“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.
Sage reached around him to release the emergency stop button. “As I told you, that’s not a problem. I don’t expect anything from you. You can carry on living your life as you always have.”
“You can’t do this on your own!” he said and for the first time ever Sage saw Tyce a little unhinged. He banged his fist against the stop button to prevent it from going any farther and the car’s shudder reverberated through her.
“I am young, healthy, have huge family support and ample resources to hire the help I need to raise this child,” Sage told him, pushing a finger into his chest. “I don’t need anything from you.”
A little support would be nice, a kind word, but wishing for either was futile. Tyce wasn’t the kind, supportive type. Hot and hard, amazing, fantastic sex? Yes. Warm and reassuring? No. She’d only told him because he had the right to know and not because she expected anything from him. She didn’t want anything from him…or from any other man.
She was fine, safe, on her own.
“Miss Ballantyne?” Sage jumped at the disembodied voice coming from a speaker above her head. “Is everything alright in there?”
She nodded at the camera in the top corner of the elevator. “Everything is fine, thank you. We’re just having a chat.”
Chat? They were having a life-changing conversation. There was nothing chatty about it.
“Okay then.” The voice sounded dubious. “Um? Do you think you could, um, chat somewhere else? There are people waiting for the elevator.”