The Erased CEO

Ghosts of the Pasts

Evelyn had always believed in fresh starts.

She had built her life around the idea that if you left the past behind long enough, it would eventually stop chasing you.

But some ghosts never stayed buried.

She stood in her small kitchen, staring absently at the flickering candle on the countertop. It was late, but sleep wasn’t coming tonight. Not after the conversation she had with Nathan.

*Do you think you had someone waiting for you?*

The question had rattled something inside her, something she hadn’t let herself think about in years.

Because once upon a time, she *had* been the one waiting.

Waiting for someone who never came back.

She pulled her sweater tighter around herself, her fingers trembling slightly as she reached for a worn-out journal tucked between cookbooks on the shelf. The pages were yellowed, the ink faded, but the memories inside were sharp enough to cut.

She hadn’t opened it in years.

Flipping through the pages, she traced the old words with her fingertips. Plans, dreams, messy scribbles from a girl who had once believed in happy endings. A girl who had waited for a man who promised he’d come back.

But he never did.

She swallowed hard, her chest tightening as her gaze fell on a familiar name—one she hadn’t spoken aloud in so long it felt foreign now.

*Liam.*

She had loved him. God, she had loved him.

And then one day, he vanished.

No explanation. No goodbye. One moment he was there, talking about the future they’d build together, and the next… nothing.

She had spent months searching. Asking questions. Begging for answers that never came.

And when she finally realized he wasn’t coming back, she left everything behind.

A new town. A new life.

A fresh start.

But now, standing in her kitchen with a stranger sleeping in the next room—another man with no past, no answers—she felt the cracks in her carefully built world widening.

She didn’t know what had happened to Liam. Didn’t know why he disappeared or if he had ever truly loved her.

But for the first time in years, she wondered—

*Had someone taken him away from her?*

Just like someone had taken Nathan from his old life?

The thought sent a shiver down her spine.

She closed the journal and exhaled slowly, trying to shake the eerie feeling creeping into her bones.

It was just a coincidence.

It had to be.

But as she turned off the light and headed to bed, a quiet voice in the back of her mind whispered a warning—

*What if it wasn’t?*