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His Humiliated Wife Was the Real CEO
Novelix
Completed
"I was shopping at a store owned by my company when run across a false tag. Then when I ask for a refund, the manager refused, and told me off. She said someone like me don't belong here, that I should go to a food bank. She has no idea I'm the CEO of the company that owns this store."
Chapters (3)
第1章
The shelf tag says BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE.
The register charges me full price.
When I ask the store manager for a refund, she refuses—then tells me to stop begging for handouts.
"20 dollars? Ma'am, maybe what you need isn't a supermarket, but a food bank."
I'm so angry I actually laugh.
She has no idea I'm the CEO of the company that owns this store.
......
"A refund." The manager doesn't even take my receipt. "Over twenty dollars."
Her name tag reads *Mia - Store Manager*.
"It's not about the amount. Your tags are misleading. That's false advertising."
"There's no mistake." Her voice drips with contempt. "The system is right. You pay what it rings up. If you can't afford it, put it back."
"The shelf tag says otherwise."
Mia leans on the counter and looks me up and down, slowly, like she's pricing every item of clothing I'm wearing.
"Listen, honey. Maybe a high-end supermarket isn't the right place for you. There's a soup kitchen three blocks down. Twenty dollars goes a lot further there."
A laugh escapes my throat before I can stop it.
No idea that the woman she's calling a charity case founded the parent company that owns this entire chain.
I keep my face out of the press. My old money family name draws too much attention, so I let my husband Derek wear the CEO title in public while I run everything from the shadows.
I did it to protect his pride. Because eight years ago, when I walked out on my family with nothing but a suitcase, Derek was the one who handed me his savings and said, Go build something.
I've forgiven a lot of things for that memory.
But this?
"I'm asking you one more time," I say quietly. "Honor the posted promotion."
"We serve high society here." Mia flips her hair. "Our real customers don't pinch pennies. They don't cry over twenty dollars like beggars."
"She's right, you know."
A young mother behind me steps forward, gripping her cart. "I saw the same tag on aisle five. You have to honor advertised prices. That's how it works."
"Yeah," an older man chimes in. "You pulled the same thing on me last week with the ground beef."
Murmurs ripple down the checkout lines.
Mia's eyes go flat.
"Listen up!" she shouts, loud enough to echo off the ceiling. "Anyone who doesn't like how I run this store can walk out right now! But understand this—you complain, you're blacklisted. Permanently. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Go ahead. Test me."
The murmurs die instantly.
This is the only major supermarket in the district. The next one is a forty-minute drive. For most of these people, getting banned means their lives get harder every single day.
The young mother looks down at her toddler in the cart seat. She steps back in line.
The old man stares at his shoes.
Nobody says another word.
Rage burns up my spine.
She's holding my customers hostage. In my store. Wearing my company's name tag.
I bought this location as a gift for Derek on our third anniversary. Handed him the keys and told him it was all his. A token of trust.
This is what he's done with it.
I pull out my phone. "I'm filing a formal complaint against you."
Mia bursts out laughing. She actually wipes a tear from her eye. "Oh no. A complaint. Please, go ahead! Call the corporate hotline. I'll wait."
I press speed dial.
"Yes, ma'am?" Sarah, my executive secretary, answers on the first ring.
"I'm at the downtown branch," I say, my eyes never leaving Mia's smirking face. "There's a manager here named Mia. I need you here now."
A half-second pause. Sarah's voice drops ten degrees. "Understood. I'll pull her file and bring the termination paperwork. Twenty minutes."
I hang up.
Mia claps. Slow, mocking applause. "Wow. Great performance. Who was that, your babysitter?"
Around us, a few customers wince on my behalf. Someone whispers, "Poor woman. She should just let it go. That manager's not someone you want to mess with."
Not someone you want to mess with..
"I'm wandering," I say, stepping closer. "This company was built on the idea that the customer comes first. You've violated every rule in the handbook in under ten minutes. Who gave you the nerve?"
Mia steps out from behind the counter. She gets right in my face, close enough that I can smell her perfume. It's the exact brand that showed up on Derek's card statement last month. I'd assumed it was a gift for me that never came.
"Because complaints can't touch me, sweetheart." Her lips curl into a triumphant smile. "I'm the wife of the CEO, Derek Vance!"
第2章
My breath hitches.
Derek is cheating on me. My husband, the man I gave everything to, is sleeping with this trash.
Something inside my chest goes very still and very cold. Not the kind of anger that screams. The kind that calmly burns a city to the ground.
'When Sarah gets here, I'm putting an end on all this.'
"What, nothing to say now?" Mia mistakes my silence for fear. She smirks and grabs a honeycrisp apple from the premium display, doesn't wash it, takes a loud bite.
She chews twice. Makes a face. Spits it into the trash can.
Then she tosses the bitten apple back onto the pile for sale.
"Ugh. Disgusting," she says. "Poor people food always tastes like dirt. This is all you people deserve anyway. The good stuff? We don't even shelve it. It goes straight to the mansions."
Somebody in the crowd gasps. "She put it back. She actually put it back on the pile."
I don't say a word. I walk over to the produce section and start inspecting the goods.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" Mia calls after me.
I ignore her. I pick up a tomato. My thumb sinks straight into rotten flesh. I check the greens, the supplier label is a company I personally blacklisted three years ago for salmonella violations. I flip over a packaged salad. There's a fresh date sticker slapped crookedly over the old one.
They are all sub-standard. Defective, expiring, or completely rotten.
My chest tightens. He is scamming our customers to pocket the difference.
I turn around and face the store.
"Everyone, listen up!" My voice carries over the registers, over the aisles. "Everything in this store is free today! Grab whatever you want and walk out. All of it. I’m paying for everything. Consider it compensation from corporate for how you've been treated here!"
Dead silence.
A hundred shoppers stare at me like I've grown a second head.
"She's kidding, right?"
"Is that legal?"
"I'm serious," I say, looking straight at Mia. "Take everything."
For one heartbeat, nobody moves.
Then an old woman calmly pushes her full cart past the registers and out the door.
Nobody stops her.
At the door she pauses, looks back at Mia, and says, loud and clear: "I've shopped here eleven years. You've been the worst thing in this store for the last two years."
The store explodes.
People sprint for the aisles. Carts slam together.
"Security!" Mia screams into her walkie-talkie, her voice cracking. "SECURITY! Code red! Stop them! STOP THEM!"
Three guards show up and get swallowed by the crowd like pebbles in a river.
Within minutes, the store is stripped to the shelves. Torn cardboard and plastic wrap everywhere.
Mia stands in the wreckage, chest heaving, mascara starting to run.
"You crazy bitch!"
She lunges at me, nails first, swinging for my face.
I step back. Her slap cuts through empty air—
—and her fingers hook the chain around my neck.
Snap.
My necklace hits the floor. The pendant skips across the tile and slides under a shelf.
"That's it! I'm calling the cops!" Mia shrieks, jabbing at her phone. "You're going to prison for inciting a riot! You're finished!"
"Call them," I say, and cross my arms.
While we wait, she she calls the cops, then the insurance adjuster.
Then she makes one more call. Her voice transforms mid-dial, from shrieking harpy to girlish, breathy sweetness.
"Derek, honey? Some crazy woman destroyed my store... yes, mine, the downtown one... can you come? Please? I need you." She pouts at the phone. "Hurry, okay?"
She hangs up and turns to me with a slow, vicious smile.
"You're dead. You know that, right?" She points at her feet. "Kneel down and lick my shoes, and maybe I'll ask my husband to go easy on you. That's the best deal you're going to get today."
My stomach turns.
"Your husband," I repeat softly. "Funny. Last I checked, Derek Vance's wife isn't named Mia."
"Oh, the original wife?" Mia rolls her eyes so hard her whole head moves. "Some old, ugly hag who never shows her face in public. A dead weight. A leech. Derek can't stand her. I'm the one he loves. I'm his real wife."
Around us, the few remaining bystanders are frozen, phones half-raised, sensing blood in the water.
I take one slow step forward.
"Let me ask you something. What if everything Derek has—the title, the money, this store—was built by that original wife? What if she holds all the power, and he's just a name on a door?"
Mia snorts. "And how would a broke nobody like you know anything about Derek's life?"
"Because," I say, looking her dead in the eye, "I'm the CEO of this company. And I'm Derek's wife."
第3章
For three full seconds, Mia just stares at me.
Then she throws her head back and howls with laughter.
"You? The CEO?" She points a manicured finger at my face. "You're just a delusional fraud looking for a handout!"
She spins toward the two security guards hovering at the edge of the wreckage.
"Grab her! Hold her until the cops get here!"
The guards hesitate, glancing at each other.
"Don't," I say. My voice cuts through the store like a blade. "I sign your paychecks. Touch me, and you'll never work security again in this state."
They freeze. Something in my tone reaches them.
"I'll double your salaries!" Mia screams, her face going blotchy purple. "Ten grand bonus, each, right now! Grab her or you're both fired!"
Two sets of hands clamp down on my arms and wrench them behind my back. Pain shoots through my shoulders.
'Not one of my two hundred stores would ever lay hands on a customer. Not one.' The thought burns hotter than my shoulders. This place isn't a supermarket anymore. It's Mia's little kingdom, rotting from the inside. If I hadn't walked in today, how long before this rot reached the rest of my empire?
Mia struts up to me, hips swinging, savoring every step.
She grabs my chin. Her acrylic nails bite into my skin.
"Say it," she breathes into my face. "Say I'm better than that ugly, useless wife of his. Say it, and maybe I'll let you off with a beating."
I look her in the eye.
Then I spit on her designer shoes.
"You're trash."
"You *bitch*—" Her hand goes up, arm cocked back for a full-force slap.
"Hey! Break it up! Police!"
Two uniformed officers push through the shattered chaos of the entrance, hands on their belts.
Mia releases my chin like it's on fire. The guards drop my arms and back away fast.
"Officers!" And just like that, Mia's voice is trembling, wet, terrified. Real tears well up on command. "Thank god you're here! This woman incited a riot! She told everyone to loot my store! Look at it! Look what she did!"
The officers survey the stripped shelves and wreckage.
"She owes me a million dollars in damages!" Mia stabs a finger at my chest. "A million! Arrest her! Lock her up until she pays every cent!"
The older officer turns to me. "Ma'am, is that—"
"Fine," I say. "I'll pay the million."
Silence.
Mia blinks. Her tears actually stop.
"...What?"
"I said I'll pay it." I point at the floor near the produce bins, where the broken chain glints against the tile. "But first, you're paying for the necklace you destroyed when you assaulted me. Fair is fair. The officers are right here."
Mia looks at the necklace. Then at me. Then she starts to laugh again, relief flooding back into her face.
"Oh, gladly! Let's settle up!" She pulls out her phone, waving it. "Someone who fights over twenty dollars, wearing what, dollar-store plastic? Mall glass?" She smirks at the officers, inviting them in on the joke.
"Fine. Name your price, sweetheart. I'll Venmo you right now."
"Twenty million dollars," I say.
---
