The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 32
Sophie stopped inside the study and looked from the divorce papers to her father. Nothing in the room suggested an emergency—no lawyers, no medical crisis, no sudden disaster. There was only another attempt to control her life.
“What is your emergency?” she asked. Her voice remained level, but anger was already tightening beneath it. She had interrupted work and crossed the city because he had deliberately made the summons sound serious.
Mr. Swift pushed the papers toward her. “Divorce that loser husband and marry Derek. Now.” He delivered the order as if both marriages were contracts he had the authority to cancel and replace.
For a moment, Sophie could only stare at him. “That’s your emergency?” The disbelief in her voice made him scowl, but she no longer cared whether her refusal embarrassed him.
“Your husband is a loser,” he snapped. “Our stocks are tanking. Marry Derek and fix this mess.” He connected the company’s survival to her obedience, just as he had used her mother’s will to force the original engagement.
Sophie thought of Justin defending her outside the boutique, accepting a junior position without mocking her offer, and thanking her for a home he believed she had bought for him. Whatever secrets surrounded him, he had shown her more respect in days than Derek had managed in years.
“First of all, don’t call my husband a loser.” The title came naturally now, stripped of the embarrassment she once attached to their arrangement. Her father’s eyes narrowed at the defense.
“Second,” she continued, “your daughter is sleeping with Derek.” Stella shifted near the window, color rising in her face. Sophie refused to protect either of them from the truth they had created.
Mr. Swift glanced toward Stella, but only briefly. He had already decided that scandal mattered less than the merger Derek promised. “That has nothing to do with what the company needs.”
The double standard was so blatant that Sophie almost laughed. Her supposed one-night mistake had made her unworthy of Derek, yet Derek’s affair with Stella was now irrelevant because he remained financially useful.
“If you think I’m going to marry him, you’re delusional,” Sophie said. Derek had betrayed her trust and then treated her refusal as a tantrum. No falling stock price could transform him back into the man she once believed he was.
Stella stepped forward. “You’re being selfish. Everyone is suffering because you insist on playing house with some man you barely know.” Her concern sounded rehearsed, but possessiveness sharpened every mention of Derek.
Sophie faced her. “You wanted him badly enough to sleep with him. You marry him—if Daddy ever decides the family can survive the joke.” Stella flinched, confirming that her rejected proposal had already wounded her pride.
Mr. Swift struck the desk with his palm. “Enough. You will do what is necessary to protect this family.” His language reduced Sophie to an asset, useful only when traded to the right man.
“I will fix the company,” Sophie replied. Her mother had created Swift Architecture through talent and discipline, not a convenient marriage. Sophie would not preserve that legacy by surrendering it to the people dismantling her dignity.
Her father gave a humorless laugh. “With what? That call boy you dragged off the street? Derek has the connections and capital we need.” He had not seen Justin’s résumé, the housing discount, or the effortless way people in powerful places responded to him.
“I don’t need Derek.” Sophie heard the certainty in her own voice and realized she believed it. Swift Architecture could recover through work, contracts, and the value her mother had built into its name.
“You’ve embarrassed this family enough,” Mr. Swift said. “Sign the papers, apologize to Derek, and end this ridiculous performance before the market destroys us.”
Sophie looked down at the blank signature line. Signing would give her father peace, restore Derek’s pride, and make every cruel assumption about Justin appear correct.
She lifted the divorce papers, tore them cleanly in half, and let the pieces fall onto his desk. “Lastly, I will save this company without that cheating bastard—or any of you leeches.”