Chapter 32 Seamus
Chapter thirty-two
Seamus
I'm staring at my laptop, trying to focus on Graham's development brief, when my office door flies open.
Rosanna stands in the doorway, and I've never seen her look like this. Her face is blotchy from crying, but her eyes are dry now—past tears, into something harder and colder. She's holding her phone in one hand like a weapon, and her suitcase is in the other.
That detail sends ice through my veins. She's not just here to confront me. She's here to tell me she's leaving.
"How long have you known?" Her voice is quiet, controlled, and somehow that's worse than if she were screaming. "How long have you known that we were pen pals?"
The bottom drops out of my stomach. This is it—the reckoning I've been dreading.
Not because I chose to tell her, not because I found the courage to bridge the gap between Seamus and Shay, but because she figured it out herself while I was sitting in here being a coward.
"Rosanna—" I start, but she cuts me off with a sharp gesture.
"Don't. Don't you dare try to explain this away with your careful words and strategic pauses. Just answer the question. How. Long. Have. You. Known?"
I stand slowly, like I’m approaching something wounded. "About two weeks after we got married. At the library event. You said 'sunny side up'. Then other details started clicking into place, and I realized—"
"Two weeks." She laughs, and it's a terrible sound.
"So almost this entire marriage, you've known."
She takes a step closer.
"You've been sitting across from me at breakfast, kissing me, asking me about my day—all while knowing you're also the person I've been writing to. The one person I thought I could trust to be completely honest with me."
She steps fully into my office, and I see she's got her laptop bag over her shoulder as well.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" She sets her phone down on my desk with deliberate care, like she's afraid if she's not careful she'll throw it at my head.
"I've been writing to you about my marriage problems. About my husband who won't trust me, who keeps me at a distance, who makes me feel like I'm always being evaluated instead of loved. And you—"
Her voice cracks, but she pushes through. "You've been reading those emails and responding with sympathy and advice, knowing the entire time that you were the husband I was writing about."
"I wanted to tell you—" I start, but the look she gives me could strip paint.
"When? When exactly were you planning to tell me, Seamus? Or were you just going to keep both relationships going indefinitely, managing them separately so you never had to actually be vulnerable with me?"
All true. Every single one.
I kept the secret because telling her felt too risky.
"That's what this has all been about, hasn't it?"
She starts pacing.
"Control. You've been controlling every aspect of this marriage from the beginning. The contract. The boundaries. The careful calibration of how much of yourself to reveal and when."
She gestures sharply toward me.
"And when that wasn't enough, you kept a whole separate relationship so you could monitor what I was thinking without risking anything yourself."
"That's not—" I try again, but she talks over me.
"It is exactly that. You've been reading my private thoughts and using them."
Her voice shakes. "You knew what I was struggling with. What I needed. Because I was telling you. As Anna."
Her pacing tightens, back and forth like she’s measuring the room.
"And instead of being honest about who you were, you kept writing back as Shay. Letting me believe I had one honest relationship in my life. When really it was just you—lying to me in stereo."
"I was scared." The words come out raw, unfiltered. "I figured it out and I was terrified that if I told you, you'd feel betrayed. That you would jump to the worst possible conclusion."
I stop myself before I point to her current actions.
"So instead you just kept lying?"
Rosanna stops pacing and turns to face me fully. "You thought the solution was to keep deceiving me? To keep the lie going until—what?"
"I wanted to tell you. I tried—"
"You didn't try."
Her voice is hard now, all the softness I've come to love completely gone. "Trying would have been telling me the first week. Or the second week. Or any of the dozens of opportunities you had over the last few months."
She points an accusatory finger at me. "You didn't try. You chose not to tell me."
I don't have a defense for that. Because she's right. Every time I could have been honest, I chose not to be.
"Yesterday," she starts, but her voice breaks.
She swallows and tries again. "Yesterday we played chess in the park and you kissed me and it felt real."
Her hand curls into a fist at her side. "It felt like maybe we were finally finding our way to something honest."
She looks at me.
"And the whole time your company was filing demolition permits. The whole time you were keeping two massive secrets from me—Shay and the development timeline."
Her voice drops. "And you let me believe it was real."
"It was real," I say desperately. "It is real. My feelings for you—"
"Your feelings?" She snatches up her phone again, and her hands are shaking. "You don't get to talk to me about your feelings, Seamus. When you've been letting your company destroy what I care about while you kiss me and tell me you're trying."
"I am trying—"
"You're trying to manage me!" The words explode out of her, and she flinches like they surprised her too.
Then softer. "That's not love, Seamus. That's not even friendship."
Rosanna is breathing hard, like the outburst cost her something, and I'm just standing here with no defenses left.
"The bid," she says finally, quieter now. "Did you know about it?"
I could lie. But I'm so tired of lying.
"I knew the board was moving forward," I say. "I knew it would be an aggressive bid. I didn't know the exact number until this morning, but I knew it was coming."
She nods slowly, like I've just confirmed something she already knew.
"You knew they were planning to outbid me by millions of dollars. And you didn't tell me. You let me keep hoping, keep fighting, keep believing that maybe the advocacy group would help, when you knew the whole time it was already over."
"I didn't know what to do," I admit. "I was caught between the company and you, and I didn't know how to—"
"You knew exactly what to do."
Her voice is hard again. "You just didn't want to do it because it would have cost you something."
She's right. She's completely right.
And I have nothing to say that will fix this, no explanation that will make it better.
I made my choices—dozens of small choices that all pointed in the same direction. Away from vulnerability. Away from trust. Away from the kind of love that requires risking everything.
"I asked you for help," Rosanna says, and now there are tears on her face again.
"I asked my husband to help fund a legal advocacy group for a cause I cared about. And you made it about NDAs and oversight and whether I was using you."
She wipes at the tears. "You made me feel like asking for help meant I was trying to manipulate you, when really you were the one manipulating everything. Managing both relationships, controlling all the information, making sure you never had to actually be vulnerable with me."
"I'm sorry."
The words feel completely inadequate. "I'm so sorry, Rosanna. I was scared. But my feelings for you are real. I love you."
"Stop." She holds up a hand. "Just stop."
She adjusts her laptop bag on her shoulder. She’s leaving.
This isn't just a fight we're going to work through.
This is ending.
Right now. Right here.
"Rosanna, please—" I move toward her, but she steps back.
"I'm going to stay with Luna for a while. I need space to figure out what I'm going to do."
"What you're going to do?" The words come out panicked. "What does that mean?"
"It means I don't know if I can stay married to someone who lies to me."
"The marriage contract—" I start, and immediately realize it's the wrong thing to say.
"Is six months long with a clean exit." She finishes the sentence for me. "I know. I signed it too, remember? Back when I thought this was just a business arrangement and I'd never be stupid enough to actually fall in love with you."
The words hit like a physical blow. She loves me. Or she did.
"But it's time I take that option you gave me of leaving before the six months are up.
I'll have Tessa contact you about next steps," Rosanna says, and she's moving toward the door now.
"ERS has protocols for when marriages become adversarial.
Apparently this isn't the first time someone's personal and professional interests have collided in a way that makes the relationship untenable. "
"This isn't adversarial," I say desperately. "We can work through this. I'll tell the board to back off the Heritage Street acquisition. I'll sign the advocacy group retainer right now."
"It's too late for that, Seamus."
She turns back at the door.
A beat.
"And I can't build a life with someone who thinks honesty is optional and trust is something you can get by being dishonest."
"Please," I say, and I hate how desperate I sound. "Please don't do this. Stay. Let's talk about this."
She laughs, bitter. "After months of lies? No, Seamus. You had dozens of chances to be honest, and you chose not to take any of them. You made your choice. And now I'm making mine."
She grabs her purse, the suitcase, her laptop bag, the cardigan that's usually draped over her studio chair.
She's erasing herself from the penthouse, taking all the small touches of color and warmth that made it feel like a home instead of just expensive square footage.
"I loved you," she says at the door.
"Rosanna—"
The door closes behind her.