The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 4

📖 The Story Continues

The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 4

Justin left the hotel with Sophie’s latest payment still in his pocket and her misunderstanding occupying far too much of his attention. His driver was waiting at the curb, while his assistant leaned out to greet him with the cheerful confidence of someone who had no idea how strange his employer’s morning had been.

“Hey, boss. Are we still on for golf with the senator?” his assistant asked as Justin settled into the back seat. The engagement had been arranged weeks earlier, important enough that Justin rarely would have altered it at the last moment.

“I’ve rescheduled,” Justin replied. He glanced back at the hotel entrance, but Sophie had already vanished into the Paris traffic. Whatever had begun between them seven years ago—and whatever last night had made it now—felt more urgent than an afternoon on a golf course.

“Take me to the Maple Plaza site. I need to check on a few things.” The construction project was one of several demanding his attention, and a site visit offered a useful reason to remain nearby. Justin had built his reputation by noticing details other executives ignored; today, however, one particular detail refused to leave his mind.

His assistant nodded and began updating the schedule. Before the car pulled away, Justin added, “Look into Sophie Swift for me.” He kept his tone casual, though the request was anything but.

Seven years ago, he had possessed only her name and a memory. Now he wanted to know how the generous student from Paris had become the furious woman drinking alone at a bar, why she had called Derek a cheater, and why she seemed determined to run from the consequences of their night together.

“I need to know everything about her,” Justin said. The command could have sounded cold in another man’s voice, but his interest was not merely strategic. Sophie’s pain had been real, and the threat from her sister in the corridor suggested that the betrayal surrounding her ran deeper than one unfaithful fiancé.

“Got it, boss.” His assistant entered the request without asking why. Justin turned toward the window as the city slid past, unaware that elsewhere his name remained unknown while his actions were already reshaping Sophie’s future.

At the Swift home, Derek stood before Tony with wounded pride carefully arranged across his face. Stella remained nearby, ready to support every lie he told. “If she’s going to sleep with some random male escort, I don’t want to marry her anymore,” Derek announced.

He spoke as if Sophie’s supposed betrayal had erased his own. There was no mention of how long he had been sleeping with Stella, or that Sophie had discovered them before spending the night with another man. In Derek’s version, he was the humiliated fiancé and Sophie the reckless woman who had destroyed their plans.

Tony Swift’s anger was immediate, but it was directed less at Sophie’s feelings than at the financial consequences. “But, Derek, if you don’t marry Sophie, she can’t inherit her late mother’s company,” he argued. “We talked about this.”

The marriage had never been merely a family celebration. Sophie’s mother’s will required her to marry by the age of twenty-five before she could assume control of the architecture firm, and that birthday was only days away. If she failed, the balance of power the others had counted on could shift in dangerous ways.

Derek folded his arms, pretending reluctance. “You heard what Stella said. She saw Sophie with another man. It’s not my fault.” The excuse allowed him to punish Sophie while hiding his own disloyalty behind moral outrage.

Stella lowered her gaze with practiced innocence. “Daddy, don’t be mad,” she said softly. “You know how irresponsible Sophie is.” Every word pushed Tony closer to blaming the daughter who was not present to defend herself.

Tony paced the room, calculating what a broken engagement might cost him. Sophie’s mother’s company was valuable, and Sophie’s approaching birthday had turned marriage into a deadline none of them could ignore. Derek had been selected because he was controllable, connected, and already woven into their plans.

Stella and Derek exchanged a brief look when Tony turned away. Their affair had not stopped them from expecting Sophie to marry Derek for the sake of the inheritance. They wanted access to the company without surrendering the relationship they had carried on behind her back.

Tony seized his phone and called Sophie. She did not answer the first time, which sharpened his panic into fury. He called again, imagining her wasting the final days before the deadline while the future he had arranged collapsed around him.

Sophie saw her father’s name flash across her screen while trying to return her attention to work. She knew the photographs had reached him. Her silence lasted only a moment, but it was long enough for old guilt and obligation to press against the anger she had carried from the hotel.

When she finally answered, Tony did not ask whether she was safe or why the engagement had fallen apart. He did not mention Derek’s betrayal. His voice exploded through the speaker with a command that made it clear he had already chosen whom to believe.

“Sophie, where the hell are you?” he demanded. “Come home now!” As the line crackled between them, Sophie understood that she was not being summoned as a daughter—she was being ordered back as the last obstacle between her family and her mother’s company.