Page 92 of Outcast’s Vow

I wipe it away, but Sylvie still hoots.

* * *

“Thank you for telling me about your mom the other night,” Sylvie says to me as we drive back to the penthouse. “I’ve been thinking about it, and how you were open with me, and how I want to be open with you, and there’s something I want to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Gone are the ice creams and the joking around.

“It’s about my ex,” Sylvie says. “Is that okay? We don’t have to talk about him.”

She fidgets with her nails, her chest rising and falling sporadically. Her entire demeanor has shifted since our playdate by the riverside. She’s nervous as hell about this.

“You can say anything to me,” I tell her in a deep voice. “You know that.”

Sylvie nods. Then nods again, summoning courage.

“Okay. Well, it’s something I’ve kept away from others. No one really knows what went down with Ethan, except for both him and me. Not even Father.”

“What happened?”

Sylvie tightens her lips and takes a moment.

“He refused to touch me,” she mutters quietly, avoiding my gaze.

“What?”

“He didn’t kiss me. He didn’t show me any signs of affection.”

The city streaks past our window, but all my attention is on the road ahead and on my wife.

“You’re saying he didn’t care for you? Then why the hell was he with you?”

“Because of Father,” Sylvie explains, her voice trembling. “They liked each other. On paper, Ethan Thornton and I were a perfect match. He’s from a respectable family and inherited wealth. Father would’ve loved to have walked me down the aisle to him.”

“Something happened between you two,” I say. “Tell me what it was.”

Another moment of Sylvie fidgeting and breathing heavily.

“I caught him cheating with another woman. At a party.”

“Oh.”

“He was there,” my wife explains, her head bowed as her fingernails dig into her palms. “With her. They weren’t even trying to hide it. They were on the couch with hands and lips all over each other. I remember freezing. I remember being so ashamed. Embarrassed. Humiliated. Everyone saw it, and the rumors spread quickly. Everyone found out, and it felt like I was being judged. The one thing we women in the Castaways should do is keep our men satisfied, but this was my man showing the world that I couldn’t please him. And the worst thing is that he didn’t care.”

I go still.

Her face is so full of pain, reliving that moment. Her pain sears into me. Every instinct of mine wants to soothe her. To seek vengeance against the man who wronged her.

To make sure my wife is protected.

“Sylvie, that had nothing to do with you. That was all him. That was him being a weak man. That was him betraying you.”

“Father would’ve wanted me to look the other way, but the way Ethan did it was so brazen. I felt so hurt, Baptiste. I knew Ethan didn’t care for me, but to betray me like that? It ruined me.”

I grip the steering wheel tight. Fury flows through me. The way Sylvie speaks. The soft, vulnerable quiver in her voice. It makes me want to turn this car around and find this son of a bitch.

“This is the man who’s made you insecure?” I ask her in a low voice.