Unavoidable push
672 Words
Cancel my evening appointments. Push the board prep to tomorrow."
Derek's voice cut across the office as he tossed his pen onto the desk. His assistant murmured assent and left, shutting the door behind her. The silence that followed was thick, the kind that usually gave Derek clarity. Tonight, it pressed heavy.
He pulled a file closer, the Mason & Co. dossier Isabella had left behind. Numbers, graphs, and strategy notes. His eyes skimmed them, but his mind betrayed him, wandering back to her voice, her unflinching stare across the table.
She had spoken as if she'd known him longer than an hour. Confident without arrogance. Grounded without being timid. The kind of presence that felt... familiar.
Derek leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming the desk. Familiar. Why did that word cling so stubbornly? He sifted through memory, searching faces from long ago, but the thought refused to settle into something clear.
"Not worth the distraction," he muttered under his breath, snapping the file shut. Work demanded focus, not daydreams. Whatever thread Isabella tugged in him, it had no place here.
The phone on his desk rang. He frowned, checking the caller ID. His mother.
With a resigned sigh, Derek answered. "Mother."
"Derek," Kate's voice came through, warm but edged with reproach. "Do you know how long it's been since you picked up one of my calls without me chasing your secretary first?"
"I've been busy."
"You're always busy. That's no excuse to ignore your family."
Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. "What do you want?"
Kate ignored his sharpness. "I had lunch with the Wrights today. Lovely people, as always. Alex looked radiant. She misses you."
"I'm sure she does." His tone was flat.
"You don't have to sound so cold. She's been patient, Derek. A girl like her deserves commitment."
"Commitment?" Derek let out a humourless laugh. "Mother, Alex, and I don't share more than polite conversation. Commitment isn't built on charity lunches."
"It could be," Kate pressed. "Love can grow from duty. It always has. Your father and I...."
"Don't," Derek interrupted, voice firm. "Don't pretend you and Father were some great romance. You've lived under his shadow for decades. That's not love. It's survival."
There was silence on the line, the kind that told him his words had landed too hard. Then Kate sighed, softer. "I only want you settled, Derek. This empire you're building, it means nothing if you don't have someone beside you. Alex is willing. She understands the world we live in. She's perfect for you."
"She's perfect for the Cole name, you mean."
"Does it matter if it keeps you secure? If it keeps this family's legacy intact?"
Derek's gaze drifted again to Isabella's file. Legacy, duty, and safety. Words his father and mother wielded like shackles. But when Isabella had spoken of stability, she hadn't meant chains. She'd meant foundation. There was a difference.
"Mother," Derek said at last, his voice low, "I won't marry someone because it makes life convenient. Not for you, not for Father, and certainly not for the Wrights."
Kate's tone sharpened again. "Stubbornness isn't strength, Derek. It's loneliness in disguise. One day, you'll realize that."
"I'll take loneliness over a cage."
There was a pause. Then her voice softened, almost pleading. "You'll regret shutting every door that opens for you."
"Better than walking through the wrong one."
The call ended without a ceremony. Derek set the phone down, his jaw tight, his chest heavier than before.
For a long while, he sat in the glow of his desk lamp, staring at the closed Mason & Co. file. Against his will, Isabella's face returned, the way her eyes had steadied under pressure, how her words had cut clean through his defences.
It unsettled him. It also grounded him. And though he told himself it was nothing, some corner of his mind whispered otherwise.
He reached for the file again, fingers brushing the edge of her notes. Familiar. That word again.
This time, Derek didn't push it away.
- Writer
