Stan’s pulse kicked up a notch despite himself.

’Easy. Steady.’

He repeated the vow silently, the same one he’d been carrying since the disaster with Lily Xavier. ’No falling in love. Not with anyone. Not with Sophie, not with Sarah, not with Maya, no matter how beautiful, no matter how charming. That’s how you end up simping again. That’s how you lose control.’

He’d been doing well so far. Managing the relationships cleanly. Keeping a healthy distance between affection and attachment. Even allowing himself to enjoy the attention without getting tangled in it. Some of these girls, he fully intended to take things further with, but on his terms, with his head clear and his heart locked behind glass.

Falling in love was a different animal entirely. Love made you stupid. Love made you generous in the wrong direction. Love made you forget that every relationship in his life was, at its core, a line item in a financial system that rewarded spending and punished sentimentality. Stan had lived through all of it firsthand, which was exactly why he’d made a quiet, unshakable decision: he would never fall in love and lose himself again.

If anything, from now on, it would be the other way around, he’d be the one they chased.

He looked at Sophie, at that devastating smile, at the gentle flirtation hiding behind her composed exterior, and shook his head with quiet amusement.

’Who knew the campus ice queen had a talent for this.’

If he hadn’t spent the past few weeks being regularly exposed to women at the 8.5-and-above tier, he might have genuinely lost his composure.

Around them, the cafeteria was in a state of collective psychological collapse.

"Didn’t Sophie reject him yesterday?"

"Her brother literally threw him out in front of everyone,"

"Then why is she sitting there flirting with him like they’re already dating?"

"Are those words not extremely intimate for two people who supposedly don’t know each other?"

"Am I hallucinating? Did someone put something in my food?"

Quinn Carter’s face had progressed through several colors and was now approaching a shade of purple that probably warranted medical attention.

First Sarah. Now Sophie. Two campus beauties, the two highest-ranked campus beauties at Peak University, had walked into the same cafeteria within twenty minutes of each other and made a beeline for Stan Harrison like moths to a very specific flame.

His meticulously constructed theory about Stan being a worthless, undeserving nobody was now lying in pieces on the cafeteria floor, and Sophie Youngs was currently standing on top of the wreckage, smiling.

"Beast," Quinn hissed under his breath, grasping for any explanation that didn’t require him to revise his worldview. "Beast. He was just exploiting Sarah, and now he’s sinking his claws into Sophie. He’s not even human."

He lunged forward, inserting himself into Sophie’s line of sight with the desperate energy of a man trying to flag down a ship that was already leaving port.

"Sophie, Sophie, listen to me. Stan Harrison is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He was exploiting Sarah earlier, using her debt to manipulate her. Don’t fall for his act. He’s dangerous."

Sophie’s gaze moved to Quinn for the first time.

She looked at him the way one might look at a fly that had landed on the rim of a wine glass, briefly, without interest, and with the quiet certainty that it would leave on its own shortly.

Then she turned back to Stan as if Quinn hadn’t spoken at all.

"Can we add each other on Snapchat?"

The question landed in the cafeteria like a thunderclap.

Last time, Stan had been the one asking. Sophie had set an impossible condition. Her brother had intervened. The whole thing had become a viral video and a campus legend about the audacity of overconfident men.

Now Sophie Youngs, the girl who had publicly demanded a million-dollar house as the price of her contact information, was asking Stan Harrison for his Snapchat. Voluntarily. In front of several hundred witnesses.

"Sure," Stan said, pulling out his phone.

They exchanged QR codes in a matter of seconds. The soft chime of a successful Snapchat connection echoed between them like a small, quiet bell marking the end of an era.

Across the cafeteria, several dozen men silently died inside.

Countless people had tried to add Sophie Youngs. Wealthy heirs. Student council presidents. Athletes with regional sponsorships. Every single one had been turned away without exception. And here was Stan Harrison, the bicycle boy, the nobody, the guy the entire campus had been mocking for a week, casually scanning her code while she watched with a small, pleased smile.

Stan pocketed his phone and looked at her.

"Are you free tomorrow? I was thinking we could go pick up a few things together. Nothing big, just some small shopping."

The question was light, casual, perfectly calibrated. But inside, Stan’s mind was already running the math.

His consumption rebate refreshed twice per week. Sophie’s favorability had hit sixty-five. The next purchase targeting her would trigger a six-times multiplier. He had absolutely no intention of letting that window pass without making full use of it.

The numbers alone were enough to make his pulse quicken, and for once, it had nothing to do with the girl sitting across from him.

’Six times,’ he thought, keeping his expression easy and relaxed.’ Six times on whatever I spend tomorrow.’

Sophie considered the invitation for a moment, then nodded.

"Tomorrow works."

She agreed without hesitation. Stan had given her a gift so extravagant it defied rational explanation, an entire building, delivered in a manila envelope, without a single string attached.

The least she could do was spend an afternoon shopping with him. And if she was being honest with herself, she’d already been planning something more than that.

She wanted to invite him back to one of the apartments in Four Seasons Garden, his apartments, technically, though they were hers now, and thank him properly. Privately. In a way that didn’t require words.