SWNOVELS Chapter 27 Twenty Seven
When the assistant took back the shirt, Isabelle turned and headed towards where the two were standing. They stopped talking when they saw her approaching, but unfortunately for them, she had already heard everything.
"Excuse me, can you please stop mocking us? We came here to shop and it's quite unpleasant when you two are standing here making insulting remarks."
The two exchanged a look, and then faced her. One of them frowned. "I'm sorry, what are you talking about?" She asked that with a confused expression, as if she truly had no idea what Isabelle was talking about.
"I could hear you two clearly," Isabelle told them, "so don't bother acting like you don't know what I'm talking about. Is this how you treat customers here?"
"Customers are people who buy clothes here," the other one said, not interested in playing pretend like her coworker. "You two are obviously just here to waste everybody's time. Look around and ask yourself i this looks like a store you should be in."
Isabelle clenched her hands and took a step forward, but a firm hand clasped around her arm, keeping her in place. She looked up to find Jacob beside her, his furious gaze on the two assistants.
"Apologise to my wife right away," he ordered the assistants. His aura was threatening, like he wasn't going to back off until they apologised.
"You and your wife are interrupting business," the first assistant said, raising her voice. "Please leave before we call security."
"How exactly are we doing that?" Isabelle demanded. "We came here to shop, like everybody else."
The assistant gestured to her clothes. "Look at yourselves. It's obvious you cannot afford anything in this store. It's fine if you came to window-shop, but do you have to waste our time waiting on you? If other customers see you two in here, they might refuse to shop here anymore. With people like you here, it looks like a common shop."
Isabelle scoffed, amazed at their shameless accusations. "Is it your habit to look down on customers, or is this how you people run business here?"
"What is going on here?" a new voice joined the melee. It was a man dressed in a staff uniform like the others, but his tag read Manager.
"These two walked in and started bothering everyone," the second assistant replied. "They can't buy anything but have been harassing us for minutes now." "That's not true!" Isabelle claimed when the manager turned to them. "We were looking through our options, but it appears that the staff isn't willing to be helpful."
The manager looked at her, gave her a once-over, and did the same to Jacob. "I think you two should leave, you're in the wrong store."
Isabelle's jaw fell as the manager spoke. She had expected him to pay attention to their plight and help them along, or at least make an effort to find out how the entire situation had developed. Instead, he seemed to not be any different from the assistants. "How are we in the wrong store?" she asked, not willing to back down when these people were treating them so poorly.
"If you don't intend to buy anything, leave or I'll call security. My staff are busy and we don't need idlers like you two wasting our time."
"Why would we come here if we don't intend on buying anything? On what basis are you and your staff labelling us idlers? And, aren't you paid to wait on customers? So how exactly are we wasting your time if this is the job you were hired to do?"
"You haven't bought anything despite being in the store for a long time, I think your intentions are clear," the manager countered.
"If nothing has pleased us, why should we buy anything?" Isabelle demanded. "We'd only been around for five minutes before your staff began complaining. If your store has a time limit on how long someone should spend shopping, you should make it public."
Beside Isabelle, Jacob's face darkened. He never could have expected that the service at the Larson Group's store was so poor. None of the staff were acting in a manner that represented the company's values, and he didn't want to imagine the damage they caused to the group's reputation.
He had brought Isabelle here hoping she would like the place and enjoy shopping, but the opposite was happening.
He stepped up to the manager, getting in his space. The manager stepped back, intimidated by his taller physique. That's right, he should be afraid. "My wife and I have done nothing wrong, so you have no right to drive us out."
By then, other customers were beginning to notice the confrontation and were beginning to gather around and listen. The manager looked around and realised that if this went on longer, word could get out and ruin the reputation of the store.
"You are deliberately causing trouble in the store," he said loudly, wanting others to hear and believe it was the two who were at fault. "You're threatening my staff and disturbing other shoppers, so we kindly request you to leave." Then he turned and beckoned to a security guard who had appeared at the scene. "Escort them out."
The shoppers who were now paying attention to the argument now looked at Isabelle and Jacob with judging eyes, with some saying that they should be thrown out. Isabelle was enraged that the manager had painted them as villains, to the extent of making false accusations against Jacob.
"My husband hasn't threatened anyone!" she snapped at the manager, glaring at him. “All he did was ask for the staff to treat us with courtesy. He didn't say anything wrong." "Ma'am, you and your husband need to leave now," the security guard said, making his way to Jacob.
His intention was to grab Jacob's arm, but Isabelle stood between the two and glared at the guard, her eyes daring him to throw them out. "We are not going anywhere until they apologise to my husband." "If you keep making a scene," the manager said, "we'll call the police!"
"Go ahead," she dared, "and everyone will know how you treat customers who you look down on." Her eyes wandered towards another section of the store, where one customer sat on a sofa while three attendants ran back and forth, bringing clothes to her. She dismissed some of them with a flick of her wrist, and each time, they bowed respectfully and rushed off to bring her more options. The customer had been there before she and Jacob arrived, and she was yet to hear anyone complain about her. It was obvious why she was being treated like a queen while they were being thrown out-she was wearing a designer dress, heels that must have cost as much as Isabelle's college tuition, and was adorned in diamond jewellery.
The security guard hesitated and took a step back. Jacob stood back, enjoying how Isabelle refused to back down even when the manager threatened to call the police. But what made him really happy was the fact that she was standing up for him, and even calling him her husband.
He had seen her defending herself vehemently on the few occasions he had made the mistake of making baseless accusations against her. But he had never thought that she would get the same way on his behalf.
He felt that she truly cared about how the manager's accusations affected him, and it warmed his heart. It also made him more determined to make sure that the assistants and the manager regretted treating her poorly.