He wasn’t okay with it and walking away from her had frickin’ ripped his heart and soul in two. Not to be melodramatic or anything.
“Do you know how much courage it took for Sage to open herself up to you, to ask for something more?” Linc demanded.
“She pushes people away!” Tyce protested, trying to grasp a straw that wasn’t there.
“Sure, until she asked you to step in the ring with her. And you still haven’t realized that when Sage pushes the hardest is when she most wants someone to push her back and not take no for an answer.”
Jaeger sent him a cocky smile. “She might be our sister but she’s a hell of a catch, Latimore. And you walked away from her? Moron.”
Linc’s fist slammed into Jaeger’s biceps. “You are not helping!”
Tyce was barely aware of the hissed argument going on below him. He felt like Linc had handed him a new pair of glasses and a fuzzy world had just become clear. Linc’s words resonated deep inside him and he knew them to be pure truth.
Sage had stepped way out of her comfort zone to ask him to love her and, God, he now, finally, could appreciate it. With this new knowledge, the last pieces of the puzzle that made up the full picture of his lover, his only love, fell into place.
She was his it, that indefinable, amazing, better part of his soul. He needed to go to her, to sort this out, but…
Hell. There was a damn good chance that he’d blown his opportunity with her, that she’d refuse to allow him back into her life. Tyce pushed his shoulders back, determination coursing through him. To hell with that. He did love her and Sage did need someone to push her back, to not take no for an answer. And he was the man to do it. He’d bucked the system all his life but, at the most important time, he’d walked away from the most vital thing in his life.
Jaeger, this one time, was right. Tyce was a moron.
He walked across the catwalk and jogged down the stairs to the concrete floor below. He looked at Linc. “I hear you.”
“Hearing is one thing but are you going to do something about it?”
Tyce nodded. “I am.”
Beck cleared his throat and sent him a smile that shriveled his sack. “Good to know. Now, there’s just one more thing we need to do.”
“What’s that?”
Jaeger cocked his head. “You made Sage cry,” he said, sounding like he was ordering a cup of coffee.
Oh, crap. They said they’d rip him apart if he made Sage cry and judging by their hard expressions, she’d been crying a lot. Well, he was a fighter; he could tolerate three punches. Once it was done, they could all move on.
“Jesus,” he muttered as he stood in front of the three Ballantyne brothers, bracing himself for what was to come. “Okay, take your hit.”
Jaeger and Beck exchanged looks and Reame just grinned. Jaeger lifted a dark eyebrow, his eyes dark and cold. “You’re going to make it right with Sage?”
Tyce nodded. “I already said that, didn’t I? Yeah, I’m going to make it right.” Damn, waiting for a punch was worse than the punch itself.
“If you hurt her again, we’ll set Reame on you and he’s a sneaky son of a bitch with mad skills. He’d do some damage,” Beck told him, echoing Jaeger’s icy demeanor.
“Understood.” Tyce nodded. He looked at Linc, relieved that he’d avoided being hit by Sage’s hotheaded brothers. They were more gracious than he might have been if some guy messed Lachlyn around. Linc looked like he always did, calm and controlled.
Okay then, dodged a bullet. Phew.
Tyce pulled in a breath, started to take his hands out of his pockets, thinking that he’d invite them upstairs. The big fist came out of nowhere, slammed into his jaw and he dropped backward, his butt connecting with the cold and very hard concrete. Crap, that hurt. Tyce looked up at Linc, who had a self-satisfied smile on his face.
Right, he hadn’t seen that coming, Tyce thought, holding his jaw. “God, it hurts like a mother,” he moaned.
“Good.” Linc held out his hand to Tyce to pull him up. “You got coffee? We still have business to discuss before you go groveling back to Sage. And you will grovel.”
“I will grovel,” Tyce agreed, allowing Linc to pull him up. Holding his jaw, he lifted his eyebrows. “What business?”
Linc gestured to an amused Jaeger and Beck. “We’re going to repay you the money you spent buying Lach-Ty shares. We inherited Connor’s money so we’ll spend it to reimburse you for Lachlyn’s share of the company. We’ll also add her as a co-owner of the assets we own jointly, like the art collection, the properties and the gem collection.”