The Billionaire she threw away

Chapter 04

The Billionaire She Threw Away

Chapter Four

Pendleton University sat on the edge of downtown, old brick buildings mixed in with newer glass ones, the kind of campus that photographed well for the brochure and felt a lot less impressive once you'd lived in the dorms for four years. Jensen had two months left before graduation. Most of his classmates had spent the spring talking about job offers and grad school and, more than anything lately, about the graduation dinner everyone kept bringing up in the group chat.

He wasn't part of most of those conversations. He never really had been.

Four years at Pendleton, and Jensen had learned exactly where he stood in the social order without anyone needing to spell it out for him. There were students whose parents wired them allowances bigger than his monthly rent, who complained about midterms over brunch at restaurants Jensen could never afford to walk into, let alone order from. There were students who never thought twice about him at all, the kind of invisible classmate whose name they'd forget within a year of graduating. He used to mind that more than he let on. Lately he'd mostly stopped minding it, mostly because minding it had never once changed anything, and there was no point spending energy on a feeling that didn't move the needle either way.

The taxi dropped him off at the east gate a little after ten in the morning. He still had on the same torn shirt from the night before, his lip swollen, his ribs sore enough that he winced climbing the dorm stairs instead of taking the elevator everyone knew was broken anyway.

Colman was awake when he got in, sitting cross-legged on his bed with a textbook open that he clearly hadn't been reading.

"There you are." Colman dropped the book the second the door opened, scrambling to his feet. "I called you four times. Four times, Jensen. I was about to walk over to that club myself."

"I told you I was fine."

"You look like you got hit by a truck." Colman got up and actually inspected the cut on his lip like he had any idea what to do about it, tilting Jensen's chin toward the window light with the kind of clumsy concern that came from genuinely caring rather than knowing any actual first aid. "What happened? Is it about Rose? I heard from a guy in our econ class that she was seen with Benjamin Starr at some private room last night. Word travels fast around here, you know that."

Jensen sat down heavily on his own bed, every muscle in his back protesting the movement. "Yeah. It's about Rose," he said quietly.

He didn't go into the rest of it. Not the bodyguard who'd thrown him out, not Geena's entrance, not Seth breaking a man's arms on a public street while half the city watched. Colman didn't need to carry that weight, and there were parts of last night that Jensen still didn't fully have words for himself. Some things felt too big to say out loud just yet, even to the one person he trusted completely.

"I'm sorry, man." Colman sat back down, quieter now. "She didn't deserve you anyway. Anyone who'd choose a guy like Benjamin Starr over someone who actually shows up for them isn't worth losing sleep over."

"I know." Jensen reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded bill. "Here. The hundred I owe you. From last semester."

Colman looked at the money like it had personally offended him. "Put that away."

"You lent it to me when I had nothing. I want to pay it back."

"And I'm telling you to put it away, because real brothers don't keep a tab." Colman shoved the bill back toward Jensen's hand without even really looking at it. "You think I kept count? I didn't lend you that money expecting it back. I lent it to you because you needed it and I had it. That's it. End of story."

Jensen didn't argue further. He folded the bill and put it back in his pocket, something warm settling in his chest that had nothing to do with money at all. Four years of being treated like he didn't matter, and somehow this one person had never once made him feel that way.

The door to the room across the hall banged open before either of them could say anything else.

Matthew Bening leaned against the frame, grinning the way he always grinned when he thought he had the upper hand on someone, arms crossed and chin tilted up like he was looking down on the whole room from somewhere far above it. Matthew had never liked Jensen, not from freshman year, mostly because Jensen had never once been impressed by him, and Matthew had built his entire personality around people being impressed by him. He drove a car his parents bought him, wore watches he name-dropped in casual conversation, and somehow still needed an audience for every single thing he did. He was close with Benjamin Starr too, the kind of close that came from money recognizing money and circling each other at the same parties, trading favors and connections the way other people traded actual friendship.

"Heard you got dumped," Matthew said, stepping into the doorway. "And from what I'm hearing, it wasn't exactly quiet either. Benjamin's been telling everyone about it all morning. Sounds like quite a show."

"Get out of my room, Matthew."

"Touchy." Matthew laughed, glancing at Colman like he expected backup that wasn't coming. "I figured you'd be used to this by now. Guys like you don't really get the girl in the end, do you? Some things never change." He pulled a few bills from his pocket and tossed them at Jensen's face, one after another, like he was feeding a vending machine. "Go grab us some beer from downstairs. Least you can do since you're clearly free this morning, seeing as you've got no girlfriend left to spend your time on."

Jensen let the bills fall to the floor without touching them. "No."

"No?" Matthew's smile thinned out. He hadn't expected resistance, not from someone who'd just gotten publicly humiliated by his girlfriend the night before. In Matthew's mind, that should have made Jensen easier to push around, not harder, and the fact that it hadn't worked that way only made him angrier. "You're really going to act like you've got a choice here?"

"I said no."

Matthew crossed the room fast and threw a punch at Jensen's jaw, sloppy and overconfident, the kind of swing that worked on people who'd never had to actually defend themselves. Jensen had spent four years getting underestimated by people exactly like this, and tonight had already taught him plenty about how much that underestimation could cost the people doing it. He stepped sideways without much effort and let the punch sail past him into empty air.

Matthew followed it with a kick aimed at Jensen's stomach, and that one Jensen caught and shoved aside, using the momentum to put Matthew off balance, every motion calmer and more controlled than Matthew had any way of expecting from a guy he'd written off as harmless years ago.

One punch to the ribs. One kick behind the knee. Matthew went down hard onto the dorm room floor, gasping, more shocked than hurt, staring up at Jensen like he'd just watched a piece of furniture stand up and hit back.

"You—how did you—" Matthew scrambled backward, face red, humiliation written all over it in a way money couldn't cover up. He didn't say anything else useful, just a string of half-finished sentences that trailed off into nothing. He got up, grabbed his pride along with what was left of his dignity, and stormed back across the hall, slamming his door hard enough to rattle the frame and knock a poster loose on Colman's side of the wall.

Colman whistled low. "Remind me never to make you mad."

"He started it."

"I know. I saw the whole thing." Colman picked the dropped bills up off the floor and tossed them into the hallway after Matthew, just to make a point. He sat back down, and after a moment, his tone shifted into something more careful. "Hey. You thinking about the graduation dinner? Everyone's been talking about it nonstop in the group chat. I think Matthew's already trying to plan something fancy, probably so he can show off in front of half the class."

Jensen shrugged. "Not really. It's not the money. I just don't have much to say to most of those people. Outside of you, I don't really know anyone in that group chat. Four years and I could probably count on one hand the number of real conversations I've had with most of them."

"Yeah, I figured." Colman hesitated, then said it plainly. "I don't really want to go alone, though. You know how it is. Everyone's got their little circles, and I'd rather sit through three hours of small talk with someone I actually like talking to than spend the whole night standing around by myself pretending to check my phone."

Jensen thought about it. Two months from now, he wouldn't see most of these people again, probably ever. There was something almost funny about that, considering everything that had changed for him in the last twelve hours. None of these classmates knew who he really was. None of them would ever guess that the broke kid who waited tables at Aurum had ten million dollars sitting untouched in an account that had been waiting for him since he was eighteen. They'd spent four years deciding exactly how much he mattered based on the clothes he wore and the car he didn't have, and not one of them had any idea how wrong they'd gotten it.

"Fine," he said finally. "I'll go. For you."

Colman grinned, relief plain on his face. "Good. I'll let everyone know. Trust me, it'll be more bearable with you there. At least I'll have someone to make fun of Matthew with when he inevitably tries too hard to impress everyone."

Across the hall, Matthew sat on the edge of his bed, rubbing his ribs where Jensen's punch had landed, jaw tight with the kind of anger that came from being embarrassed in front of someone whose opinion you'd never admit mattering to you. The walls in this dorm were thin enough that he'd heard most of the conversation through them without even trying, including the part about the graduation dinner, including the part about Jensen agreeing to come.

He'd spent the whole walk back to his room replaying the fight in his head, trying to find some version of events where he came out looking less pathetic, and failing every time. Getting beaten down in two moves by the guy he'd spent four years calling broke and worthless wasn't something he was going to be able to laugh off, not to himself and definitely not if it ever got back to Benjamin or the rest of their circle. Worse than the bruise on his ribs was the simple fact that nobody had even been there to see it happen the way he would have wanted, with him winning instead of crumpling to the floor in front of Colman.

A slow, ugly smile spread across his face as an idea started forming.

He pulled out his phone and opened a message thread he hadn't used in a few days, the one with Benjamin Starr's name at the top.

Benjamin, lend me some money, he typed, thumbs moving fast. I'll help you teach that brat a lesson. There's a dinner coming up. Trust me, it's the perfect setup.

He hit send before he could think twice about it, already picturing exactly how he wanted this graduation dinner to go, the kind of revenge fantasy that made the ache in his ribs feel almost worth it.