“Maybe I should just cut her loose?” he mumbled, his glassy eyes suddenly narrowing as he leaned closer over the sticky mahogany bar. “You know, I feel like we have met somewhere before.”
Emily’s entire body tensed, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The dim, amber lighting was her only shield, but he was staring far too intensely. “I highly doubt that,” she said, her voice tight and clipped. “This is my very first time visiting this town.”
“Your voice just sounds so incredibly familiar,” he pressed, tilting his head as if trying to solve a complicated puzzle.
“You are probably just mixing me up with someone else,” she fired back quickly, throwing a crumpled ten-dollar bill onto the counter. Realizing she had pushed her luck to the absolute limit, she slid off the tall stool. “Have a good night.”
She practically sprinted to the elevator banks, her chest heaving as she furiously mashed the glowing button. As the metal doors finally slid shut, insulating her from the noise of the lobby, a massive flood of suppressed emotions finally breached the dam. Now she was absolutely, undeniably certain. It was James. Every last shred of hopeful doubt simply vanished into thin air.
The distinct dark mole, the patronizing cadence of his voice, the nervous flutter of his hands, the deep-set gaze—everything matched flawlessly. If she had briefly entertained the wild fantasy that he might be a long-lost brother or a distant cousin, that bar conversation completely vaporized the theory. It was him. Her legally deceased husband was alive and well, living under the radar, dating shallow women, and completely abandoning her and Ethan to a life of grief.
Leaning against the cool mirror of the elevator car, she vividly recalled exactly how James used to get when he drank. He was never the rowdy, aggressive type; he just got incredibly talkative and overly philosophical. He was doing the exact same routine right now, completely unchanged after three years in the wind. The only sickening difference was that his romantic partners now came and went through a revolving door, and Emily was reduced to the role of a random, nameless stranger he tried to chat up at a hotel bar.
What on earth was she supposed to do now? Storm back down there and confront him? Demand answers in front of the bartender? But what would that actually change? Still, a dark, insatiable curiosity gnawed at the edges of her mind. Who else from their old corporate circle knew he was breathing? What fake name was he hiding behind, especially since he was totally absent from the airline manifest?
Pacing the plush carpet of her hotel room, Emily visualized two distinct paths forward. The first option was clean and quiet: silently accept that James was alive but firmly relegate him to her past. She could just keep living her life, enjoy the rest of this expensive vacation, and pack him away in a mental box forever. In a few years, when Ethan was old enough to understand, she could sit him down and gently explain that his father did not actually die, but chose to walk away, and his current whereabouts were a mystery.
The second option was a volatile powder keg: face James directly in the harsh light of day. But pulling that pin meant she would have to listen to his pathetic, manufactured excuses, and potentially cross paths with his hostile new girlfriend. The greatest danger, however, was her own fragile heart. She was terrified her old feelings might suddenly reignite from the ashes. Mourning a beloved, dead husband was a tragic but straightforward process; standing face-to-face with a living, breathing liar and a traitor was an entirely different battlefield. What kind of twisted love could possibly remain for a scoundrel like him?
By the time the sun crept over the horizon the next morning, Emily and Ethan were already packing their canvas tote bag for the beach. The gloomy weather had finally cleared, leaving behind a brilliant, cloudless sky, and they needed to hustle to grab a decent spot. In front of the hallway mirror, Emily curated her armor carefully. She slipped on a pair of massive, dark sunglasses that practically swallowed the top half of her face and topped it off with a floppy, wide-brimmed straw hat. It was not just protection from the UV rays; it was a physical barricade against James. They were staying at the same resort; crossing paths was now a statistical inevitability.
Fully geared up, she grabbed Ethan’s sticky hand, and they headed out to catch the elevator. It took forever to arrive, as the morning rush of sunburned tourists filled the narrow halls. When the carriage finally stopped a floor below theirs, the metal doors slid open to reveal a woman with badly dyed blonde hair. It was James’s explosive companion from the night before, and her face was twisted into a bitter scowl.
“How long was I supposed to stand out here waiting?” the woman snapped to nobody in particular as she shoved her way inside. “People just pop out kids and think they can hog the elevators all morning.”
“Excuse me, but the elevator is for everyone in the building, and we all have to wait the exact same amount of time,” Emily replied calmly, keeping her voice incredibly level.
“I literally do not care how long you waited,” the blonde shot back, glaring daggers at Emily’s beach cover-up. “Dressed like an old lady hiding from the sun and still complaining.”
Instead of taking the bait and snapping back at the ridiculous insult, Emily simply placed her hands over Ethan’s ears and stared straight ahead, silently guiding him out the second they reached the ground floor lobby. The sprawling reception area was a chaotic sea of rolling suitcases and chattering families, and the blonde woman quickly vanished into the dense crowd. Emily let out a long breath of relief. The girl was likely rushing out to meet James, temporarily sparing Emily from a disastrously awkward morning encounter.
Out on the glaring white sand of the beach, Emily’s dreadful guess was immediately confirmed. She spotted the blonde stomping aggressively toward James, who had already thrown his towels over two premium loungers near the water. Unfortunately, the universe had a sick sense of humor. The absolute only free chairs left on the crowded beach were situated just a few yards away from them. There was no physical way to escape the proximity, but Emily fiercely resolved not to let these two ghosts ruin her hard-earned vacation. She kept her chin high, walked right past them, set up their colorful towels, and began methodically applying thick white sunscreen to Ethan’s shoulders as if everything was perfectly fine.
But the inevitable drama was not far behind. The couple’s vicious bickering erupted almost the second the woman sat down.
“Could you really not find a spot closer to the actual water?” the blonde snapped, violently adjusting her beach umbrella.
“This was the absolute closest spot available. If you wanted to sit on the waterfront, you would need to wake up at a decent hour, not sleep in until noon,” James fired back, his voice thick with a miserable hangover.
“Who are you to lecture me? You were out drinking at the hotel bar until two in the morning! I could not sleep waiting for you to stumble back, so yeah, I did not get up early,” she retorted loudly, uncaring who heard her.
“Just a quick reminder: you were the one who stormed out with your suitcase yesterday. How was I supposed to magically know you would slink back to the room in a few hours?”
“I am doing you a massive favor by coming back here and forgetting all your pathetic lies and your nastiness!” she shrieked, causing a few nearby tourists to turn their heads. “How dare you talk to me like that? This entire hotel is an insult! You know how long I waited for the stupid elevator this morning? I was stuck in there with some miserable single mom and her annoying kid!”
The phrase “single mom” stung Emily like a physical slap across the face. She bowed her head, hiding behind her massive sunglasses, desperately trying to tune out the shrill noise, but their angry voices carried perfectly over the sound of the crashing waves.
“When will you finally stop being so incredibly bitter?” James asked quietly, rubbing his temples in pain.
“And when will you stop being such a pathetic loser? Just look at yourself! Who do you even resemble anymore?” she sneered, tossing her magazine onto the sand in disgust.
Despite her best efforts, Emily slightly lowered her sunglasses and glanced over at James, suddenly morbidly curious about his current physical state. What she saw deeply unsettled her. He looked absolutely dreadful. His skin was a sickly, ashen pale, his bloodshot eyes darted around nervously, and his hands trembled violently against his knees, as if he were suffering from severe exhaustion or a sudden illness. He looked entirely hollowed out, likely poisoned by the massive amount of alcohol he consumed the previous night.
“Rita, I need to lie down for a second,” he whispered, his voice incredibly thin. And then, without any warning, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed heavily onto the plastic lounger, completely unconscious.
“James! What is wrong with you?” Rita cried out, her angry irritation instantly vaporizing into genuine, raw panic. Her face twisted as she violently shook his limp shoulder. “Help! Can somebody please help him!” she screamed hysterically.