Chapter 34 Seamus
Chapter thirty-four
Seamus
The penthouse has never felt this quiet. I've lived here for five years, and for most of that time I preferred the silence—the ordered calm of expensive square footage unmarred by the mess of other people's presence.
But now the silence feels wrong, like something vital has been removed and I'm only just noticing the absence.
Her sketchbooks aren't on the coffee table where she always left them, corners dog-eared and pages marked with sticky notes in her looping handwriting.
The bright blue cardigan that usually draped over the couch is gone. The tea collection that took up an entire shelf in the kitchen—bergamot and chamomile and that weird lavender blend she loved—cleared out like it was never there.
Even the art supplies in the studio next to my office have been removed, leaving behind only faint graphite smudges on the desk and a few stray pencil shavings in the corner.
I walk through the rooms cataloging the absences, and it's like watching color drain from a photograph.
The penthouse is returning to what it was before Rosanna—pristine, controlled, perfectly curated.
The space looks exactly how I designed it to look, and I've never hated it more.
I end up in her studio—my studio now, I guess, though I can't imagine what I'd use it for.
The corkboard still has a few sketches pinned to it, ones she must have forgotten in her hurry to leave.
I walk over and look at them: preliminary drawings for her garden story, Mira planting seeds in concrete, hope taking root in impossible places. The images feel like an accusation.
When she asked me to fund the advocacy group, she wasn't trying to use me.
She was asking her husband to support something she cared about.
"I didn't ask you because you're rich, I asked because you're my husband."
She was trying to stand for her values. That's all she was ever doing. Fighting to preserve community heritage, protecting beautiful things from being destroyed in the name of progress, believing that care and history matter more than profit margins.
And I interpreted it as a threat. Because if she cared that much about the storefront, maybe she was just using our marriage to get what she wanted.
And I threw it in her face.
Pushed her away because I was too damaged to recognize love when it was asking me to be brave enough to trust it.
My phone rings. It's Tessa from ERS.
"Seamus, I wanted to speak with you before any formal steps are initiated. Rosanna has requested space. That doesn’t automatically mean an annulment. But it does mean we need clarity on where you stand."
The word "annulment" hits like a physical blow. I knew this was coming—Rosanna made it clear she was done when she walked out—but hearing it stated so clinically makes it real in a way it hasn't been before.
"I don't want an annulment." The words come out before I can think them through. "I want to fix this. I want her to come back."
There's a pause on the other end of the line.
"I understand," Tessa says evenly. "But what matters is whether you both still want the marriage."
"She loved me." I hear the desperation in my own voice and hate it.
"Seamus." Tessa's voice is gentle but firm. "We see ERS marriages end for all kinds of reasons," she says. "We even write in an end date from the beginning. I know this is hard for you to hear, but from a contractual standpoint, your arrangement worked."
The word worked scrapes against something raw in my chest.
Tessa exhales.
"For what it's worth, Rosanna sounded deeply hurt. That doesn’t sound like indifference to me."
Tessa hangs up after reminding me that space is not the same thing as finality.
I sit at my desk and try to do what I've always done when facing a problem: break it down into components, analyze the variables, find the strategic solution.
But there is no strategic solution. This isn't a business problem that can be solved with the right positioning or the proper allocation of resources.
This is a human problem, and I've spent so long treating my life like a corporation to be managed that I've forgotten how to think like a person who's allowed to want things for reasons that have nothing to do with efficiency or optics.
My phone buzzes with an email from Malcolm. I don't bother reading it.
I already know what it says.
The board meeting this morning lasted less than twenty minutes. Malcolm presented the revised offer. The offer they had gone public with already.
I sat at the head of the table while they voted.
When it was my turn, I raised my hand too.
There wasn't another option.
I hate that there was no good option.
I hate that the board did this to me.
But the thing I hate most of all is that Rosanna is gone.
And it's my fault, and I don't know how to fix it.
I think about my father—about the legacy he built, the company he grew from nothing, the empire he expected me to protect and expand. He would have handled this situation differently.
He would have let Rosanna leave without a second thought, would have focused on the business, would have seen the marriage as a failed experiment to be written off and moved on from.
Personal feelings didn't factor into his decisions.
The company always came first.
And I've been trying so hard to be him. To prove that I could manage the empire he built, that I was worthy of inheriting his position, that I wasn't the reckless playboy anymore.
I reformed myself, locked down my emotions, and learned to treat every relationship like a transaction that could be managed with the right controls in place.
But what did it get me?
An empty penthouse. A wife who left because I couldn't trust her enough to be honest.
A company and a legacy I've protected at the cost of everything that actually mattered.
Rosanna deserves someone who chooses her without hesitation.
Someone who doesn’t hide behind structure and strategy when things get uncomfortable.
Someone who risks instead of calculates.
She deserves someone who isn’t me.
That's the real truth I've been avoiding.
Maybe I'm not capable of the kind of love she needs.
Maybe the best thing I can do for Rosanna is let her go—sign the annulment papers, release her from this marriage, let her find someone who can actually give her the partnership and trust and vulnerability she deserves.
The city glitters outside my window, and somewhere out there Rosanna is rebuilding her life without me. Learning to trust again after I broke that trust in the most complete way possible. Probably drawing her impossible gardens and believing in hope even after I've given her every reason to stop.
And I'm sitting here in my empty penthouse.
No amount of good business decisions could make up for this.
No quarterly report or successful acquisition or board approval could fill the space Rosanna left behind when she walked out.
I could run this company perfectly for the next thirty years, could triple its value and expand into new markets and prove that I'm every bit the CEO my father was.
And it wouldn't matter. Because I'd still be alone.
I'd still have chosen control over connection, safety over love, my father's legacy over my own happiness.
I'd still be the man who had something real and destroyed it because he was too afraid to trust it.
The phone stays dark in my hand. I don't call her. Don't text. Don't do anything except sit in the silence of the penthouse and finally understand exactly what I've lost.
I thought I could lose her and still keep everything else intact.
I was wrong.
And the company I saved? It feels like the emptiest victory in the world.