At that moment, the front desk attendant's face lit up with a look of triumphant amusement, as though the mere suggestion of calling the manager had handed her exactly the weapon she needed to finish off this entire confrontation on her own terms."Oh, that even reminds me," she said, her voice carrying a mocking lightness that had not been present moments earlier. "So you actually want me to call the manager, is that right? If that is truly what you want, then I will gladly, gladly put a call through right now. That is, of course, assuming she decides to come down here at all. But let me warn you both, if she does come, your situation is going to get far, far worse than anything either of you can currently comprehend. Yes, I mean that seriously. It is going to get significantly worse, and I am not going to sugarcoat a single part of it for either of you."She smiled thinly, clearly savoring the moment, before reaching for the office phone mounted near her desk and dialing the extensio

Ethan nodded once, calmly, without any trace of smugness or triumph in his expression, the kind of quiet confirmation that somehow made the revelation feel even more significant than if he had announced it with dramatic flourish.Melissa's mind raced desperately, cycling rapidly and painfully through every single interaction that had taken place over the last several minutes, replaying each harsh word she had spoken, each dismissive gesture, each moment where she had chosen suspicion over patience, hostility over the reverence she now understood, far too late, that he had deserved from the very first moment he had stepped forward to intervene on the old woman's behalf.She needed to fix this. Immediately. Before anything else escalated further, before the situation slipped even further beyond whatever fragile control she still retained over it.Turning sharply on her heel, abandoning any remaining pretense of measured composure, she moved with newfound urgency toward the old woman, who

For that brief moment, standing quietly before the front desk of JSK Lozry, surrounded by the soft golden lighting and the faint, expensive scent of leather and polished marble that seemed to permeate every corner of the store, Ethan did not immediately answer the question posed to him. He allowed a short pause to settle comfortably in the air, taking a moment to glance briefly around at the elegant displays surrounding him, the mannequins dressed in garments that likely cost more than most people's monthly salaries, before finally responding with calm, unhurried honesty rather than any attempt to dress up his situation with false pretense or unnecessary explanation."I don't have a reservation," he said simply, his tone even, unbothered. "I just walked in here directly. I wasn't aware a reservation was even required simply to enter. Is that something specific to certain sections of the store, or does browsing itself require prior arrangement here?"The young woman behind the desk stud

The suggestion, rather than calming the tension, seemed instead to redirect Mia's fury squarely back toward Marcos himself."Why would you say that?" she demanded, rounding on him again, her voice sharp with disbelief. "You know perfectly well he cannot afford anything here. You're the one who just told everyone he refused your generous offer because he clearly couldn't afford it on his own. Now you're suggesting he might actually succeed? Why are you suddenly trying to make him look capable of something, anything at all, when we both know he isn't?"Her secretary nodded fiercely in agreement, equally baffled by the sudden shift in Marcos's tone."It makes no sense," she added. "Moments ago you were offering him charity because you assumed he had nothing. Now you're implying he might actually have the means? Which is it?"Marcos, unbothered by their confusion, simply raised his hands again in a placating gesture, his expression maintaining its calm, unshaken composure."Relax," he sai

Mia stepped forward as well, her face burning with the humiliation of watching Ethan receive a level of deference she had never imagined anyone would extend to him."Exactly," she said, gesturing angrily. "How can you not see what is obvious? He is not capable of possessing something like that. He is not from that world. He does not belong at that level. Everything about this is wrong. You're bowing to the wrong person."The director slowly turned his face toward them, and the emotion there had changed, because while fear still existed in him, it was no longer fear of the crowd or of making a social error, but fear of mishandling the card holder further, and that fear hardened him into a kind of cold authority that both Mia and Marcus felt immediately."You will both be silent," he said, and though his tone never became loud, the force in it was enough to cut straight through their outrage. "This is not a matter on which I intend to entertain uninformed opinions."Marcus let out a sho