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.
Chapter thirty-five
Rosanna
I've been living in Luna's guest room for five days when she decides I've wallowed long enough. She bursts into the room at seven in the morning, throws open the curtains with aggressive cheerfulness, and announces, "Get dressed. We're going to the city council meeting."
"Luna, I don't—" I start, but she cuts me off with a look that could freeze lava.
"Nope. No arguments. You've spent almost a week in sweatpants eating ice cream and staring at your laptop without actually opening it. I've been patient. I've been supportive. I've let you process. But now it's time to remember that you're Rosanna Lopez, children's book illustrator and community preservation warrior, not just a woman with a broken heart."
She tosses clothes at me—my clothes, the ones I actually packed instead of the ratty pajamas I've been rotating through. "The city council is holding a public hearing on the Heritage Street development this morning. The historical landmark application is on the agenda. And you're going to be there tospeak for it, because giving up isn't actually in your DNA, even if you're currently pretending it is."
I want to argue. Want to tell her that showing up to a city council meeting to fight for a building that's already been sold to O'MalleyMart is pointless.
That I don't have the energy to stand up in front of strangers and advocate for something I've already lost.
But Luna is standing there with her arms crossed and the mulish expression she gets when someone tries to tell her something won't work. The expression that means she's already decided how this is going to go, and I can cooperate or be physically dragged to the meeting, but either way I'm going.
"Fine," I mutter, grabbing the clothes. "But I'm not promising to actually speak."
"You'll speak," Luna says with complete confidence. "Because you care too much. It's your superpower and your fatal flaw."
***
The city council chamber is more crowded than I expected. There are developers in expensive suits clustered near the front, community organizers with handmade signs scattered throughout the middle rows, and ordinary residents filling in the back—people who care about what happens to their neighborhood even if they don't have the resources to fight corporate money.
Luna steers me to seats in the third row, close enough to be visible but not so close that I feel exposed.
I recognize a few faces from the original community meeting—the elderly woman who talked about her grandfather building the storefront, the young couple who runs the coffee shop two blocks down, the librarian who's been collecting historical photos of the neighborhood.
They all look tired. Like they are running out of hope that anything they do will actually matter.
