Chasing Ghosts
662 Words
The conference room smelled like stale coffee and polished ambition.
Xavier sat at the head of the table, fingers steepled beneath his chin as half a dozen board members droned about quarterly projections. Their voices blended into a single note of background irritation he barely tolerated.
He didn’t give a damn about the numbers. He’d built Williams Corp from nothing, clawed his way up from a father who’d called him worthless, a mother who’d abandoned them both, and a world that never gave him anything he didn’t take by force.
Now, with more wealth and power than he’d ever imagined, he felt emptier than when he’d started.
Because none of it mattered without her.
“Mr. Williams?” One of the executives, a pale man with thinning hair, cleared his throat nervously. “Your input on the Vance proposal?”
Xavier’s gaze slid to the folder at the edge of the table. Gregory Vance’s company had been circling a merger for months. It should have been an easy acquisition. Strategic. Profitable.
Instead, he found himself wondering if she’d walked those same halls—if maybe she’d left traces of herself he could still find.
He swallowed the thought, his voice cool and unhurried. “We’ll proceed. Have legal review the terms before it crosses my desk again.”
“Yes, sir.”
The meeting continued, but Xavier tuned it out. He was thinking about the investigator’s last call. A sighting. A maybe.
He should have felt nothing but cold calculation. Instead, his heart was beating too damn fast.
He closed his eyes and pictured her. That last night. The rain. The way her mouth trembled when she finally said she was leaving.
I should have stopped you.
His phone buzzed against the table. He glanced down, expecting another tedious update.
But it was Warren.
You look like you haven’t slept in a week. You need to take a break before you collapse.
And do what? he typed back.
Anything that doesn’t involve obsessing over a woman who left you.
Xavier’s jaw tightened. She didn’t leave. She was driven away.
You’re proving her point, you know.
He didn’t answer. He set the phone aside and let the conversation around him fade.
---
Ariana straightened the stack of invoices on her desk for the third time that hour.
She’d thought moving to New York would be the hardest part—starting over in a city that swallowed people whole. But it wasn’t the city she was afraid of.
It was the quiet moments between tasks, when she couldn’t help remembering.
His voice in the dark. His mouth on her skin. The way he’d made her feel both cherished and caged.
Stop, she told herself fiercely. He isn’t here. He doesn’t know where you are.
Still, her heart wouldn’t listen.
She drew in a slow breath and forced her attention back to her work. Gregory Vance’s firm was nothing like Williams Corp—smaller, friendlier, less obsessed with cutthroat competition. It should have felt like relief.
So why did it feel like waiting?
Her phone lit up with a text from Lena.
Coffee later? You sound tense.
Ariana smiled faintly, typing back: Sure. I could use the distraction.
Lena didn’t ask questions she wasn’t ready to answer. For that, Ariana was grateful.
She turned back to the invoices, willing her pulse to slow.
She had a new life now. A new job.
And no matter how many nights she woke up dreaming of his hands on her, she would not go back.
---
In Manhattan, Xavier dismissed the board with a flick of his hand.
As the last of them filed out, he pulled out the file the investigator had sent.
One blurry photo. A woman with dark hair caught mid-stride on a crowded sidewalk.
He traced the edge of her silhouette with his thumb, and for the first time in years, he felt something close to hope.
It was time to end this silence.
- Writer
