Chapter 3

As Leah headed out, she glanced back at me, still sitting in my seat.

"Tilda, you're not coming with us?"

I shook my head. "I'm not going."

Valerie clicked her tongue beside her. "It's her family's restaurant, so she's obviously sick of the food. Of course she looks down on our little dinner tonight."

With that, Valerie pulled Leah out the door, and the dorm was left with only me.

I figured they'd get stopped right at the door of The Rosewood Table since they had no reservation.

But an hour later I saw Valerie's post, and they were already inside a private room with the food ordered.

Valerie had put up a few photos.

The whole class, packed into one private room, split across two tables.

Both tables were already covered with dishes.

I skimmed them and saw they'd picked nothing but the priciest items.

Almost everyone had a lobster and a king crab in front of them.

There was a live video too, with Leah's voice in the background.

"Order whatever you want, everybody, we'll add more if it's not enough. Tonight we eat till we're stuffed!"

My phone suddenly rang. The screen showed Rod, the new owner of The Rosewood Table.

The moment I picked up, I heard him say,

"Tilda, why didn't you give your uncle a heads-up that you were treating your classmates? I could have set something up for you."

I froze for a second, then it clicked.

Normally you couldn't get into The Rosewood Table without a reservation. Leah had walked everyone in using my name.

The owner had changed, but most of the staff inside were the same.

They knew me, and once Leah dropped my name, they'd let the group straight in.

I quickly explained the whole thing to Rod, then warned him,

"Uncle, they're all there for a five-dollar all-you-can-eat deal. You'd better send someone to set the record straight, and fast."

Rod chuckled. "No need to explain. Business that walks right through my door, there's no reason not to make money off it."

"They want to score a bargain in my restaurant? Depends on whether they've got what it takes."

After I hung up, Natalie Winfield, the same classmate who'd sent me the group screenshots earlier, messaged me again.

【Leah's stepping on you again in the group to build herself up. It was your favor, and now those people are all thanking her!】

Natalie thought Leah taking a whole crowd to The Rosewood Table meant I'd actually agreed to that five-dollar all-you-can-eat thing.

Reading those messages, she was angrier than me, the one it actually happened to. I ended up comforting her instead.

【It's fine. Leah won't get what she wants.】

【We'll head over to The Rosewood Table in a bit too. There's a show to watch tonight.】

Natalie hadn't gone to the dinner either, so I brought her to sit down in the main dining hall of The Rosewood Table.

Once she sat down, Natalie said, a little worried, "Tilda, you're not going to go soft later and actually charge them five dollars a head, are you?"

"From the posts they put up, the dishes they ordered aren't cheap at all. Five dollars a person, how much would that lose?"

I gave her a look that said not to worry. "This restaurant isn't my family's. It's not my call. Even if I agreed to comp the bill, it wouldn't mean anything."

Only then did she relax. "Good."

By the time the two of us had nearly finished eating, Leah's group was done too.

They came out of the private room.

Leah walked at the very front, Valerie and Paulette on either side of her, with a whole swarm of people trailing behind.

At the front desk, Leah pulled out two hundred-dollar bills and tossed them across the counter.

"Two of us didn't show, so give me ten back."

The receptionist smiled. "Your total tonight comes to two hundred thirty-six thousand, nine hundred seventy-six dollars. You just paid two hundred, so there's still two hundred thirty-six thousand, seven hundred seventy-six dollars to go."