I Dumped My Poor Boyfriend, Became Rich—He Said Regrets Chapter 11

I Dumped My Poor Boyfriend, Became Rich—He Said Regrets Chapter 11

The blood in my veins turned to pure ice. My hands shook so violently I could barely hold the phone.

Every single interaction since our reunion flashed through my mind. The way he hunted for me across the

country. The sudden corporate transfer. The massive salary bump. The things he said last night.

It wasn’t love. It was a debt settlement. That was it.

Chloe was right that night at the lounge. He loathed the fact that he owed me. Ethan Hayes was a man of

absolute integrity; he despised being indebted to anyone. To him, I was never a partner-I was just a heavy

anchor, a debt collector he needed to satisfy to free his soul.

A wave of suffocating, toxic grief washed over me. I didn’t even know how to blame him. Eight years ago, I was the one who dragged him into a dynamic built entirely on a financial transaction. I had broken his pride, and the trajectory could never be corrected. He had kept a meticulous ledger of every cent I spent on his grandfather’s ICU bills, remembering it down to the day.

I wished he had just forgotten.

A fierce, agonizing anger flared up in my chest. With trembling fingers, I fired off a text.

Me: [Who gave you the right to pay off my family’s debts without my permission?]

Ethan: [Isn’t it better this way? You don’t have to break your back working three shifts anymore.]

Me: [I don’t need your charity.]

Ethan: [Veronica, don’t be stubborn. I should’ve done this a long time ago. I always intended to return every cent of my grandfather’s medical bills to you.]

His words tore straight through my chest.

Me: [I will calculate the exact amount and pay you back every single dollar. Outside of corporate matters, do

not contact me again.]

Ethan called immediately, the screen lighting up again and again, but I refused to answer. I took an extra day off from work, locking myself inside my dark apartment, sleeping through the day and night as if trying to reclaim the four years of exhaustion I’d accumulated.

By the next morning, my mother knocked on my bedroom door, her voice trembling. “Veronica… Ethan has been standing under our building in the freezing rain all night.”

I ignored him, walking straight past him to the subway station to catch my morning commute. Ethan didn’t use his Porsche. He bought a metro card and sat right across from me on the crowded train, keeping his eyes glued to my face.

When evening came, I reported for my shift at The Sapphire Lounge. Ethan booked a small, private booth right by the corridor, sitting there silently, watching me carry trays in and out. He was like a living stone

statue, trailing behind me wherever I went.

After three days of this silent warfare, I finally snapped in the alleyway behind the lounge. “Stop following

me!”

“If I don’t follow you, you vanish,” he rasped, counting on his fingers. “You vanish to other cities. You vanish into stairwells. You vanish by turning off your phone. I can’t let you out of my sight.”

“I already said I’d pay you back!” I shouted, my voice cracking. “I won’t run away. Have you ever heard of basic

human trust?”

Ethan’s brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? You don’t owe me a dime.”

Despite my words, he remained my silent shadow. Until Friday evening, when his booth remained empty. Instead, my phone rang. It was, Chloe, her voice hysterical and piercing.

“Ethan just put a man in the hospital.”