Rebate King: Every Beauty I Spoil Makes Me a Billionaire-Chapter 14: The Price Of Arrogance!
"Get lost."
Hearing Stan, Zane almost sagged with relief. He scrambled to his feet, bowed once, twice, then three times in quick succession, and fled the room without daring to look back.
Logan turned and offered Stan another deep, apologetic bow.
"President Stan, I’m truly sorry for spoiling your evening. Please, continue enjoying yourself. Everything is on the house. If there’s anything at all you need, send for me personally."
He backed out of the room with the careful, measured deference of a man who knew exactly how close he’d just come to losing his job, and possibly much more.
The door clicked shut behind him. And then the room transformed.
The same men who’d been pointedly ignoring Stan all evening were suddenly leaning forward in their seats, their faces lit up with warm, friendly smiles.
The man who’d told him to "just drink the liquor, little brother" was now topping off his glass with both hands, beaming as if they were old friends. Another was already pulling out his phone.
"President Stan, what a pleasure. I don’t think I introduced myself properly earlier,"
"President Stan, could I trouble you for your Snapchat? Just to stay in touch,"
"President Stan, if there’s ever anything my family’s company can do for you,"
The complete, shameless reversal would have been funny if it weren’t so transparent.
Stan turned his wrist slightly, took a slow sip of his drink, and declined every single request with the same polite, unreadable smile.
’I have drawn more than enough attention for one evening.’ Stan sighed...
After Logan’s departure, the private room had gradually reset itself into something resembling a normal karaoke party. Drinks flowed. Someone picked up the mic. The earlier confrontation was buried beneath layers of forced laughter and deliberate cheerfulness, the way an awkward stain gets covered with a tablecloth. By the time the group finally called it a night, the whole ugly scene with Zane had been reduced to a story no one at the table would ever willingly bring up again, a cloud that had drifted past and left nothing behind.
Stan caught a ride home in the small hours of the morning and let himself quietly back into the dorm.
"Stan, where’d you sneak off to tonight?" Zack Howard asked from his bunk, one eye cracked open in the dark.
"HYTV. With Maya."
There was a beat of silence.
Then Zack shot bolt upright, the springs of his mattress creaking in protest.
"Who? Which Maya? Maya? Our campus-belle Maya Zimmerman?"
He stared at Stan like the man had just announced he’d been hanging out with the moon.
"A loser like you went out singing with Maya Zimmerman? Yeah, right. Pull the other one. I might actually believe that."
The idea was simply too absurd to entertain. Girls with Maya’s kind of pedigree didn’t show up at late-night HYTVs with broke dorm guys in hand-me-down jackets. The whole thing had to be a joke.
Stan just smiled in the dark and didn’t bother arguing.
His phone buzzed on the desk before he could even climb into bed. He reached over and checked the screen.
A Snapchat message from Maya. Then another. Then a third.
They were warm, lingering little notes, thanks for coming out, thanks for how he’d handled the situation with Zane, hopes he’d gotten home safely. She used the kind of emojis, soft punctuation and lingering phrasing that women reserved for men they were quietly trying to keep the attention of.
Stan felt something he could only describe as mild, amused vertigo.
Not so long ago, he’d been the one carefully crafting texts to girls like Maya. Second-guessing every word. Waiting hours for a one-line reply that would never come.
And now here she was, the campus belle, the goddess, the untouchable one, sending him sweet little follow-ups in the middle of the night, checking to make sure he’d made it home.
’Is this what money does? Being a super tycoon really is something else.’
Another message came through as he was still staring at the screen.
Maya: [I had so much fun back at HYTV today 🥰 I kept thinking about you...]
Stan was yet to reply when she instantly sent him a second message...
[Are you free tomorrow? It’s my birthday 🎂 and I’m having a small party... I’d really love it if you came 💕]
Stan smiled as he replied: [Sure. I’ll be there.]
Maya: [And you don’t have to stress about gifts, okay? 🥺 Even something small is more than enough... I just want you there 🤍]
Stan could read between those particular lines. She didn’t want him thinking she was the type of girl who expected her suitors to spend money on her, especially not now that she knew he actually had it. A little performance of modesty, carefully staged.
As it happened, that suited Stan perfectly. He had no intention of spending serious money on Maya right now. His system only triggered the consumption rebate once every seven days, and the next window was still four days out. Throwing cash at her tonight would just be throwing cash.
The next morning, on his way to the party, he stopped by a small gift shop near campus and picked up the most generic present he could find, something pleasant, unremarkable, and completely forgettable. Perfect.
The next afternoon.
Stan was pedaling his bicycle down the boulevard toward the five-star hotel where Maya was holding her birthday party, the small gift bag swinging lightly from the handlebars. He was in no particular hurry. The sun was out, the breeze was cool, and he was in the kind of quietly satisfied mood that only a man with a nine-figure bank balance and a bicycle could achieve.
Then the street behind him erupted in noise.
VROOOOM!
The roar of a high-end sports car engine tore through the calm of the afternoon, unnecessarily loud, the kind of deliberate, chest-thumping revving that had nothing to do with driving and everything to do with being noticed.
A candy-red Ferrari slid into Stan’s peripheral vision and then, to his mild annoyance, refused to pass him. It slowed down instead, matching his bicycle’s pace, engine growling like a provoked animal beside his left elbow.
The tinted passenger window glided down.
