Runaway Mommy: My Boss is the Father novel Chapter 10

Even when she asked him out, she had haughtily claimed it was fine because she could just give him money.

But the truth was, ten times the Vance family fortune couldn't even match a single year of the Hayes family trust.

Yet, in the end, he was the one who got dumped.

Phoebe's exit was ruthless and surgical.

She blocked him on every conceivable platform, cleared out all her belongings, and cut him off with the brutal efficiency of a guillotine.

It wasn't until Jaxson started asking around that he found out she had fled the country.

Just like that, she vanished, without leaving him a single word.

Sebastian had known she was leaving, and she had even sold him her maxed-out, heavily funded gaming account before boarding the plane.

A dark, bitter laugh clawed its way out of Jaxson's throat.

She was the one who had recklessly crashed into his world, clawed her way into his heart, and now she thought she could just walk away?

It was beyond absurd.

Who was Jaxson Hayes? He was the untouchable idol of Amherst University, the ruthless heir to the Hayes empire. He had been worshipped his entire life, and he absolutely refused to believe she could just ghost him like that.

He had torn the city apart looking for her, sending countless messages into the void, only to be met with dead silence.

He had even convinced himself she must be in danger, preparing to activate the Hayes family's underworld connections to hunt her down.

Until he heard Sebastian, who was lying in the hospital bed next to his, quietly cover his phone and take a call.

It was Phoebe.

In that split second, a blazing inferno of pure hatred consumed Jaxson, burning away the last shreds of his sanity and nearly reducing him to ash.

That phone call felt like a vicious, screaming mockery of his very existence.

After that day, no one ever dared to mention Phoebe Vance's name in front of him again.

Taking over the company had always been the plan; he just hadn't expected to find Phoebe sitting in one of his cubicles.

The second he saw her, he froze.

Seeing her look so much worse off than before didn't bring him any twisted satisfaction. Instead, it felt like a jagged knife twisting in his gut, suffocating him.

She was married.

And the timeline matched up perfectly with their breakup.

He couldn't help but wonder if the real reason she had been so desperate to dump him was because she was rushing to the altar with another man.

He had seen thousands of women like her. The blatant, sickeningly transparent greed in her eyes disgusted him to his core.

It inevitably forced his mind back to another pair of eyes—eyes that used to look at him with pure, adoring warmth, but now stared at him with nothing but frigid terror. His heart plunged into an icy abyss.

"Next time you invite guests, warn me."

If there were guests, he wouldn't come home.

"What is that supposed to mean? Even if you aren't interested, you could at least give the poor girl some basic respect!"

Watching him throw a tantrum and storm off was incredibly humiliating for Eleanor.

Jaxson let out a cold, dismissive hum. "You can invite whoever you want. Just don't expect me to be here."

Eleanor choked on a surge of furious resentment, unable to scream at him but unable to swallow it down.

After a long, suffocating silence, she finally snapped, "With your foul temper, no girl is ever going to put up with you! Seraphina actually likes you, and you treat her like garbage?"

Jaxson dropped his fork and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"Mm."

Eleanor's eyes suddenly caught the glaring red mark on his collarbone. "What is that on your neck..."