The Billionaire's Pretend Wife novel Chapter 28

“It’s not your place to tell us how to do our jobs,” the manager snapped at Isabelle, taking a step towards her. “I’m telling you now, if you and your husband don’t leave right away, we’ll detain you and call the police to take you away.”

Seeing that the argument was getting heated, and that Isabelle seemed ready to lash out at the manager, Jacob grabbed her arm and pulled her back to his side. “It’s okay,” he whispered to her, “just let him be.”

Isabelle looked up at him, her face troubled. Her nostrils flared, betraying the fact that she was truly worked up and barely holding on to her civility by a thread. “You heard what he said,” she told him, as if she couldn’t understand why he was asking her to back off. “He is making false accusations to humiliate us. We cannot let him treat us like that.”

“Why don’t you listen to your husband? He seems to understand what’s going on,” the manager butted into their conversation, sounding smug.

Immediately, Isabelle tried to break from Jacob’s grasp to confront the manager, but Jacob successfully held her back. She looked at him again. “I can’t bear to spend my money in this place anymore, let’s leave.”

Jacob shook his head and stroked her hand gently. “No, we are not leaving. I’ll deal with this.” By the time he was done with this trio, they would be begging him for forgiveness. It would be too late. Turning to the manager, he said firmly, “Call the boss of this store, I’ll speak to him and not you.”

The manager was taken aback by Jacob’s authoritative tone. His voice was absolute, as if he wasn’t going to settle for less. If anybody heard him without seeing him, they would think he was the owner of the place or something. That, or that he knew the boss personally.

The manager scoffed, getting over his initial shock at Jacob’s aura. How could someone who was so shabbily dressed have any connection to the boss? He was likely just some loser with a big ego who wanted to make a big deal of everything by involving the boss.

“Sorry, but I can’t do that,” the manager told him. “I’m the one responsible for incidents like this, not the boss. If you don’t listen to what I say, you’ll land in trouble.”

Jacob took a threatening step towards him, and the guy stood his ground. The defiant look on the man’s face almost made him smile evilly. He could see that he was trying to pretend that he wasn’t intimidated by him, but he wasn’t being very successful at it. His throat moved as he swallowed, and his eyes blinked too many times. When Jacob took another step, the manager stumbled back, almost running into one of the shop assistants.

Happy at the reaction he had engineered out of the man, Jacob lowered his voice, staring deep into his scared eyes. “If you don’t call your boss right now, this store will close down tomorrow.” When the man stared at him speechlessly with his mouth open like a dying fish, Jacob added, “You should think about what your boss will do if he finds out it was all because of you.”

The manager looked around, as if making sure that everybody else had heard the same thing. The two assistants had moved back and were cowering together, uncertainty on their faces. That was when real fear overwhelmed him. Why would a nobody make such a big deal of calling the boss? He must know that if he was bluffing and the boss came here, he would truly end up in a police cell! Now, he felt that maybe this man was more than he seemed…

Without a word, he turned away and went to get the boss.

When the manager left, Isabelle poked Jacob in the arm, and when he looked at her, he winked. She was perplexed at the turn of events and wanted to ask what he intended to do, but seeing his wink, postponed her questions for later. She would trust him to have a way out of this. He seemed to have a way out of everything, didn’t he?

The manager reappeared a few minutes later, looking all smug and confident yet again as he walked alongside his boss. “These two,” he said, pointing at Isabelle and Jacob. “They came in and couldn’t afford anything, and when I asked them to leave…sir?”

The manager stopped his narration when he realised that upon seeing the two customers, his boss had turned pale and was trembling. His eyes were locked on Jacob, and were full of recognition.

A second later, the boss turned to him, a stern look on his face. “Apologise right now.”

The manager’s lips trembled and his eyes widened like saucers. “Wh…what?”

Once they were gone, the boss turned to Jacob and Isabelle, clasping his hands in front of his body respectfully. “I’m terribly sorry for what has happened, Sir. I will take more care in the future to ensure the staff are respectful towards our customers. Please accept my apologies for this unpleasant occurrence.”

Jacob cleared his throat and nodded, silently accepting the apology.

“To make it up to you, you can shop any clothing you want in the store for free. And if you have any complaints, please do not hesitate to reach out to me.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Jacob said, giving him an appreciative nod. “I’m sure that’ll make up for the incident. We hope that such an incident will not repeat in the future.”

“Of course, Sir. I’ll do a thorough inspection of the staff to weed out anyone who does not represent the values of the company. Please accept my sincere apologies once again.”

“In that case, my wife and I would like to resume our shopping,” Jacob told him, which was his way of letting the man know he could go back to his office. He knew that unless he dismissed him in some way, he would be there apologising all day, probably making sure that he wasn’t on the firing line too.

“Of course, Sir. Please enjoy your shopping. I’ll instruct my best assistants to assist you and your wife. Please excuse me.”

The man finally left, hurrying off to look for the said assistants as if it was the most important mission of his day.