I stand in the hallway for a long moment, trying to figure out how to bridge the distance I created.
An apology seems inadequate. Flowers feel like an insult—like I'm trying to buy my way out of the hurt I caused.
What I need is something that shows I'm trying, that I understand I handled this wrong, that I want to fix it.
A date.
Something special, away from the penthouse and the offices and all the spaces where we keep hurting each other. Somewhere we can just be Seamus and Rosanna instead of CEO and wife, billionaire and artist, damaged man and woman he's too afraid to trust.
I pull out my phone and start searching.
A picnic date. Somewhere quiet enough to talk without the weight of contracts and board meetings pressing down on us.
But even as I'm planning, I can feel the pen-pal secret sitting like a stone in my chest.
Because how can I take her on a date and look her in the eye when I'm still hiding who I am?
When I'm still writing to her as Shay, still maintaining that separate connection because I'm too afraid to merge them into one honest relationship?
I've been telling myself I'll reveal it when the time is right, when things are stable, when I've proven that I can be trusted. But the truth is there will never be a right time. The longer I wait, the worse it gets. Every email I send as Shay is another layer of deception, another reason for her to question whether anything between us is real.
I need to tell her. Explain everything—about being Shay, about the board vote on Friday, about how completely I've mishandled this entire situation.
But what if she leaves?
What if I tell her the truth and she realizes that I've been lying to her?
That the one relationship she thought was honest and uncomplicated—her pen-pal friendship with Shay—was actually just another version of me, watching her, learning her, using that knowledge to... what? Manipulate her? Protect myself?
I don't even know anymore.
My phone buzzes with an email from Malcolm.
Board vote confirmed: Friday, 2 PM. Please attend. We’ll finalize terms and proceed with the accelerated timeline.
Less than forty-eight hours from now.
I stare at the email.
Friday is coming.
I need one last chance to show her I’m trying.
My phone buzzes again. It's an email notification, and when I check it, I see it's a response from Rosanna—to Shay.
She's writing to me about me, and she doesn't even know it.
Her words cut through me like glass. She's hurting, and it's my fault.
She’s questioning everything we’ve built. Reaching out to Shay for comfort instead of me.
Friday is two days away. The board vote is happening whether I'm ready or not. Rosanna is going to find out—if not from me, then from the press.
And when she does, she's going to realize that I've been sitting on this information while she poured her heart out to me, both as her husband and as Shay.
I'm out of time.
Out of ways to avoid the reckoning that's coming. And I have no idea how to tell the woman I love that I've failed her in every possible way—as a husband, as a pen pal, as a person she trusted to choose her when it mattered.
