Page 17 of Outcast’s Vow

It’s all I get. Sylvie doesn’t say another thing to me for the rest of the flight.

And I am left stewing with the thought that I might have won the Chase, but I didn’t win her.

But I smile to myself.

Not yet.

7

SYLVIE

Stepping down from the private jet, finally back on American soil after the Chase, I immediately spot the four black SUVs parked and waiting for me on the tarmac. And my eyes can’t roll further into the back of my head.

This show of force means only one thing.

My father is here.

I didn’t ask for him and his private army to pick me up. I was perfectly happy to hail my own cab back home from the airport, but clearly Father wants to speak to me. And what Father wants, Father gets.

I glance back at Baptiste, still in the cabin of the private jet. He’s got his back to me, talking to the pilot. He said that we were to part ways before the wedding, so he won’t be coming with me down this ramp to my waiting father.

Lucky him.

Looking at Baptiste, I must confess there’s a part of me that wishes to stay with him. That there’s a magnetic pull tugging me toward this enigmatic, infuriating, standoffish...

He’s got something about him. Something I can’t place. It’s a self-reassurance. A dark, quiet charisma. I’m worried about the impossible effect he’s already having on me.

But now I am forced to deal with the other man intruding into my life.

And so, I square up. I step down the ramp toward the waiting convoy as the chilly New York wind whips my face. The air tastes sharp.

This is certainly no longer a tropical rainforest.

I’m back in the real world. A world full of men with dark plans. A more dangerous world than the wild island.

A burly man in a black suit gets out of the lead SUV and opens the back passenger door for me. I can see Elwood Levine, Supreme Elder of the Castaways and international shipping magnate, sitting inside with his perfectly relaxed posture, ready to receive his daughter.

“Welcome home, Sylvie,” my father says when the car door is shut behind me like a stone rolled in front of a tomb.

Father looks after himself. Well, he certainly has the wealth to do so. In his early sixties, his dark blond hair is cut perfectly short. His arched eyebrows give him a sense of determined aggression, while his dark brown eyes reveal nothing. He is a man used to high-end stressful deals. Of quashing business rebellions and talking down to heads of state.

He’s wearing a black suit. The cufflinks are a gift from the King of the UK, his tie was specially commissioned by the former prime minister of Italy, and his shoes are a birthday present from the most powerful mob boss in the Philippines.

He is undeniably an intimidating man.

And he is my father.

“Please don’t speak about what just happened,” I mutter as we drive away from the airport accompanied by the other SUVs. “Please don’t lord it over me. I know what happened, and I acknowledge it. I lost. I got caught. You were right that someone would find me. You can rest easy tonight knowing your daughter failed.”

Father doesn’t smirk – he doesn’t normally tend to reveal what he’s feeling – but I sense the smugness radiating off him.

“You really thought you could hide, Sylvie?”

“I did.”

“Oh, my sweet daughter. You were wrong.”

Every conversation with Father is a battle. A test. A passive-aggressive probing of will and wit.