“Okay, well...” Sage bit her bottom lip and looked around. “Give me a call if you want to chat about this some more.”
Tyce looked like a hard-assed warrior about to go to battle. “Oh, hell, no, we’re leaving together.”
Sage frowned at his high-handed comment. She wasn’t ready to leave. This cocktail party and exhibition of the Ballantyne family jewelry collection was the culmination of their latest PR campaign to attract new customers. Her family was all in attendance and she was expected to stick around. Not that anyone would notice if she left... Her brothers Jaeger and Beck were both slow dancing with their women—Piper and Cady—and she was the last thing on their minds. Her oldest brother, Linc, who’d brought Tate, his son’s temporary nanny, to the party, was nowhere to be seen.
Sage was sure that she could leave and no one would be any wiser but that would mean leaving with Tyce and that wasn’t an option. “I don’t think so.”
“Walk out with me or I swear, I’ll toss you over my shoulder and walk you out that way.”
His alpha bossiness only turned her on when they were naked but since they weren’t—and would never be again—his terse tone ticked her off. She opened her mouth to blast him and closed it again at the determination in his eyes. She could either leave walking or over his shoulder and she didn’t want a scene to ruin this fabulous evening. Sage glared at him, picked up her designer clutch and walked with him into the foyer of the ballroom. She collected her coat and went to stand by the elevators.
The doors opened, Sage followed Tyce into the cube and pushed the button for the first floor. As the doors closed, the spacious interior shrunk with a big, broad, freaked-out man inside.
Tyce slapped his hand against the emergency stop button.
“What the hell, Sage? You’re pregnant?”
Obviously, he was taking some time to process the news. Sage winced at his shout, his words bouncing off the wood paneling. She lifted her hands as the elevator shuddered to a stop.
“Okay, calm down, Tyce.”
Pathetic as it was, it was all she could think of to say. Even furious, he was ludicrously good-looking. Blue-black hair cut stylishly with short back and sides, equally dark eyebrows over those black sultry eyes. When he smiled, which was, in her opinion, far too rarely, he could charm birds down from trees, criminals into converting and start polar caps melting. Sage wished that she could say Tyce Latimore was just a pretty face but he was so much more than that. He was tall, a few inches above six foot and his body, that body she’d licked and explored and teased and tasted, was all muscle honed from a lifetime dedicated to martial arts. Tae Kwon Do, judo, Krav Maga...they’d all contributed to creating a body that was spectacular and spectacularly sexy. The hair on her arms lifted and her fingers ached to touch him. Her off-the-shoulder silk dress felt abrasive against her sensitive skin and want and need danced through her.
Focus, Sage. Sheesh.
Tyce pushed his jacket back to place his hands on his hips, his expression summer-storm vicious. “Are you messing with me?”
Sage just barely restrained herself from rolling her eyes at his question.
“Yeah, Tyce,” she sarcastically muttered. “I crave your attention that much that I’d make up a story like this to play games with your head!” Seeing his still skeptical face, she shook her head and, needing support, she leaned her back against the wall of the elevator. “I am pregnant. Since you’re the only guy I’ve slept with in the three months—” Three years, she mentally corrected, but she wasn’t telling him that! “—I think it’s safe to assume that the kid is yours.”
“But we used condoms,” Tyce said, pushing his shaking hands into his hair.
Sage blushed. “That first time...you did slide in without a condom. You put one on later but maybe...” Lord, this was embarrassing! “...something slipped past.”
Tyce stared at her, his hands linked behind his head and his expression stricken with panic and fear. “I can’t be a father, Sage. I don’t want to be a father. I don’t want kids!”
Sage assumed as much.