System Revenge: From Trash Boy to Top Boss

Chapter 8

Jane, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and desperate excitement, practically launched herself at Aria. “Aria! Oh my god, Aria!” She shrieked, her voice high and breathless.

Jane’s mind had completely wiped out the earlier conversation with Damon. All that mattered was that Aria Golden was actually here, at her birthday party. She bowed again dramatically, a deep, reverent curtsy that made her sequined dress shimmer. No one judged her, as everyone in the room knew they’d probably do the same if Aria graced their presence.

Aria, however, looked at Jane with a polite, almost blank expression. She didn’t know Jane beyond the fact that this was her birthday party. She wouldn't have been here if not for the crazy bet with Damon.

“I sent you a DM, Aria!” Jane gushed, straightening up, her face flushed with pride. “I hoped you’d see it and I guess you did. Oh, this is just… amazing.”

Ernie Cooper, who had been sweating bullets ever since Aria walked in, saw his chance. He leaned into a group of students nearby, whispering furiously. “See? I told you, it was Jane’s invite and Damon just got lucky with his guess. Aria’s not here for him; she’s here for Jane’s party.” 

His voice carried, and a few heads nodded in agreement. The tension in the room, which had been thick with the possibility of Damon’s victory, seemed to ease slightly.

Jane, still beaming, gestured grandly towards a plush velvet seating area. “Aria, please, you and your friends should come and sit with us at our VIP table.”

Aria offered a small, polite smile. “Thank you, Jane,” she said, her voice calm, cutting through the lingering buzz. “But I didn’t come to your party for you.”

The air in the club seemed to crackle. Jane’s smile faltered. The whispers died.

“What?” Jane stammered, her face falling. “Then… then who did you come for?”

Aria’s gaze drifted past Jane, towards Damon, who stood confidently, a faint smile playing on his lips. “I came because my new boyfriend invited me.” She paused, letting the words hang in the air. “The richest guy on campus.”

A collective gasp swept through the room. Ernie, who had just started to relax, stiffened again.

“Her… boyfriend?”

“The richest guy on campus?”

Ernie, regaining some of his bravado, stepped forward, a respectful but challenging tone in his voice. “Ms. Golden, with all due respect, who is this boyfriend of yours? Because I’m pretty sure there’s no one here who fits that description. No one is richer than… well, than Xavier, at least.”

Before Aria could reply, one of her friends, a tall, striking woman with sharp eyes named Beatrice, stepped forward. Her hand shot out, a swift and stinging slap across Ernie’s cheek as the sound echoed in the sudden silence.

Ernie clutched his cheek, his eyes wide with shock. “Hey!”

Beatrice glared at him, her voice low and dangerous. “Who gave you permission to interrupt Aria? Show some respect.”

Ernie stumbled back, his face red, a hand still pressed to his cheek. “My apologies, Ms. Golden, forgive me, I… I misspoke.”

Aria, ignoring the stunned silence, continued her path. Her eyes, warm and sparkling, were fixed on Damon. She walked directly to him, her steps graceful and deliberate. Damon, still with that confident smile, watched her approach.

She reached him, and without a word, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into a soft, tender hug. “Babe,” she murmured, her voice just loud enough for those closest to hear, “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

Then, she leaned in, and her lips met his.

It was a soft, lingering kiss. Not a peck, not a quick brush but a real kiss.

The club erupted, not in cheers, but in huge gasps, murmurs, and outright shock. Jane’s jaw dropped so low it looked like it might unhinge. Ernie stood frozen, his hand still on his slapped cheek, his eyes bulging. Most of the guys in the room felt a collective pang of something akin to heartbreak, watching their goddess kiss Damon.

“What… what just happened?” someone whispered.

“Is that… Damon Newton?”

“But… Aria Golden? Seriously?”

The murmurs swelled into a confused roar. Everyone knew Aria. They knew her to be intelligent, mature, and discerning. She wouldn’t even smile at a guy if he wasn’t intellectually, socially, and financially her equal. So what did she see in Damon? The pauper? The clown?

Xavier, his face a mask of furious disbelief, finally found his voice. He stepped forward, his eyes blazing. “Aria!” he called out, his voice sharp. “Aria, you are a class apart from the rest. So please, explain to us why you would… why would you subject yourself to someone like him? To Damon? The known pauper in this school? The guy who runs errands for pocket change?”

Aria pulled back from Damon, her arm still linked through his. She turned to Xavier, her expression calm, almost amused. “A pauper?” she repeated, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Why are you calling Damon a pauper, Xavier?” Her gaze swept over the stunned faces in the room. “Damon is the richest guy I know in this school.”

A beat of silence. Then, a burst of incredulous laughter, which was loud, harsh, and disbelieving.

“He must have lied to her!”

“She doesn’t know him!”

“He probably told her some sob story!”

Jane, seeing her chance, pushed past Xavier, her face a mixture of anger and desperate conviction. “Aria, I’m sure you’re smart and you’re very intelligent. But when it comes to Damon, you don’t know him, not like I know him.” She looked around, her eyes pleading for understanding.

Aria raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Oh? And how do you know Damon so much better than anyone else, Jane?”

All eyes turned to Jane as she stammered, her face paling. She knew her earlier denial and public shaming of Damon were now exposed as a lie. But she had to prove her point and she had to prove that Aria, for all her intelligence, had made a terrible mistake.

Jane took a deep breath, silencing the growing murmurs about her connection to Damon. “Alright, fine!” she announced, her voice cracking slightly. “Yes! Damon and I… we were dating for about two months.” 

A fresh wave of gasps and grumbles swept through the crowd. “But there was nothing intimate about it,” she insisted, her voice rising. “He was just… pestering me and just to get him off my back, I agreed. But I never loved him and he never even held my hand, let alone… hugged me or kissed me.” 

She shot a venomous glance at Damon and Aria. “And now that I’ve confessed, I want Aria to know that I know Damon better than anyone here. He’s a pauper and nothing more.”

Aria looked at Jane, a faint, almost pitying smile on her face. “Jane,” she said softly, “it seems you don’t know Damon at all.” She paused, her eyes twinkling. “Or perhaps, you only ever saw the poor side of Damon. While I, it seems, was privileged enough to see the rich side.”

Ernie Cooper, still smarting from the slap and the shock, stepped forward again. “Rich side? What proof do you have, Ms. Golden? All we’ve seen is him in some new clothes he probably stole from a store and that pathetic errand website he uses for menial jobs! Any minute now, the security from the mall will be here to arrest him!”

Beatrice, Aria’s friend, took a menacing step towards Ernie, her hand already raising for another slap.

“Beatrice, no,” Aria said, stopping her with a gentle hand. She turned back to Ernie, her gaze firm. “Damon didn’t steal those clothes, Ernie; I was there. I watched him pay for them at the cost of one hundred thousand dollars.”

The club went silent in a collective, stunned silence. One hundred thousand dollars? For clothes?

Jane, her voice a thin, reedy whisper, asked, “Where… where did he get that kind of money?”

Aria smiled as she slowly raised the Fendi Custom Glow bag she was carrying. It caught the light, sparkling with an undeniable, luxurious gleam, and everyone recognized it. It was the first-grade version, the one that cost $100,000.

A chorus of “Oh my god!” and “No way!” erupted. The ladies in the room began to murmur excitedly, their eyes fixed on the bag. Nobody in the entire school had that bag, as Aria was the first and some of them, who had the second-grade version, which cost $20,000, quickly tried to hide their own bags behind their backs, including Jane, who had just received one from Xavier that morning. Aria’s bag was five times more expensive than theirs.

Jane, her face pale, managed a forced laugh. “Wow, Aria, you really have guts splashing that much on a bag; truly, none of us are at your level now.”

Aria laughed, a genuine, joyful sound. “Oh, Jane, I didn’t buy this bag myself. I couldn’t possibly spend that much on a handbag, even if I wanted to; I’d rather invest that money.”

The women leaned in as their curiosity piqued. “Then who?”

Aria looked at Damon, her eyes warm. “Damon did,” she said simply. “It was his gift to me for the start of our relationship. He got it for me when he was buying those fancy outfits of his.”

Jane’s body began to shake and not metaphorically but literally, as her knees buckled slightly. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard.