah, me neither. Let’s just call it quits before this blows up in our faces.”
Oh, God, oh, Jesus. Sage placed her hand on her stomach as his words smacked into her. He was breaking up with her?
What the hell?
Sage fought the instinct to back away, to agree with him. It would be so easy to smile, to nod, to agree with his assessment of the situation. To allow him to walk away. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted a lover, a partner, someone to live her life with, to share the momentous occasions and the ordinary.
She wanted him in her life on an everyday basis.
Sage shook her head. “I’m sorry you feel that way but that wasn’t what I was going to say.”
Tyce frowned. “Sorry?”
“I don’t want to break up, in fact I’d like us to be together. Permanently.”
Tyce just stared at her, shock on his face. Sage didn’t know what else to say, how to express her heart, how to ask for what she wanted. Didn’t he understand that she was willing to risk her stable, constant life for one filled with a lot of passion, a little uncertainty, risk? Didn’t he understand how hard it was for her to be in this position, to love someone so much and be scared of being rejected? Words, pleading, desperate words bubbled in her throat and as they rose they burst apart and all that remained was a bitter taste on her tongue.