Amelia balanced her tray of cafeteria food with one hand while scrolling through her phone with the other. The cafeteria wasn't anything glamorous gray floors, flickering tube lights, the faint smell of overcooked spaghetti clinging to the air but to her, it was a brief escape. A corner seat, a half-hour of silence, and maybe she could recharge before diving back into another shift of tutoring freshmen in math.
Her stomach growled, but the heaviness in her chest drowned out the hunger. The reminders kept replaying in her mind, rent overdue, her mother's voice over the phone asking if the hospital had called again, the notice from the bursar's office about tuition.
"Just one quiet lunch," she muttered, sliding into an empty corner table. "That's all I'm asking for."
She placed her phone face down and finally picked up her fork.
But quiet never seemed to belong to her life.
The sound began as a ripple of whispers, then quickly grew into a wave of gasps and frantic chatter. Chairs squeaked, heads turned, phones were whipped out to record whatever was happening at the cafeteria doors.
Amelia frowned, mid-bite, and followed the direction of every gaze.
Her fork froze in the air.
There, framed by the sunlight spilling through the glass doors, stood a man she recognized instantly, though she had only ever seen him in glossy magazines, financial reports, and the occasional late-night news broadcast.
Adrian Kane.
He was taller in person, broader-shouldered than the photographs suggested, and there was a sharpness to his presence that no picture could capture. He wore a charcoal-gray suit that looked impossibly out of place in the dull cafeteria. His shoes gleamed like polished obsidian, and his hair was dark, perfectly styled, as if not a single strand dared to defy him.
It wasn't just his looks, though they would have been enough to make anyone stare. It was the way he carried himself, like the air bent to his will. Conversations died instantly. Even laughter seemed afraid to echo when Adrian Kane stepped into the room.
Amelia's heart plummeted to her stomach.
No. It couldn't be.
Her mind scrambled back to the morning, when she had accidentally barged into the wrong lecture hall and interrupted his speech. When she had walked out, embarrassed, muttering apologies that she doubted he had even heard. Surely a man like him would have forgotten about a girl like her in seconds. Right?
But then his eyes steel gray, cold and cutting locked onto hers.
And every inch of her body went cold.
"You," he said, his voice carrying across the silent cafeteria like a blade slicing through air.
Amelia blinked. "M...Me?"
"Yes, you." He strode toward her, each step slow, deliberate, powerful. "The student who thinks she can interrupt my lecture and walk out as if my time is disposable."
Heat flared across Amelia's cheeks. The entire cafeteria had turned into an audience, watching with wide eyes, phones raised, ready to immortalize her humiliation forever.
"I didn't mean to..." she started, her voice trembling.
Her tray wobbled in her hands, the plastic slick with condensation from the juice cup. And before she could steady it, gravity betrayed her.
The tray slipped.
Time slowed as spaghetti, mashed potatoes, and apple slices tumbled through the air then splattered across the shiny leather of Adrian Kane's shoes.
A collective gasp erupted from the crowd. Someone even dropped their fork in shock, the clatter echoing in the silence that followed.
Amelia's blood drained from her face. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" she stammered, kneeling instinctively, reaching for napkins.
"Don't," Adrian snapped, his voice sharp as steel. He didn't move back, didn't even flinch at the mess, but his eyes burned like fire. "You've done enough."
The words sliced through her like a blade.
She froze, hands hovering helplessly in the air, unsure whether to keep apologizing or crawl into a hole and disappear. Her heart thundered in her ears, loud enough she barely noticed the rush of footsteps until it was too late.
Campus reporters.
They poured in through the doors, cameras flashing, microphones waving. "Mr. Kane! Mr. Kane, is she your girlfriend?"
"Who's the mystery student?"
"Exclusive scoop, billionaire visits campus cafeteria!"
Flash after flash blinded Amelia, and before she could even process what was happening, her humiliation was caught on dozens of lenses,her kneeling, the food splattered, Adrian looming above her like a dark storm.
Her throat tightened. "This isn't...." she tried to explain, but her voice was drowned out by the chaos.
Adrian didn't say a word. He just stared at her, his expression unreadable but sharp enough to make her knees tremble.
Why wasn't he denying it? Why wasn't he saying she was nobody?
Instead, he let the cameras flash, let the rumors bloom. And the longer his silence stretched, the more her world crumbled.
She forced herself to stand, back straight, chin lifted, even though shame burned her skin. She refused to give them tears, refused to let them see her break.
But deep down, she knew the damage was already done.
By the time security escorted Adrian out through a side door, Amelia's name was already being whispered across the cafeteria, her image already trending on every student's social feed.
She had just collided with Adrian Kane.
And the world had witnessed it.