I Dumped My Poor Boyfriend, Became Rich—He Said Regrets Chapter 02

I Dumped My Poor Boyfriend, Became Rich—He Said Regrets Chapter 02

My body froze, pinned to the floorboards.

One second. Two seconds.

The floor manager stepped in right on time. “I’m incredibly sorry, sir. She’s new, still training. Tonight’s drinks and platters are entirely on the house.”

The manager winked at me. “Go on, get a fresh tray.”

I practically fled.

Out in the hallway, she scolded me gently. “Keep your wits about you next time. We’ve all been rookies, but if you get a formal complaint tonight, your whole shift is wasted.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just be careful with that VIP room. It’s packed with heavy hitters, especially the young, handsome guy in the center. He’s the CEO of a massive tech startup. We can’t afford to offend him.”

“Hey… I’m a little shaken up. Could you take the next tray in for me?”

“Sure.”

I let out a shaky breath. If there was one person in this world who had offended Ethan Hayes down to his very bones, it was me. I was that miserable, hated ex-girlfriend.

I still remembered freshman year.

Ethan stood among the crowd of new students, wearing a washed-out, faded hoodie that made him stick out like a sore thumb. He was visibly poor. But he was also undeniably striking, standing tall and rigid.

I loved the cool, detached cadence of his voice. I loved the way his thin eyelids drooped when he looked at me.

Ethan was desperate for money back then. His financial aid package had even been snatched away by a well-connected legacy student. So, after a late lecture one evening, I boldly grabbed his hand.

“Ethan, I like you. Be with me. I have plenty of money—we can share my allowance. Heck, I’ll even pay you every time you kiss me.”

He rejected me, of course. But back then, my life was a smooth, golden highway. I didn’t know what failure felt like. The more he pushed me away, the harder I pursued him.

Until his grandfather, the man who raised him, ended up in the ICU. Without blinking, I cleared the entire medical bill.

That day, Ethan Hayes finally bowed his head to me.

I was stupid enough to think I had performed a heroic rescue. It took me years to understand—I had won him, but I had also utterly broken his pride.

Even after we got together, he kept working multiple campus jobs to feed himself. He barely touched my money, but things only got worse.

Vicious rumors began tearing through the campus. They said Ethan Hayes had sold his body for cash. The looks from our classmates changed. People started calling him disgusting names behind his back, mocking him as my “boy-toy.”

Back then, I was still wrapped in my blissful, naive bubble. I’d hold his hand and say, “Ignore them. They’re just jealous.” I lived in an ivory tower, completely blind to the fact that Ethan was fighting a war entirely on his own.

Senior year, my family’s empire collapsed into bankruptcy. I didn’t tell him.

I just called him out one afternoon and said, “Let’s break up.”

“Why?”

“I’m bored of you.”