PARISIAN HEARTS

Chapter 6

Adrien walked briskly down the street, his phone vibrating again. He couldn’t avoid it any longer. With a sigh, he answered.

“What is it, Sophie?”

“Don’t ‘what is it’ me, Adrien!” Sophie’s voice was sharp, her frustration cutting through the line. “You’ve been avoiding me all week. We need to talk.”

Adrien rubbed his temples, the headache that had been brewing all morning now fully formed. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy with what? Staring at the river? You think I don’t know you’ve been disappearing from meetings, skipping calls? This is important, Adrien. Our families are expecting us to move forward, and you’re acting like none of it matters!”

He could feel his patience wearing thin. Sophie had always been demanding, but lately, it felt like everything she said was an order, a demand for his compliance. “I told you, I’m not ready to make an announcement,” he said, his voice colder than he intended.

“Not ready?” Sophie snapped. “You’ve had years to be ready. What’s going on with you? Is there someone else?”

Adrien froze. He hadn’t been expecting that. “No, of course not.”

But Sophie wasn’t convinced. “I can feel you pulling away, Adrien. We’ve always been on the same page, but now... I don’t even know where your head is.”

He wanted to tell her the truth—that he felt trapped, suffocated by the expectations of their families, by the life they were supposed to build together. But how could he explain that without hurting her, without unraveling everything they’d built?

“There’s no one else, Sophie,” he repeated, his voice softer this time. “I just need more time. Can you understand that?”

Sophie was silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, her tone was quieter, almost pleading. “I want to understand, Adrien. But you’re shutting me out. If we’re going to make this work, we need to be in this together.”

Adrien sighed, guilt gnawing at him. He knew she was right, but the thought of moving forward with the engagement, of making it official, felt like stepping into a prison. “I’ll come by tonight,” he said finally. “We can talk then.”

“Okay,” Sophie agreed, though the tension in her voice hadn’t disappeared. “I’ll be waiting.”

When the call ended, Adrien pocketed his phone and looked up at the sky, feeling the weight of his life bearing down on him. He had always been in control, always made the right decisions for the business, for his family. But now, as his world began to crack around him, he wondered if maybe—just maybe—there was more to life than power and wealth.

And as his thoughts drifted back to Isabelle, to the way she had looked at him by the river, he couldn’t help but feel that she represented something he had been searching for without even realizing it.

Freedom.