He Saw My Ghost All Along, And Grew Tired Of My Clinging Chapter 09

He Saw My Ghost All Along, And Grew Tired Of My Clinging Chapter 09

I woke up with nothing in my head. No sense of time. No sense of place.

The room was wrong. The hands in front of me were wrong. None of it was mine.

Then it came back. What the Guide told me.

Another body. This body wasn’t mine.

I stumbled to the mirror. The face staring back was a stranger’s.

I’d been desperate to get back to Reid. But standing here in someone else’s skin, I froze.

How do you walk up to someone and say, “I died four years ago and now I’m back in a different body“? He’d think I’d lost my mind.

I couldn’t just show up.

I needed a way in. Something that would let me prove who I was without sounding insane.

I let out a breath. Then my phone buzzed.

[You have been selected as the new executive assistant to the CEO of Vaughn Group.]

I read it twice. Then a third time.

Reid’s executive assistant. Me.

Starting today.

The Guide had given this body a complete identity and history.

I was already running late. I threw myself together and bolted out the door.

The sun hit my skin and I stopped. Warmth. Real warmth. I was alive.

The cab dropped me off at the building. I stood on the sidewalk, staring up at it. I knew this place.

When we were together, I used to visit him here all the time. We’d eat lunch in his office, just the two of us, talking about nothing.

Back then, those moments felt ordinary. Now they were the most valuable things I’d ever lost.

I shut my eyes, pushed everything down, and walked in.

My feet carried me toward Reid’s office on autopilot. I stopped at the break room and made his coffee without thinking, the same way I always had.

I pushed the door open, heart hammering. The office was empty.

Relief. I set the coffee on his desk, and then I saw it. A photograph, framed, sitting right where he

uld see it every day.

Our first photo together. Reid hated having his picture taken back then. When I’d shownit to him, he barely reacted.

I’d assumed he didn’t care. But here it was, on his desk, after all this time.

My hand reached for the frame before I could stop it. I just wanted to touch his face.

“What are you doing?”

The voice came from behind me. Low, cold, achingly familiar.

I flinched so hard I nearly knocked the frame over.

I looked up. Reid was standing right there, eyes locked on me.

Every wall I’d built in the last hour crumbled.

I almost broke right there. I dropped my gaze fast, blinking hard, praying he couldn’t see.

I bit down on my lip until the pain steadied me.

“Mr. Vaughn. I’m your new assistant. You weren’t in yet, so I thought I’d tidy up.”

He held my gaze for a beat too long. Then he walked past me to his desk.

“Don’t touch my desk. Nothing on it needs organizing.”

He didn’t look at me when he said it.

I nodded and turned for the door.

Behind me, I heard him take a sip of the coffee. Then silence.

“Wait!”

I stopped. Turned.

“Who taught you to make coffee like this?”

I blinked. I didn’t understand the question. I’d just made it the way he liked it.

“Only one person ever made my coffee like this. Her name was Elise. How did you know to make it this way?”

My own name hit me like a punch to the chest.

I dropped my eyes.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence…”

Reid’s eyes stayed on me. Long enough to make my skin prickle. Then he waved me out.

I made it out the door and let myself breathe..

Part of me wanted him to figure it out. To see through this face and just know.

But the rest of me was terrified. How do you explain coming back from the dead?

What if he thought I was crazy? What if knowing the truth made him afraid of me?

I wouldn’t survive that.

I spent the rest of the day at my desk, sorting files, keeping my head down.

Every time Reid walked past, I felt his eyes on me. He never said a word.

Near the end of the day, Nadine rushed in.

I was by the coffee table, gathering up scattered papers..

She looked rattled. She shoved a piece of paper at Reid.

“Someone left this on my windshield this morning. I have no idea who. They actually think we’re together, Reid.”

“It says… if I don’t walk away, I’ll be the next one to end up dead.”

My hands stopped moving.

The next one. That word, next, lodged itself in my brain.

A thought started forming. One I couldn’t push away.

Everyone on the outside believed Nadine was Reid’s girlfriend. If someone was jealous enough to threaten her…

Then what about me? I was the one with Reid before her.

Was my death really an accident?