Все главы His Choice Wasn't Me: Глава 11 - Глава 20

Five years crawled past like a long shadow. The scars time left behind were deep, but James learned to hide them well.He had thrown himself completely into work, building walls of meetings and deadlines around his pain.The company, once slipping from his hands, began to thrive again under his restless energy.People said success looked good on him. They didn’t know it was guilt that drove him, not ambition.At home, Tiana had settled into her role as his wife, officially now. They’d married the previous year, quietly, with only a handful of guests. It was less a celebration and more a compromise, the final step of a decision James made out of duty, not love.He told himself it was the right thing — she was the mother of his child, and she had suffered too. The least he could do was give her a name, give their daughter a proper family.Melissa was five now, bright and full of questions. She had her father’s calm eyes but Sarah’s softness. While Daniel was now twelve, barely given any

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 those projections before the board meeting.”“Yes, sir,” she replied politely, taking a seat across from him. Her voice was calm, professional but there was something in it. A familiar rhythm.He watched her a

James sat alone in his office long after everyone else had gone home. The city outside was wrapped in darkness, the only light coming from the tall building’s windows that shimmered faintly in the distance.His desk was cluttered with files, his tie loosened, and his eyes red from lack of sleep.He hadn’t gone home in two days, and even if he tried, rest wouldn’t come.Elena’s face refused to leave his mind. Every time he blinked, he saw her — the tilt of her head, the curve of her smile, the small way she frowned when thinking.It was Sarah. It had to be. But it couldn’t be.He rubbed his temples hard, muttering to himself. “It’s not possible… it can’t be.”But his heart didn’t listen.He opened his laptop again, determination lighting his face. He typed her name — Elena Moore.The company’s confidential employee database came up, and from there, he began to trace her history.Date of birth. Educational background. Work experience. Everything was perfect. Too perfect.He cross-checke

James couldn’t think straight. His desk was buried under a pile of untouched files, but his mind was elsewhere, trapped between confusion and anger. The events of the past forty-eight hours gnawed at him.Elena’s sudden disappearance felt like another cruel trick life was playing on him.He leaned against the edge of his desk, staring blankly at the city skyline through the glass wall. The whiskey bottle on his shelf caught his eye, and without hesitation, he reached for it.He poured a generous amount into a glass, the amber liquid glinting under the morning light. He took a long gulp, the bitter taste burning down his throat, and muttered under his breath, “What is happening to me?”The sound of his own voice startled him. He had begun to talk to himself more often lately. He gripped the glass tighter and started pacing from one corner of his office to another.His head throbbed as he thought about the woman who had come into his life like a whisper and vanished like smoke.“Elena…

The morning after the confrontation, the mansion was wrapped in a silence so thick it felt like the walls themselves were holding their breath.The early light creeping through the curtains revealed untouched plates on the dining table and a man on the edge of breaking apart.James sat on the couch, hands trembling slightly as two police officers stood before him, jotting down details on their notepads.“So, when was the last time you saw your son, sir?” one of them asked gently.James’s throat tightened. “Yesterday morning,” he managed, his voice barely steady. “He left for school, like always… he never came back.”The second officer nodded, glancing briefly at Tiana, who stood by the staircase in a silk robe, her arms folded. She kept pacing restlessly, her brows drawn, her sighs exaggerated — the perfect image of a worried mother.But to those who looked closer, there was something missing in her eyes. Concern, perhaps. Or guilt.“Any fights recently? Anything unusual?” the first o