way<\/em> higher than what we ate. Bottles of champagne. Premium dishes. Almost $700 in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHe hadn\u2019t just asked to split the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019d found a way to make me pay for his entire night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And now he had my number, my name\u2026 and maybe even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I froze, staring at the charges. My heart pounded in my ears. He had planned this. The fancy dishes, the split bill, the phone call\u2014it was all a setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he had underestimated me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning, I marched back to the restaurant. The manager listened intently as I explained, then pulled up the security footage. And there it was\u2014my \u201cdate\u201d slipping my card from the table when I excused myself to the restroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The police were called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time they caught up with him, he had already tried to pull the same trick on another woman\u2026 at the same restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the officer called me to confirm the details, he chuckled and said, \u201cGuess what he was wearing on his second date?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sighed. \u201cLet me guess\u2014something expensive?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo,\u201d the officer replied. \u201cA suit he never paid for. Turns out he\u2019s been renting clothes, scamming women, and living like a king\u2014until now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Days later, I received an email from the court. My testimony had helped build the case. He was facing fraud charges, and every victim\u2019s money was being reimbursed\u2014including mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I smiled for the first time in days. He thought he was clever, but he walked straight into his own trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And as for me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s just say I\u2019m much more careful now\u2026 but I\u2019ll admit, there\u2019s something satisfying about knowing that while he sits in a cell, I can finally enjoy a dinner out\u2014on my own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weeks later, I thought it was all behind me\u2014until I got a letter in the mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was from him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scrawled in messy handwriting, it read: \u201cYou were the smartest one. If you had just played along, we could\u2019ve been unstoppable. Don\u2019t forget me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nA chill ran down my spine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tore the letter in half, then in half again, and dropped it straight into the trash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first time since that disastrous date, I laughed\u2014because the only thing he\u2019d be unstoppable at now\u2026 was rotting behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s exactly where he belonged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I went on a date with a guy. He ordered the fanciest things on the menu. I thought,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1816,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions\/1816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/states-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}