I wiped my face with my sleeve and asked, very calmly, if she could please call the store director. Chastity threw her head back laughing. “Oh honey, the director doesn’t come down for people who shop at the dollar store. Why don’t you crawl back to whatever trailer park hired you to scrub floors and stop wasting oxygen my paying customers are breathing?” She grabbed my elbow and physically shoved me toward the revolving door, hard enough that I stumbled into a mannequin. A security guard finally stepped forward — not to help me, but to grip my other arm. That’s when the private elevator at the back of the store dinged open. Six men in charcoal suits walked out in perfect formation, and behind them, my husband Julian, in a tailored black coat, holding the exact velvet box Chastity had refused to let me near. The entire store went silent. Julian’s eyes landed on my ruined makeup, the red mark on my elbow, the perfume still dripping down my collar. He didn’t raise his voice. He simply turned to the tallest suit and said, “Marcus, pull the lease. Today. And every Vellencourt location in the portfolio.” Chastity’s smile froze. She stammered that there must be a misunderstanding, that I was just a — Julian cut her off by handing me the velvet box and kissing my forehead. Then he looked at her for the first time. “My wife commissioned the mural in this lobby. The one you walk past every morning. She also owns forty-two percent of the parent company that signs your paycheck.” Chastity’s knees actually buckled. The clerk who’d been filming slowly turned the phone toward her instead. The store director came sprinting down the spiral staircase, tie flapping, already apologizing before he knew what for. Chastity opened her mouth to beg, but Julian was already walking me out, his arm around my paint-splattered shoulders, the whole marble floor of snobs bowing their heads as we passed. By the time we reached the car, her name badge was in the trash and her key card was deactivated. She never sold another handbag in this city again.
