Bought by My Billionaire Ex

Chapter 1

When I was in college, I bought myself a boyfriend.

As long as he stayed with me, I paid for his family's medical bills.

This proud but destitute top student endured four humiliating years by my side.

Later, my family went bankrupt. To avoid holding him back from his obviously bright future, I lied, saying I was tired of him, and broke up with him.

He remained cold and indifferent—not a single word of complaint.

After that, I worked three jobs to pay off the debts.

And then I ran into him—now a tech billionaire worth tens of billions.

Everyone thought he must hate me.

In public, he dismissed me coldly: "It was just a fling back then. Nothing to miss."

But the moment we were alone, he cut off all my escape routes, pinning me down beside him, and paid off my enormous debt—without saying a single word.

I thought he was doing all this just to use money to get back at me, to finally settle the old score.

Until one day, I accidentally opened his notebook.

It read:

[I finally became rich. But I can't find you anymore. Can you... come and buy me again?]

The cigar lounge kept the air conditioning brutally low.

I stood behind the prep station in the farthest corner, half-hidden in the dim light, with lemon oil, stale smoke, and the sour smell of exhaustion clinging to my uniform.

A few feet away, the most generous table of the night had taken over the VIP section.

Bright lights. Leather sofas. Marble tables. Men in tailored suits leaning forward with their glasses raised, laughing too loudly, flattering too eagerly.

And in the center of it all sat Arthur Vale.

Five years ago, he had been a broke college student who couldn't even afford a secondhand laptop.

Last week, he rang the opening bell at Nasdaq.

Now every financial headline in the country was calling him the young AI titan behind a hundred-billion-dollar tech empire.

He was also my ex.

Arthur leaned back against the black leather sofa, the top two buttons of his dark gray shirt undone, as if even luxury bored him. The praise around him barely seemed to touch him. Every now and then, he gave a faint nod.

The whiskey in his hand remained untouched, the ice slowly melting against the glass.

I lowered my head and picked up a lemon.

'Please don't turn around.'

'Please don't recognize me.'

By day, I worked at a cheap data-labeling company in the basement of an aging office building. By night, I served drinks here, taking whatever shifts I could get so I could keep up with the court-ordered repayment plan hanging over my head.

These days, I didn't even own one decent coat.

I smelled like fryer grease, stale smoke, and the kind of tiredness that never washed out.

"Arthur, your return has made quite a stir," Davis, one of the investors, said as he poured wine, clearly desperate for an easy topic. "Even the gossip sites are digging up your college romance."

My hand stopped.

The knife hovered over the lemon.

Beside Arthur, Beatrice swept her hair over one shoulder.

She was a rising actress now, the kind of woman whose face appeared on billboards, magazine covers, and red carpets. Lately, she had been photographed with Arthur almost everywhere.

Five years ago, she had been the most beautiful girl on our campus.

"Mr. Davis, why bring up someone like her?" Beatrice said sweetly, though the disgust in her voice was impossible to miss. "If that spoiled little princess hadn't gotten in the way back then, Arthur and I would have been together years ago. She dumped him because he was poor, didn't she? I bet she's sick with regret now."

Someone laughed immediately.

"Exactly. Miss Beatrice is a star. What can an ex-girlfriend possibly compare to that?"

Davis gave an awkward chuckle.

Another guest, trying to smooth things over, said without thinking, "Still, three years is a long time. That sort of thing can't be easy to forget."

The VIP area went quiet.

Arthur set his glass down on the marble table.

Glass met stone with a crisp, cold click.

Then he laughed softly.

"Not really."

My breath caught.

The lemon split beneath my knife, its sharp, bitter scent rising into the air.

I lowered my head and lined up the blade again.

Years ago, I hated drinking plain water.

Arthur used to buy fresh lemons and stand in the tiny kitchen of his rented apartment, head bent, slicing them into thin, perfect rounds. He would pick out every seed with the tip of his knife before dropping the slices into warm water and placing the cup in my hands.

Back then, he was poor. He worked several part-time jobs a day, and there were always bruised shadows beneath his eyes.

But no matter how tired he was, he never forgot the little things I wanted.

Even the annoying ones.

I used to think that kind of devotion meant something.

I used to think he loved me enough to forgive all my selfishness.

We had been good once.

So good.

Until my family went bankrupt.

I forced him away with one sentence.

"I'm tired of you."

I thought he would ask me why.

I thought he would struggle, even for a second.

But he only looked at me with cold eyes and walked away without turning back.

That was when I finally understood.

His patience, his tenderness, his love—maybe none of it had ever been love.

Maybe it had only been a job.

A job to repay the enormous medical bills I had covered for his grandmother.

He had endured me for three years.

By the end, even that endurance had run out.

The knife slipped.

The blade sliced into my finger.

Pain flashed white-hot through my hand. Blood welled instantly and dripped onto the white plastic cutting board, bright and ugly.

Startled, I jerked back and knocked into the glass fruit tray beside me.

Crash.

The tray shattered across the tile floor.

Lemon slices scattered everywhere, slick with blood.

The VIP area fell silent.

Several pairs of eyes turned toward the prep station.

"What happened?" Beatrice stood at once. Her sharp gaze landed on the blood on the floor, and her nose wrinkled in disgust. "You can't even cut fruit without making a mess? How clumsy. It completely ruins the mood."

The floor manager rushed over from the front.

"I'm so sorry, everyone. So sorry." He bowed repeatedly toward the VIP table, then turned on me, lowering his voice into a furious hiss. "Chloe, what the hell are you doing? Clean this up and get out."

I kept my head down.

"Sorry," I whispered.

I wrapped my right hand tightly around my bleeding left finger and turned to leave.

Blood soaked through the rough fabric of my uniform.

Five years ago, I could stand beside Arthur in my prettiest dress, proud and untouchable.

Now I could only hide in a dark corner and be chased away in public like an inconvenience.

The light around them was too bright.

It made my eyes sting.

I didn't dare look back. I barely dared breathe. I only wanted to get away from that brightness and disappear into the dark.

'Please don't let him see me like this.'

'Please don't recognize me.'

Then Arthur spoke.

"Turn around."