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.”
Sage turned around slowly, her eyes wide. Connor’s boardroom was a little-known boardroom on the top floor of the Ballantyne building. It was only accessible by an elevator within the iconic jewelry store, Ballantyne’s on Fifth, on the ground floor of this building or by a nondescript steel door at the back of the building. The room was used for very high-profile clients who demanded anonymity, buyers and sellers of gems who demanded that their movements not be brought to public attention. Or any attention at all.
Sage frowned, realizing that she had to head downstairs, enter the store and then use the elevator. It was a pain in her ass and she was guaranteed to be late.
“Dammit.”
Waving a quick goodbye at Amy, Sage headed back to the private elevator that would take her directly into the back rooms of Ballantyne’s on Fifth. As she stepped into the hallway, Sage tossed a look over her shoulder and saw Amy standing behind her desk, still looking worried. Worried and hurt. It was an expression she’d seen on many faces over the years and she felt the familiar stab of guilt-slicked pain.
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.