The Billionaire's Pretend Wife (Isabella) novel Chapter 55

The flowers were so many, that by the time the couple finished cleaning them up, it was already midnight.

Isabelle made a comment about how they were so much more than she had initially thought, but she didn’t ask how much they had cost again. Which was good, he thought. She would probably have an aneurysm if she knew.

Once they were all packed into bags, he made a call to Kevin to bring a couple of his subordinates to come and get them. It would take a few men to carry them all out of the apartment within the shortest time possible.

By the time they arrived, Isabelle had gone to the bathroom to take a shower. When she had gotten back from work, she wouldn’t have guessed that she would spend the evening cleaning up flowers. She wondered whether they had been delivered with a lorry or something.

After taking a shower, she walked back to the kitchen to find food. It was very late, but she was yet to have dinner, and all the flower-gathering activity had left her feeling famished.

She was having a bowl of noodles at the dining table when Jacob appeared and placed a wad of cash next to her. She gave the cash a quizzical look before turning her gaze to him.

“That’s what I got back from the flower shop,” he told her. “Since you won’t accept the flowers, at least keep this.”

Isabelle sighed and looked away. Ignoring the fact that she thought him buying a truckload of flowers was not a financially smart move, she did like receiving flowers from him.

Had he bought her flowers before, and not spent so much on them, she would have probably been touched. It was a sweet gesture. But what did a bunch–more than a bunch, actually–of flowers mean when he didn’t trust her? That was what made it so hard for her to forget it all and move on.

“You can keep it,” she told him. “I told you that I don’t want your money.”

Jacob frowned at her response, but he took the money away and left her alone. As he walked away, she wondered whether she was being unfair to him. Or perhaps too harsh.

He was obviously determined to get back on her good side, and was doing his best to win her over. Why was it so damned hard to get over the fact that he didn’t trust her?

***

When Jason’s phone rang past midnight and he saw Jacob’s name on the caller ID, he knew right away that the man was calling with news of how his suggestion to get flowers for his wife had turned out.

He was so confident that it had worked that when he received the call, he asked right away, “What’s my reward?”

When Jacob replied, he didn’t sound happy. At all. “Reward?” he growled, and Jason pulled the phone away from his ear, as if afraid Jacob would reach through it and smack him.

“Wait,” Jason said, losing the excitement in his voice. “It didn’t work?”

“Flowers?” Jacob scoffed. “I filled the entire house with them and do you think she even commented on how beautiful they were? You said they would be sentimental. All she could think about was cleaning them up and returning them to the shop because she thought they were a waste of money. Do you have any more suggestions to fuck me up?”

Jason bit down on his bottom lip at the anger in Jacob’s voice. He was really angry. The kind of anger that Jason knew that if he showed up at work with, would spell doom on everyone who crossed paths with him.

Work at the Larson Group was never easy when the boss was in a foul mood. And as the vice president, he constantly came directly into contact with that anger. He would rather not.