Because I'm married to my childhood pen pal.
And he kept it from me.
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 goingindefinitely, 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."
