Meanwhile, Sarah tilted her face up toward Stan, the streetlight catching the soft curve of her smile.

"I knew you’d refuse if I offered to pay you back directly. You’ve turned me down every single time I’ve tried, the dinner, the clothes, the money itself. You wouldn’t let me give you a single dollar."

She paused, and her smile sharpened into something cleverer.

"So I figured that the best thing I could do with that money was put it toward making sure Quinn Carter doesn’t get away with what he did."

She squeezed his arm lightly.

"The legal fees, the attorney, the documentation, I handled all of it. That’s my repayment, Stan. Not cash. Justice."

Stan looked down at her. In the amber glow of the streetlights, with her hair slightly tousled and her eyes bright with quiet triumph, she looked less like a campus belle and more like a woman who had just outmaneuvered everyone in a room full of people who’d underestimated her.

He drew her closer, his arm settling around her waist with easy familiarity.

"Good girl," he said softly. "You did a great job in there. I was planning to sue him myself, but without solid evidence it would have been my word against his. You handed them the whole case on a silver platter."

Sarah’s cheeks flushed at the words good girl, but she didn’t pull away. If anything, she pressed closer.

"Someone had to," she said simply. "You’ve done too much for me to let some jealous nobody ruin your name without consequences."

They walked to where the Huracán was parked. Zack climbed into the back, a tight fit in a car that wasn’t designed for three, but he managed it with the practiced flexibility of a man who had learned not to question the logistics of Stan Harrison’s life.

Stan dropped Zack at the dormitory first.

"Thanks for coming tonight," Stan said through the window.

Zack climbed out, stretched, and looked back at his friend sitting behind the wheel of a matte-black Lamborghini with a campus belle in the passenger seat.

"You know," Zack said slowly, "I used to think my life was pretty interesting. I want you to know that I no longer think that."

Stan smiled. "Get some sleep."

"Yeah. On my Vivian Reeves apology bed." Zack shook his head one final time and walked toward the dormitory entrance, muttering something under his breath about the fundamental unfairness of existence.

Stan laughed inwardly at joke then he drove Sarah home.

The route was familiar by now, quiet streets, scattered city lights, the engine’s low rumble filling the comfortable silence between them.

Sarah sat with her knees angled slightly toward him, watching the passing scenery, her mind still buzzing with the quiet electricity of the evening’s victory.

When they pulled up outside her building, she didn’t move to open the door.

"Come inside," she said.

"It’s getting late, Sarah. I should,"

"Just for a little while. Let me make give you something to eat." She turned to face him, and the look in her eyes was warm but unmistakably firm. "You haven’t had a proper meal tonight, you barely touched the hot pot. And if you say no and just drive off, I’m going to be genuinely upset that you’re sidelining me."

She held his gaze.

"You went to dinner with Sophie. You went to dinner with Maya. The least you can do is come inside and eat something I cooked for you. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking."

It wasn’t really five minutes and they both knew it. But the logic was sound, the guilt was effective, and Stan was, if he was being honest, actually hungry.

"Alright," he said. "Five minutes."

Sarah’s face broke into a smile so bright it practically lit up the car interior.

Her apartment was small, clean, and warm, a modest space that carried the faint, lived-in scent of laundry detergent and cooking oil.

It was nothing like Sophie’s Four Seasons Garden penthouse, nothing like the luxury Stan had grown accustomed to over the past few days. But there was something grounding about it that made one feel at home

Sarah disappeared into the kitchen with the focused energy of a woman on a mission. Stan heard the clatter of a pan, the hiss of oil heating, the quick rhythmic chop of a knife against a cutting board.

She worked fast. Impressively fast.

Less than fifteen minutes later, she emerged carrying a plate of fried rice, golden, fragrant, studded with egg and scallion and small pieces of what looked like char siu pork. A curl of steam rose from the surface.

She set it in front of him with both hands, the way a chef presents a signature dish.

"Eat."

Stan picked up his spoon, took the first bite, and stopped.

It was good. Not good in the polite, obligatory way people describe food made by someone they like. Genuinely, unexpectedly, remarkably good. The rice had that perfect dry grain texture that only came from day old rice fried at the right temperature.

The egg was layered through in thin, golden ribbons rather than clumped in chunks. The seasoning was precise, savory, slightly smoky, with a hint of something sweet that he couldn’t quite identify.

"This is really good," he said, and meant it completely.

Sarah sat across from him, chin resting in her palm, watching him eat with the particular satisfaction of a woman whose cooking had just earned an honest compliment from a man she cared about.

"I told you," she said softly. "I’m a good cook."

"You undersold it."

"I was just being modest."

Stan ate the entire plate. Sarah made him a second serving without being asked, and he ate that too. They talked while he ate, nothing heavy, nothing dramatic, just the quiet, easy conversation of two people who had been through something together and were content to sit in the aftermath and let the evening wind itself down.

By the time the plate was empty and the kitchen was cleaned, it was well past midnight.

Stan stood to leave.