“Why not? Is it stolen?”
Sage glared at him. “No, it’s not stolen.” She sighed and Tyce noticed her eyes darkening with something akin to pain. “I asked Linc not to exhibit the ring. For personal reasons.” Before he could ask what those personal reasons were Sage held up her hand and continued to speak. “Not going there, not now, not ever.”
Yeah, good idea. Talking was a damn good way to crack the door allowing those pesky feelings to slide on through. They had enough to deal with as it was and they didn’t need emotions muddying the water.
Bare feet peeking out from under the long hem of her jeans, Sage walked back to the center of the room and sat down on one of the two couches.
Tyce sat in the far corner on the couch opposite her, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. If she was in arms’ reach, then there was a damn good chance that he’d say to hell with talking and take her to bed. As his lack of control in the alley earlier showed, resisting Sage was not something he’d ever excelled at. And, he admitted, making love to her would be like adding C-4 to a bonfire. Stupid and dumb-ass crazy.
They were adults and they had to have a mature conversation about their situation. Tyce thought that adulthood wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be…
Then again, it was a damn sight better than being a child trying to operate in an adult world.
Sage pulled up her feet and tucked them beneath her bottom. She still looked a little shell-shocked and he couldn’t blame her. Nothing was simple about this situation… Nothing ever would be.
While he wasn’t a talker, he did concede that sometimes the only way to move forward was to communicate. Dammit, something else he wasn’t great at.
“Are you still mad because I deliberately set out to meet you?” Tyce asked, keeping his voice mild.
“You used me!”
Initially he had. He’d asked her out that first night because she was Sage Ballantyne, because he’d just found out that Lachlyn was Connor’s daughter and, in his anger, he’d thought that Sage was living Lachlyn’s life. He’d expected to find a pampered princess, someone he would despise, but Sage had turned out to be totally different. She was funny, down-to-earth, a little crazy.
“Within an hour of meeting I established that, while you adored your family, you wouldn’t talk about them. I also quickly realized that you weren’t that interested in the business side of the company.”
He caught the defiance in her eyes but he knew she was listening.
“If I was only interested in you for business information, I wouldn’t have bothered to call you again,” Tyce told her. “I paid a fair price for every share I purchased. I bought enough shares to bring Lachlyn to your attention, which was my eventual goal. Hearing that you are pregnant with my child moved my schedule up a bit. I haven’t cheated anyone out of anything.”
“You’re blackmailing us!” Sage retorted but he saw the doubt in her expression. Tyce didn’t feel offended, realizing that she was just trying to find solid ground, trying to make sense of this situation.
“I’m asking for DNA to be tested and if that DNA proves my theory, I am asking for my sister to meet you and your brothers. I am not asking for money, time or involvement.” Tyce rested his forearms on his thighs, his eyes steady on her face.
Sage picked at the rip on her thigh, opening up a hole in the denim that wasn’t there before.
She looked so lost and alone, out of her depth. Easily able to identify with those emotions, Tyce ignored his brain’s insistence to play it cool. He moved across the bare wooden floorboards and dropped in front of her, bending his knees and linking his hands. “I wanted to tell you first, Sage, but you wouldn’t take my calls.”
Sage opened her mouth to argue and abruptly closed it again. Yeah, she couldn’t argue that point. “You wouldn’t talk to me so I went on to plan B.”
Sage looked past him, to a painting on the far wall, and Tyce followed her gaze. It was the back view of a ballerina but unlike Degas’s pretty, perfect renditions of the dancers, Tyce’s piece was full of angst, accurately capturing the pain and persistence a dancer went through to achieve perfection. The dancer, dressed in a grubby tutu, her hair falling out of her bun, was massaging her toes, fatigue and pain radiating from her. It was one of his early pieces but emotion poured from it. It was good, he supposed. Not great, but good. Tyce idly wondered when Sage had bought it and why. He knew that she loved ballet but it wasn’t, after all, a Degas, an artist whose work she could afford.
“Tell me about your sister,” Sage commanded, her eyes clashing with his.