Ex Wife's Trillionaire Revenge

Layla held the other woman's gaze, refusing to let the words move her, though something about the way she said it, slow and deliberate, like she was tasting the sentence before releasing it, made the hair on Layla's arms rise.

"That is a strange thing to say to someone you have never met," Layla said.

"Is it?" Vanessa descended the final two steps, moving with the unhurried confidence of someone who had never once worried about arriving anywhere too late or too early. "You would be surprised how much a family can learn about a scholarship applicant before she ever signs her housing forms."

Scott shifted beside Layla, and for the first time since the courtyard, some of his easy arrogance seemed to falter. "Vanessa."

"I am simply welcoming our new housemate, Scott." Vanessa's smile widened, cool and precise. "Room fourteen is just down the hall from mine. I am sure we will get to know each other very well this semester."

She swept past them both, trailing the scent of something expensive and floral, and disappeared through the common room without another word. Layla watched her go, uncertain whether she had just survived an introduction or a warning.

"You should not mind her," Scott said quietly, though he did not sound entirely convinced of his own advice.

"I don't remember asking you to explain it to me." Layla snapped

"No," he agreed. "You did not."

Layla left it there, gathering her suitcase and climbing the stairs alone, aware of Scott watching her go and choosing, for once, not to follow.

By the time Layla found her way to the campus dining hall the next morning, she had already decided that Dortmund Campus operated on rules nobody had bothered to write down for her.

She discovered the first of these rules the moment she set her tray down at an empty table near the tall windows overlooking the quad.

The table was long, polished dark wood, positioned in the most coveted corner of the dining hall where morning light fell in clean gold lines.

It seemed, to Layla, that this was simply the best available seat. She had not noticed the small brass plaque mounted discreetly at its edge, nor the way conversation around her had gone suddenly quiet.

She noticed the silence first. Then she noticed the stares.

A group of students near the coffee station had stopped talking entirely, watching her with the particular fascination people reserve for a stranger about to make a terrible mistake.

Layla ignored them, unwrapping her cutlery, telling herself she had simply become an object of curiosity because she was new.

She was three bites into her breakfast when a voice cut across the dining hall, sharp and carrying.

"I believe you are sitting in the wrong place."

Layla looked up to find a tall young man in a pressed blazer standing over her table, flanked by two others who wore matching expressions of amused disbelief.

She recognized his type immediately, the same easy entitlement she had seen in Scott during their first conversation, except without any of the warmth that had softened it.

"I am sorry?" Layla said.

"This table is reserved." He gestured at the small brass plaque she had missed entirely. "Founders' table. For legacy families only. I do not believe your name is on any list I am aware of."

Heat crawled up Layla's neck as she realized every eye in the dining hall had turned toward her.

Someone laughed quietly near the coffee station. Another voice murmured something about scholarship students not knowing where they belonged, pitched just loud enough to carry.

"I did not see a sign," Layla said, keeping her voice level despite the humiliation clawing up her throat.

"Perhaps you should look more carefully next time. Or perhaps," the young man said, smiling now, clearly enjoying the audience he had gathered, "someone should explain to you that certain places on this campus are simply not meant for people like you."

Layla's hands tightened around her fork. She thought of every argument she could make, every sharp retort that might defend herself, but arguing would only extend the humiliation, giving the gathering crowd more of a show than they already had.

She began gathering her tray instead, refusing to let her hands shake.

"Is there a problem here?"

Scott's voice arrived before Layla saw him, cutting through the murmur of the dining hall with an authority that made the young man's smug expression falter instantly.

"Miller." The young man straightened, his tone shifting immediately from mockery to careful respect. "No problem. Just reminding your friend here about table arrangements."

"Funny," Scott said, walking closer, hands in his pockets, his gaze moving slowly and deliberately across the small crowd that had gathered. "I do not recall table arrangements being your responsibility, Preston. Last I checked, that plaque belongs to my family, not yours."

Preston's face flickered, some of his confidence draining visibly. "I was only saying-"

"I heard what you were saying." Scott's voice remained pleasant, almost conversational, which somehow made it more unsettling than if he had raised it. "And now I am saying that Layla Jackson is sitting exactly where she is supposed to sit, because I invited her."

A ripple of surprise moved through the gathered students. Layla stared at Scott, equally startled, though she kept her expression carefully neutral.

"You invited her," Preston repeated.

"Is there an echo in here, or are you simply having trouble processing information this morning?"

Preston's jaw tightened, but he said nothing further, gathering his own tray and retreating with his two companions toward a table farther from the windows.

The dining hall slowly returned to its normal volume, conversations resuming, though Layla could feel curious glances still lingering in their direction.

Scott pulled out the chair across from her and sat down without asking, setting his own tray beside hers as though this had always been the plan.

"You did not have to do that," Layla said once the crowd's attention had fully dispersed.

"I am aware."

"Then why did you?"

Scott considered the question longer than she expected, his usual easy charm briefly absent, replaced by something more careful.

"Because Preston has been waiting for an excuse to embarrass someone since the semester started, and I decided I did not feel like watching him succeed today."

"That is not an answer."

"No," he admitted. "It is not."

Layla studied him, searching for whatever motive lay beneath his sudden generosity, remembering the accusation he had leveled at her just the day before, certain she wanted something from his family's name.

"Yesterday you assumed I orchestrated an entire collision to get close to you," she said slowly. "Today you humiliate the son of, I assume, another important family, in front of half the dining hall, to defend me. Which version of you am I supposed to believe?"

Scott's eyes flickered quick and unguarded before he masked it again.

"I am still deciding that myself," he said.

Before Layla could press further, a shadow fell across their table, and she looked up to find Vanessa standing there, arms crossed, her earlier polite mask entirely gone, replaced by something considerably colder.

"Scott," Vanessa said, her voice tight with barely controlled fury. "A word. Now."

"what do you want? Whatever you have to say has to waitI I am in the middle of breakfast."

"You defended a scholarship student against the Whitfield family's son, in front of the entire dining hall, less than one day after meeting her." Vanessa's eyes cut toward Layla, sharp enough to draw blood. "Your father is going to hear about this within the hour, and I promise you, he will not be pleased