As they passed a designer boutique, Felix appeared again, like a recurring error message that refused to be closed.

"This dress is only a few thousand dollars," he said, gesturing at a piece in the window. "Surely you’re not going to tell me that’s too expensive to buy for Sophie?"

"I’m not buying it," Stan said.

He had one rebate charge left for the week. Spending a few thousand dollars on a dress would be like pouring a glass of water into the ocean and calling it irrigation. He needed a large purchase, something substantial enough to make the six-times multiplier worth activating.

"How?" Felix’s voice pitched upward with genuine incredulity. "You can’t afford clothes that cost a few thousand? You actually invited Sophie Youngs to a shopping mall and you can’t buy her a dress? What right do you even have to,"

"Felix."

Stan stopped walking. Turned and looked at him.

The cafeteria patience, the jewelry store tolerance, the quiet endurance he’d been maintaining all morning, all of it burned away in a single instant, like flash paper catching a spark.

"This is the last time I’m going to say this. Get lost."

Felix took a half-step back, startled by the sudden shift.

"If you can afford it, then why won’t you,"

"Because it’s too cheap." Stan’s voice was cold and precise. "I don’t buy cheap things. I have never bought anything this inexpensive in my life. If I’m going to spend money on Sophie, it’s going to be something worthy of her, not some off-the-rack piece that costs less than my dinner last Tuesday."

The words rang through the corridor with absolute, unshakable conviction.

Sophie, standing beside him, felt something warm bloom in her chest despite herself. She knew, rationally, logically, that Stan’s refusal to buy cheap items probably had more to do with whatever mysterious financial system he was operating under than with romantic devotion. But the way he said it, the fierce certainty, the implicit declaration that Sophie Youngs deserved better than ordinary, landed exactly the way it was designed to land.

[Sophie Youngs: Favorability 65 →66]

[Sophie Youngs: Favorability 66]

The numbers climbed quietly in Stan’s peripheral vision.

Felix stood frozen in the middle of the walkway, mouth slightly open, caught between outrage and confusion. The man he’d been mocking all morning for being broke had just declared, with a straight face and zero hesitation, that tens of thousands of dollars was beneath him.

Either Stan Harrison was the most committed liar on the planet, or Felix had made a very serious miscalculation about who he was dealing with.

For the first time all morning, a flicker of genuine doubt crossed Felix Lawn’s face.

Stan pressed the advantage while the momentum was still his.

"You buy a few trinkets and think that’s enough to take Sophie from me?" He shook his head slowly, almost pityingly. "Do you have any idea how childish that looks?"

"Disgraceful."

The word landed like a slap. Felix’s expression froze, the smug confidence draining out of it one shade at a time, replaced by something colder and harder.

Stan Harrison, the man Felix had spent the entire morning condescending to, had just turned around and verbally dismantled him in front of the woman they were both pursuing. And the worst part was that Sophie, standing right there, wasn’t rushing to disagree. If anything, she was nodding slightly, almost imperceptibly, as if Stan had simply said out loud what she’d been thinking all morning.

[Sophie Youngs: Favorability 67]

The number ticked upward, and Stan felt a small pulse of satisfaction. After being stagnant for what felt like an eternity, the needle was finally moving again. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

’Good. So a little confidence goes further than a hundred acts of quiet humility.’

He’d been playing it too low-key. Too restrained. Too willing to absorb Felix’s jabs without responding. What Sophie wanted, what raised the number, wasn’t modesty. It was presence. The willingness to stand up, push back, and make it clear that the man beside her wasn’t someone who could be talked down to.

’Noted.’

Felix’s jaw worked silently for a few seconds before he found his voice.

"So you like showing off." His tone was tight, controlled, recalibrated into something more dangerous. "Fine. I’ll give you the chance to show off all you want today."

He straightened up, arms folded, chin raised.

"Let me take you to buy something actually expensive. Something real. And if you can buy it, if you can actually put your money where your mouth is, I’ll leave you two alone. No more interruptions."

Stan looked at him with cold amusement.

"I don’t need your permission to be alone with Sophie. One phone call to the manager downstairs and you’d be escorted out of this building by security." He let that sit for a moment, long enough for the implication to register, then shrugged. "But sure. Show me what you think expensive looks like. I’m curious."

Sophie said nothing, but the faintest smile touched the corner of her mouth. She knew Stan wasn’t bluffing about the phone call. She’d watched the general manager of this entire shopping center bow to Stan in the lobby and introduce himself as his subordinate. If Stan wanted Felix removed, it would take less than sixty seconds.

The fact that he was choosing to humor Felix instead was, in its own way, a kindness.

Felix, who hadn’t been present for the lobby encounter and had no idea that the man he was antagonizing was a major shareholder of the company that owned this building, interpreted the phone call comment as a bluff to impress Sophie and dismissed it entirely.

"The more expensive the better," Felix said with a wolfish grin. "I just love expensive things."

"So do I," Stan replied. "Lead the way."

Felix led them to the fourth floor.

The atmosphere changed the moment the elevator doors opened. The lower floors had been bright, busy, populated, the ordinary commerce of a successful shopping center. The fourth floor was something else entirely. The lighting was softer. The corridors were wider. The storefronts were fewer, larger, and separated by deliberate expanses of polished marble that whispered if you have to ask the price, you shouldn’t be here.

This was the luxury tier.