Since the night of the gala, sleep had become a stranger to James. Even when he managed to close his eyes, her face appeared — Elena’s face, or maybe Sarah’s.
He could no longer tell the difference. Her smile haunted him in boardrooms, her voice followed him through corridors, and every time she laughed, something in his chest tightened painfully.
He told himself it was just curiosity. That was the lie he repeated to his reflection each morning while tying his tie.
But curiosity doesn’t burn like that. It doesn’t keep a man awake at 2 a.m., staring at the ceiling, seeing the ghost of his dead wife in another woman’s eyes.
By the next week, he had found reasons or excuses to see her again.
“Miss Moore,” he said one morning as she entered the conference room, “we’ll need to review tho
