The Call Boy I Met in Paris – Episode 63
Justin’s playful expression softened as Sophie rested her hands against his chest. “It is all about you,” he said. The words held none of the practiced charm she had once associated with the man she believed she hired. “I just want to protect you.”
Sophie searched his face for exaggeration and found only concern. “You already have.”
“Then stop putting yourself in danger for me.” His thumb brushed the edge of her cheek. “You met Stella at the café because you wanted proof about my painting, did you not?”
She hesitated. “How did you know?”
“Because you are my wife, and I want to know everything about you.” Justin’s honesty made the statement intimate rather than possessive. “It is my job to keep you safe.”
“That sounds dangerously close to spying.”
“Only if you keep disappearing into traps.” He lowered his forehead to hers. “I am serious, Sophie. The painting is replaceable. You are not.”
The certainty in his voice quieted her instinct to argue. She had gone to Stella partly for Justin, but also because exposing the theft offered a path toward questions about her mother. Admitting the difference did not change how close she had come to losing control of her own life.
“Okay,” she said. “No more confronting suspected criminals alone.”
“That is a beginning.”
He kissed her gently, without the urgency that had once made every touch between them feel like a challenge. Sophie leaned into him, allowing the affection to exist without naming what it meant for their contract.
Her phone rang inside her clutch. The screen showed Kendall, her trusted colleague at Swift Enterprise, calling twice in immediate succession.
“Sophie, wake up,” Kendall said the moment she answered, too anxious to offer a greeting. “Mr. Cooper and your father were conspiring in the office this morning. They are planning to remove you from your position.”
The warmth of the corridor vanished. Robert Cooper was the company’s vice president, a veteran executive with enough allies on the board to turn her father’s resentment into a formal vote.
“How soon?” Sophie asked.
“Immediately. You need to come back so we can discuss the next step. They are already contacting directors.”
Sophie glanced at Justin, who had heard enough to understand. “Send me everything you have collected on Cooper. I will be there.”
She ended the call and squared her shoulders. The night had begun with Stella celebrating a stolen victory. It would end with Sophie preparing to stop her father from stealing the company as well.