"You couldn’t get through the front door of a company like this in your entire lifeti. Not as an employee. Not as an intern. Not even as a visitor."
The entourage behind her chuckled appreciatively.
Stan looked at her for a long, quiet mont.
He thought about the thirty percent stake sitting silently in his portfolio. He thought about the fact that, in terms of ownership hierarchy, Vivian Reeves, branch manager of a regional office, reported up a chain that ultimately terminated at him.
He thought about how spectacularly her face would rearrange itself if he told her, right now, in front of her entire entourage, that the company she was using as a status symbol was partially his.
He thought about all of this.
Then he shrugged.
"The company’s alright, I guess."
Maya glanced at him sharply. Vivian’s entourage went quiet.
"Alright?" Vivian’s eyebrow twitched. "Star Entertainnt Company, a global entertainnt powerhouse, is alright?"
"So-so," Stan said, picking up his nu. "Nothing special."
He said it the way a man might evaluate a moderately interesting rock he’d found on the sidewalk.
Vivian stared at him.
The audacity of it, the sheer, baffling, physics-defying arrogance of a man who’d been soaked by her Ferrari yesterday calling one of the world’s premier entertainnt companies so-so, temporarily short-circuited her capacity for speech.
Her entourage exchanged confused glances. Maya pressed her lips together very tightly, suppressing sothing that looked suspiciously like a smile.
Stan returned his attention to the nu and began studying the dessert section with genuine interest.
He owned thirty percent of the company. Vivian managed a branch office.
So-so was, if anything, generous.
The comnt had been offhand. Barely a sentence. The kind of throwaway remark a man makes when he’s looking at a nu and not paying attention to the social minefield behind him.
But to Vivian Reeves, it was a declaration of war.
"What did you just say?"
She was on her feet before the words had fully left Stan’s mouth, her chair scraping backward across the polished floor with a sound that turned heads at three adjacent tables.
Stan looked up from the dessert section with genuine bewildernt. He hadn’t intended to provoke her. He’d simply stated his honest assessnt of a company he owned a third of, and his honest assessnt was that it was, relative to his overall portfolio, unremarkable.
"I said the company was average," he repeated, more carefully this ti. "That’s all."
"Average?"
Vivian’s voice climbed half an octave. Her cheeks had gone red, not with embarrassnt, but with the incandescent fury of a woman whose single greatest source of professional pride had just been dismissed by the man she already despised most in the world.
"Star Entertainnt Company, one of the top entertainnt conglorates on the planet, is average to you?"
"I didn’t an it as an insult—"
"You didn’t an it? You stand there and call my company diocre in front of my colleagues, and you want to believe you didn’t an it?"
Her finger was jabbing toward his face now, her composure dissolving with each word.
"I let the umbrella incident go. I decided to be the bigger person. And this is how you repay that? By mocking my career to my face?"
"Vivian, I wasn’t—"
"Do you think I’m easy to bully? Do you think because you got away with it once, you can keep pushing?"
Stan opened his mouth to explain, realized the explanation would require revealing that he owned thirty percent of the company she was defending, and closed it again.
There was no version of this conversation that ended well. Telling the truth would humiliate her far more thoroughly than the comnt already had. And continuing to argue would only feed the fire.
"You’ll regret this," Vivian said, her voice dropping into sothing quieter and more dangerous. "You will pay for ssing with ."
She turned and walked out. Her entourage scrambled to follow, a few of them throwing parting shots over their shoulders as they went.
"Kid, are you out of your mind? You dare offend Sister Reeves?"
"You have no idea what’s coming for you."
"You’re finished. Absolutely finished."
Maya watched them file out with an expression of weary contempt.
"For the record," she said, loud enough for the stragglers to hear, "Vivian walked over here and started this. Stan made one comnt to get her to move along, and she turned it into a full performance. Maybe she should spend less ti being offended and more ti minding her own business."
The remaining mbers of Vivian’s group suddenly found themselves unable to produce a coback. Maya Zimrman was Maya Zimrman, the daughter of the Zimrman family, and picking a verbal fight with her was the kind of decision that aged a person’s career prospects by several decades.
They left without another word.
Stan shook his head slowly.
"If she’s angry, that’s her problem. I didn’t do anything wrong."
"Maybe not," Maya said, reaching for her water glass. "But be careful. Vivian doesn’t just get angry. She gets even."
"I’ll manage."
After dinner, Stan drove Maya ho, then headed back toward campus.
He’d barely cleared the university gates when a familiar figure materialized from the shadows near the entrance, wearing the particular expression of a man who has been pacing for the better part of an hour.
It was Zack Howard.
"Stan." His voice was tight. Urgent. The sa tone he’d used that morning when the dorm had been gutted. "We have a problem."
"What now?"
"Vivian Reeves went to the principal."
Stan stopped walking.
"She’s demanding your expulsion. Tonight."
The words hung in the evening air for a mont.
"The principal actually agreed to this?" Stan asked.
"Vivian’s family donates more to this university annually than most departnts receive in their entire budget. The principal doesn’t say no to Vivian Reeves." Zack grabbed Stan’s arm. "She’s given you twenty-four hours. If you don’t go to her and apologize, on your knees apparently because that’s her thing, you’re out. Expelled. Academic record, gone."
Stan stared at him.
He’d known Vivian was petty. He’d known she was vindictive. But convincing a university principal to expel a student over a restaurant comnt about an entertainnt company? That was a level of weaponized privilege he hadn’t fully appreciated until this mont.
’She’s more dangerous than I gave her credit for,’ he thought. ’Not smarter. Not stronger. Just more willing to burn everything down over nothing.’
"Stan, I’m serious." Zack’s grip tightened. "Go apologize. I know it sucks. I know she doesn’t deserve it. But this is your degree. Your future. She’s not bluffing."
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