“What failure, father?” Sylvain demanded. “My whole life, under your care, I have done as you’ve asked. And what did it grant me? Ridicule! Pain!”
He almost tore his shirt off to show the marks, he was so angry.
“You could have been somebody great,” his father said. “You could have renewed the family legacy. You could have made something of yourself.”
Sylvain could not believe his ears. “Have I not done exactly that with the IBM acquisition? Have I not done exactly that when I became the youngest to graduate Oxford in decades?”
“Pitiful accomplishments,” his father said.
The conversation was going around in circles—Sylvain knew he had to end it sooner than later.
“What about Bianca?” Sylvain asked softly. He leaned over his father’s desk. “If you consider me a failure, what do you think of her?”
“You ask me not to speak of Alicia? Grant me the courtesy of doing the same about your sister.”
“It’s because she reminds you of Marie, isn’t it?” Sylvain asked. Marie was his deceased mother. She’d be gone fifteen years next February. The circumstances of her death were suspicious… but they were never anything Sylvan ventured to explore in depth.
His father stilled. He turned back on Sylvain and regarded him with those cold, white eyes.
“Get out,” he said softly.
Sylvain did not move. He stared right back at his father, defiant, in control, and finally, as a man.
He was the little boy who could be intimidated no longer.
“OUT!” his father screamed. “Out, out, get out!”
He raised his cane…
“Fine,” Sylvain said. “But I go on my terms. Not yours. Leila will no longer warm your bed at night. She is the first person I free from your clutches.”
As I will free Bianca, he thought.
Chapter Twenty-One
The rest of the week passed slowly.
Sylvain’s father had taken to throwing tantrums at the slightest provocation. Nothing was ever good enough for him. Every meal Leila prepared, every load of laundry she did, all of it was wrong.
The poor girl did not understand. They had been just fine, before.
Sylvain felt for her. But she would have to learn the lesson on her own.
Once, about four days into his stay, Sylvain caught her crying in one of the hidden nooks in the cold stone halls.
He’d hesitated shortly before approaching her. She had not taken him up on his offer to move her into the room next to his yet.
He did not want to press her. He simply wanted to give her the choice, and enable her to make it on her own:
Him, or his father.
As soon as she realized she wasn’t alone she tried to stem her tears. But Sylvain did not judge. He sat down next to her, and, against all the instincts beaten into him by his father, put one arm around her shoulders.
She sniffled. She remained tight. Sylvain cooed something in her ear.
Right away, she melted into him.
From there it was a few short steps to the bedroom. Leila needed comfort. Sylvain was willing to give it… after a fashion.
They did not speak as they had sex. The whole thing was a silent affair.
When they were done, Leila squeezed his hand. “Thank you,” she whispered, and kissed his cheek.
Then she left his bed. They did not speak again for nearly two weeks.
**
Sylvain began walking daily with Bianca.
He was appalled to discover that she’d set up her own boundaries within the castle. She had very clear ideas about where she could go, and where she could not.
They were not based on any logic Sylvain could understand.
She did not—would not ever—go outside.
She preferred to stay in her tower most of the time. The easiest way for Sylvain to get her out was to offer to play the piano for her. Music was the only thing that brought true joy to Bianca’s eyes.
And, selfish as it may be, Sylvain relished the opportunity to lose himself in his playing.
From time to time he checked in on his stocks. Everything was running as expected. He’d adjusted the algorithms once or twice so that only a small trickle of money came into his accounts. He felt it too easy—like a tap he could turn off and on.
Somehow, accumulating more lost its appeal.
He’d sent Anderson back to America the second week. The man was growing restless on the property. Sylvain did not blame him. Moreover, he knew that his loyalty only went so far.
Best not to test it, yet.
The third week in, Sylvain finally succeeded in doing what he’d set out to at the very start:
He got Bianca to go outside.
They walked through the gardens together. She clung to his arm like a frightened child, at first. It was a beautiful day, with the high sun of summer making everything look bright and magical.
For a time, Sylvain could almost forget where he was. The Alastair Estate held many bad memories for him, but those were in the past. Compared to the facility where he’d wasted the last half-decade of his life?
This was a blessing.
“Oh, Sylvain, Sylvain, look!” Bianca suddenly exclaimed. She released his arm and chased after a butterfly.
Sylvain watched her, his expression fixed. Bianca looked so happy in moments like this. But he knew them to be temporary. The overwhelming majority of her life was filled with blackness.
That’s why it was hard to share in her joy. He could not do it—not truly.
Because he had little clue what her future held.
He could support her for years. Of course he could. It was never a question of money.
But if she was here, on her own, always isolated… how could she remember, how could she reintegrate with the outside world?
Sylvain did not know if such a proposition was even feasible.
“Come, Sylvain!” Bianca called. “Come, come, come, look at this!”
He gave in to her then. A smile formed on his lips as he jogged over.
His sister was crouched over something in the bush. She was playing with it, with a huge, enormous grin on her face…
“Hey,” Sylvain said lightly. “What do you have…
“Oh.”
Everything about the moment immediately darkened.
There was a dead cat on the ground. By the looks of it, and the smell, it had been there for days.
Bianca was busy propping it up and making it dance for her like a string puppet. She hummed the melody of the piece Sylvain had played for her that morning.
“Bianca,” Sylvain said seriously. “Step away.”
His sister ignored him. She continued to play with the dead animal.
“Bianca,” Sylvain repeated. He took her arm. “I said, step away.”
“No!” she said. She grabbed the cat and hugged it to her chest. “He’s my Fluffy!”
Such revulsion stormed in Sylvian then that he could not stop himself. He ripped the cat out of her arms and tore it away. He threw it in the bush and hauled Bianca up.
She cried out as he did. Sylvain heard a pop. Horror took him as he felt her arm go limp.
The sound had come from her shoulder. He’d dislocated her arm!
She curled into herself and began to bawl.
“Bianca…” Sylvain stared, lost for words. He released her.
She clutched her useless arm and ran toward the castle.
“Bianca!” Sylvain called. “Bianca, wait! I’m sorry—”
But he knew his words would never reach her.
Disgusted, he wiped his soiled hand against his pants. An awful hollowness filled his insides. He watched his sister go, watched her shape disappear into the castle…
And then, Sylvain looked up… and found his father’s figure, watching him, clear against the window of his study.
He’d seen the entire spectacle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Bianca!” Sylvai
n banged on the door. “Bianca, come out! Bianca, let me apologize! Let me—”
“It’s no use,” Leila said.
Sylvain spun around. He hadn’t heard her come up.
“When your sister falls into one of her fits, there’s no telling how long it will last.”
There was something different about the girl. She seemed more… confident.
“You can yell and pound and scream all you want,” she continued. “None of it will help. She’ll only come out once she’s ready.”
“Last time,” Sylvain said impatiently. “She came out for me.”
He turned again to the door and raised his fist. “Bianca!”
“You’re wasting your breath. I’ve seen how much you care for your sister. If you truly want what’s best for her, you will let her be.”
“And what do you expect me to do?” Sylvain demanded. “Simply forget what happened?”
“I did not say that, Mr. Alastair.” Leila took his arm. Sylvain was appalled by her forwardness, but he did not raise issue. “I know how you sister is. She does not respond well to raised voices or outright threats. You attack her, and she will simply retreat.”
Sylvain exhaled a tight breath. He knew Leila was right.
“What, then?” he asked.
“You wait it out,” she said. “And I… I can keep you company, if you’ll have me.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sylvain lay on the bed, hands clutching Leila’s hips, as she rode him hard.
“Oh, oh, oh yes!” she moaned. “Yes, Sylvain, yes, Mr. Alastair, yes, yes, yes!”
Sylvain tried to focus on the beautiful, fresh young woman above him. His cock was fully into it.
But his mind was not.
Leila bounced up and down and gyrated her hips. She rubbed her clit with one hand. With the other, she grabbed her tits and squeezed them together.
Her breaths began to quicken. They started to hitch. Her eyes rolled back, and she moaned loudly as the orgasm took hold.
She rode every last bit of pleasure out of his cock.
Then she collapsed onto him, spent. Her body was hot against his. His dick was still hard, and still inside her, that extra bit of connection somehow feeling vital to the moment.
She lay there… then trailed soft kisses over his jaw. “Oh you,” she told him drunkenly. “I’ve wanted that ever since our first time. And now…” she circled a finger over his shoulder, “it’s my turn to get you off.”
She turned around, ripped the condom off, and began suckling on his cock. She pumped him with one hand as her head bobbed up and down over the tip.
Sylvain tried to give in to pleasure… but this was not it.
This was a diversion, at best.
His weakness, at worst.
Then he felt his core tightening. The climax was coming. He grew harder. Leila sucked and moaned and urged him on.
He shot his load straight into her throat.
“Mmm,” she purred as she crept back to him. “That was… exquisite.” She ran a hand over his tight abs. “Don’t you agree… lover?”
Sylvain jerked up. Only one other woman had used that term with him before.
He looked at Leila. Her eyes were wide and dilated. He hated to be so crude, but he had no choice.
“Don’t call me that,” he said darkly. And, without another word, he got out of the bed and left the room.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sylvain wandered the castle for a long time after that. The whole way through, he wondered how things had gone so wrong.
He’d let his anger out on his sister. It was a brief moment where he’d lost control. He did not mean it.
But the way she’d run from him… he knew that he’d terrified her.
How long would it last? How long would she stay locked away?
How much of their progress had he forsaken?
And then, to make matters worse? He’d succumbed to Leila. He’d had meaningless sex with her… though of course, she wouldn’t see it that way. She probably thought bedding him for the second time brought all kinds of favoritism in the future. Or maybe that had been her plan all along? Maybe she was there only with the purpose of ingratiating herself to him, much as she’d done to his father.
Sylvain ground his teeth. His father, his father, his father. They’d been avoiding each other since their last conversation.
Perhaps it was time to face him.
Then again… maybe his father had sensed that his power had faded. Maybe he’d realized he could no longer intimidate Sylvain. Certainly, he couldn’t beat him.
Sylvain felt filthy. He’d fallen into the arms of Leila, scared away his dear sister, not made any progress with his father one way or the other.
What was the point?
He wished he could talk to Alicia. His heart ached for her.
But she’d made her last message very clear. She wanted him to forget her. She did not want him to look to her for anything.
Sylvain hated how things were unravelling all around him.
Well—at least he still had his fortune.
Maybe it was finally time to use some of it to discover who had betrayed him…
And think about exacting revenge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sylvain booted up his computer, opened the stock market program, and began looking for patterns.
Patterns recognition. That was what his brain was best at. It was what had made him a brilliant mathematician. He could see patterns where everybody else saw only noise.
He took the timeframe back five years, to 2003, just before the federal investigation that indicted him.
He looked at the stock data. He looked at all the trades he and his team had made.
All of it lined up. All of it was legitimate. Sylvain had never been stupid enough to conduct anything incriminating in the open.
And yet… he remembered the day of his arrest clearly. Armed police officers stormed into the office building. At first he thought there was a bomb threat. But when they came for him, when they called his name, along with the names of his various colleagues… when they’d arrested them all… Sylvain knew, he just knew, that he’d been set up.
But by whom? He had no enemies outright. Maybe there were some people envious of his success, sure, but that hardly counted.
The things Sylvain and his coworkers were accused of and charged with barely even counted as “insider trading.” They were things that were taken for granted every day in the industry. Every firm participated in it. They weren’t exactly illegal. More like in a grey area.
Maybe it was the feds simply making an example. Maybe they wanted the public to see that they would not tolerate so-called “insider trading”—particularly by foreigners.
But somebody had a vendetta against him. Because the odds of his specific firm being targeted, without provocation? They were abysmally small.
But who? That was the million-dollar question. When he found him… well, he already knew how he would get back at the man - utter financial ruin, triggered entirely by his hidden Trojan.
**
“I’m going to America,” Sylvain announced the next morning.
Leila and his father were sharing breakfast in a heavy silence in the massive dining room.
“I’ll be back in two weeks. While I’m gone?” His eyes went to the girl. “Look after my sister.”
He turned away. Halfway down the hall, he heard footsteps pattering behind him.
He looked back. Leila was just catching up to him, her cheeks flushed.
“Wait,” she said. “You’re leaving? Already? Now?”
“You said it yourself,” Sylvain answered. “Bianca will remain locked in her room until she deems herself ready to come out. Nobody can predict how long that will be. I have business to attend to on the other continent. It cannot wait.”
“So you’ll abandon us,” Leila said. “Me, and Bianca. You come, you have your fun, you turn our lives upside down—and you f
orsake us? Is that how it is?”
Sylvain was taken aback by her sudden devotion. Were those… tears, in her eyes?
He tried to keep his voice level.
“I am not abandoning you. I said I’ll be back.”
“And what about…” Leila stepped closer to him. “What about us?”
Sylvain looked at her impassively. “There is no us.”
She slapped him.
It came so fast that Sylvain had no time to react. And then, with a choked sob, Leila turned and ran the other way.
**
Sylvain stood in that spot in the hall for a long time, staring at the space Leila had run through.
He touched his cheek. The woman had actually slapped him!
He could scarcely believe it. The insolent brat! She’d hit him, him, the master of this domain. Him, her employer and clear superior.
Him, her… lover?
No. Sylvain had made it clear he did not want such associations between them.
Obviously he hadn’t been clear enough.
He debated going after her. He could not tolerate or permit such behavior.
But… a part of him actually… liked it. It showed Sylvain the girl had will. She had spunk.
And no matter how young she was, she knew what he wanted.
It reminded him vaguely of Alicia.
Hold on to that thought, he told himself. He would not alter plans to go overseas because of this incident. But he would remember… and deal with Leila properly, when he returned.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Twelve days later Sylvain was on his private jet, flying back to England.
The trip had been a grand success. Anderson had done well to lay the groundwork while Sylvain had been caring for his sister.
The culprit for all his misfortune? For the lost five years of his life?
A lowly, slighted accountant. He’d twisted the reports to make the figures look as bad as possible and then alerted the authorities to shady dealings in Sylvain’s firm.
The Alastair Affair 2: Sylvain (A Billionaire Dark Romance) Page 6
