CHAPTER FOUR

"Darling, wake up! You've been asleep for way too long!" I whispered in an attempt to rouse the sleeping beauty, but instead she grabbed my hand and snuggled into it whilst mumbling incoherently. "Alright, five more minutes then, might as well whip up something for you to eat", I said even though I knew she couldn't hear me.

Exactly fifteen minutes later, I had prepared scrambled eggs and toast expertly, now to get the sleeping beauty.

"Good morning, Zeke", was what I heard right as I was preparing to go and call her down for breakfast.

And she looked ready for the day, fully dressed and all.

"You made breakfast? That is so sweet of you, Zeke! You could have called me down to help out. Thank you." She said as she made her way down.

"Darling, I've got this. And besides, you needed the rest from yesterday's bustling. So…no good morning kiss?" I teased to get her mind off it. Unsurprisingly, she blushed hard, I wasn't going to push but I sure as hell was not going to pass up on a kiss from my wife.

I was caught off guard as she dropped a peck on both my cheeks.

I didn't expect her initiative but I loved it all the same.

"Well, we definitely need to work on that." She glanced up at me with a look that questioned how I wasn't satisfied.

"Baby, that wasn't a kiss. It was a peck. On. My. Cheeks. You'll do better next time. I know." I said to her while taking my seat.

Not long after, we both finished having breakfast and headed out to start the day.

"Should I drop you off or do you want to drive yourself?" I asked her.

"I'll drive, I don't want to bother you", was her reply.

My girl, how could she ever bother me.

"How can I express to you that I love being of help to you? I was only asking because you might have some things you want to get done, but I really want to drop you off at work." I said to her, leaving no room for argument knowing she might still decline my offer.

"Alright, alright!" She conceded.

Soon enough we arrived at the bakery and she went ahead while I also drove off to work.

Walking into the office, as usual I got everyone's attention, at this point I already got used to it, years of practice with paparazzi gets you accustomed to this kind of thing.

Time to start the day's work.

At The Bookish Bites

This morning was rather overwhelming, the employees looked at me with searching eyes as they had seen me arrive in a car this morning, a high class car at that. Not to blame them as I had always lived in the office. Most times I would be the one to open the bakery for business.

Later that same day...

"Miss Wade, do you have a minute? There's an issue out front", broke me out of my daze. It wasn't unusual to get calls like this in a day.

I made my way out of my office just to find my employee being assaulted by a customer, well not assaulted but I choose to call it that.

I signalled to Mike, who came to get me to call the police if things didn't send amicably. Then I approached them.

"What's going on here?" I asked, displeased to find that my employee, Lina, had a bruise on her face which had not been there when I saw her this morning.

"Well, well, are you the manager?! Is this how you train your servants?! This bloody idiot waiter has really angered me!" Yelled the customer the moment he laid his eyes on me even though he still refused to let go of Lina.

"Could you at least let go of her now, haven't you done enough? And mind your language, I don't tolerate others berating my employees!" I threw back at him.

He looked at me displeased and pushed Lina towards me. The poor lady, her face looked unyielding but you could tell that she was aggrieved.

"Since you've no intention of asking questions, I would just tell you what happened here. Your waitress here got my order mixed up. I wanted a cup of coffee, black, and a slice of dark chocolate cake, but instead she brought me tea and biscuits. And when I demanded she get me the right order she rolled her eyes at me. How could a lowly woman get the guts to defy me?! So I slapped her in the face, but she punched me right back!" He cried out in disbelief, like he couldn't fathom a woman standing up to him. "Is this how you train your employees?! If I don't get an explanation I will never step a foot in this bakery ever again!" He yelled out in a justified manner. He was being so unreasonable, and he must be stupid to think I want the likes of him in my cafe.

"Lina, tell me what exactly happened." I turned to Lina.

"What! You think I would lie about what happened? Why are you still asking her, she's but a lowly employee. Let me tell you, the customer is god! The customer is always right!" He countered.

"So you think I should take your word over my employee's? What gives you the right? Walking in here and claiming god? Look, even if my employee is in the wrong here I still won't berate her just to satisfy you misogynistic pig!" I retorted.

"Miss Wade, the police are here!" Mike called out.

"What's happened here?" Questioned an officer.

By now only a sprinkle of people were waiting around, probably just to watch the show. I couldn't let Lina suffer this loss, this man was obviously lying and thankfully the police already arrived.

"It's this set of manager and employee wanting to rob people. They both ganged up on a poor old man like me to cheat me off my money. I was about to leave when the manager accused me of not paying for my meal after I'd already paid to the waiter! The waiter obviously wanted to embezzle the money, otherwise why would they both not want to let me go!" I watched go smacked as this scheming old had twisted words right in front of me. Who did he think the police were? Could they be easily manipulated just because the other party was rather advanced in age, come on, he wasn't even that old.

"What are you saying, old man? You're so old yet you're quite skilled at cooking up lies. You must have spent quite a good number of your youth practicing how to lie. Officers, what happened was---" I trailed off speechless as the old man suddenly collapsed. What is happening?

"Call for an ambulance quickly, David." Said the first officer.

Soon enough the ambulance arrived and we left for the ambulance.

Clearly, there was nothing wrong with the man as the doctor already confirmed he was fine and that he must have been too agitated and must have fainted as a result. I had never met such a scheming elderly before, the shock must have gotten to me too as I couldn't hear Lina calling my name.

"Boss, the officers wants to invite us to the station for clarity on what happened to the old man. I think he's threatening to sue." Lina uttered in dumbfoundedness. Clearly she also found the whole situation funny.

"Sue? He wants to sue? He should be glad we aren't suing him instead. I mean he's cost us a whole day off business and your wounds are still there and he's threatening to sue? What does he take us for?" I questioned in disbelief. What an irony.

"Let's go, why should we be afraid of this, call Mike and have him send a copy of today's surveillance to the police station!" I told Lina.

This man clearly has no idea of whom he's dealing with.

I'm going to have to deal with him clearly to put him in his place!