Page 30 of The Hotel Room

“I’m going to fix this,” James said again, his voice quieter this time. “Just...trust me, okay?”

CHAPTER TEN

Kate

The guest room wasn’t meant for living.

It was a storage space, really. There was an old twin bed pressed against the wall, the mismatched nightstand with a flickering lamp, and the too-thin curtains that let in harsh slivers of daylight too early in the morning.

Boxes lined the far wall, half-filled with things she hadn’t looked at in years. Forgotten holiday decorations, old photo albums, the remnants of a life that felt distant.

Her life.

Kate sat on the edge of the bed, clutching a throw pillow to her chest, as though holding something close could keep her from unraveling completely.

This wasn’t her home.

The master bedroom was down the hall.Theirbedroom. The space she had shared with James since they were nineteen. But she couldn’t sleep there anymore. Not after…

She squeezed her eyes shut, but it didn’t stop the images from flashing through her mind.

The hotel room. The woman. James.

Her stomach twisted, that same ache pressing in, but she swallowed it down. She was so tired of crying.

The kids were home. She couldn’t fall apart.

Noah was still barely speaking to her. Lily kept tiptoeing around the house like she was afraid to ask when things would go back to normal.

And they wouldn’t.

Not really.

Kate exhaled shakily, her gaze drifting across the cluttered shelves against the far wall. Boxes. Books she hadn’t touched in years. Old linens.

And then—

The canvas.

It was half-buried behind a stack of picture frames, but she saw the edge of it—the worn, white fabric peeking out beneath a tangled string of Christmas lights.

Kate’s heart stilled.

The old painting supplies.

Slowly, she stood, the floor creaking beneath her bare feet as she crossed the room. She pulled the frames aside carefully, lifting the canvas into the light.

It was larger than she remembered, blank except for faint pencil sketches—outlines of flowers, vines curling along the edges. Unfinished.

Just like everything else.

The box beneath it held more—brushes, stiff with dried paint. Tubes of color, some still sealed, others long since dried out.

The ache in her chest shifted as she ran her fingers over the worn wood of the paintbrush handles, tracing them like they were relics from another life.

Theywere.

She’d stopped painting sometime after Lily was born. Not intentionally. It had just…faded.

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