"So you pushed me away first," I say quietly. "Before I could hurt you."
"Yes." The admission sounds like it costs him. "And in doing that, I hurt you instead. I proved exactly what you accused me of—that I was too damaged to trust."
He stands up and walks to the window, looking out at the city below. His hands are in his pockets, shoulders tense.
"I'm saving the building either way, Rosanna. Even if you and I never get back together. Sometimes the most important thing you can do is preserve the heart of something beautiful, even when destruction would be easier."
He turns back toward me, then looks away again, blinking hard.
"I don't know if I can be what you need. But I want to try. Because you taught me something I'd forgotten—that hope is worth the risk of heartbreak."
And suddenly I feel it—that dangerous, terrifying flutter in my chest that I've been trying to suppress for days.
Hope.
He's standing there admitting he's terrified and asking for nothing except the chance to try.
And I want to try too.
Every instinct I have says this is risky, that trusting him again means opening myself up to the same hurt he already inflicted once.
But I'm tired of protecting myself. Tired of walls and distance and the careful calculation of exactly how much to risk. Tiredof performing safety when what I actually want is the terrifying beauty of real connection.
"Seamus," I say, and my voice is shaking. "I need you to look at me."
He does. And I see everything in his face—the fear and hope and desperate love and the willingness to fail.
And I know mine looks exactly the same.
Chapter forty
Seamus
Rosanna is looking at me with an expression I can't quite read. Or maybe I'm scared to read it. Because it looks like…trust.
She takes a breath, and I brace myself for whatever comes next.
"Why?" She leans forward, and I can see she's fighting tears. "If you figured out we were pen pals, why not just tell me? Why not say 'Anna, it's me, we've been writing to each other for years'? Why keep pretending to be someone else?"
This is the hard part.
My voice comes out rough. "I started thinking: if I tell her now, how will I know if her feelings are real? How will I know if she wants me—Seamus? How will I know if this marriage is becoming real or if I'm just convenient?"
"So you tested me." Her voice is flat. "You kept writing to me as Shay to see what I'd say. To monitor my feelings without having to actually be vulnerable yourself."
She swallows. "I did something similar, didn't I? With the advocacy retainer."
"Yes." The word feels like swallowing glass. "I guess we were both afraid."
I stand up and walk to the window, staring out at nothing.
I laugh, and it sounds hollow. “The only way I thought I could know your real feelings was to keep being Shay. Where you were just Anna. Honest. Unfiltered.”
"So you could evaluate me," Rosanna says slowly. "Could monitor whether I actually cared about you or if I was just performing for the billionaire husband."
"Yes. And I see how foolish that is now."
I move back toward her, but I don't sit. I'm too agitated, too full of shame and desperate hope.
