Page 35 of The Hotel Room

“How can you even think about leaving?” he snapped. “I pay the mortgage. I pay the bills. How would you even…”

He stopped abruptly, the silence that followed heavy and suffocating.

Kate stared at him, her hands frozen mid-fold, her face pale with shock. Then, slowly, her expression hardened, the raw anger giving way to something colder. Something final.

Kate’s voice was quieter now, but the devastation hit harder than her anger.

“Is that what you think, James? That because I stayed home to raise our kids while you worked, I’mtrappedhere? That you’ve given me this life, so I should just...forgive you?”

He opened his mouth, struggling for words, but she didn’t give him the chance.

“I have given everything to this family. I have sacrificed my body, my time, my identity so that you could have your career, so our children would be loved and cared for. I’ve built this life with you. Don’t you dare stand there and act like you’re the only one who made it possible.”

James flinched, heat burning under his skin, but the words came before he could stop them.

“That’s not fair.”

Kate’s face twisted, voice breaking. “Fair?You want to talk about fair? You cheated, James. You slept with someone else and now you’re standing here trying to convince me that I should stay because you pay the mortgage? Because you’re the breadwinner?”

“That’snotwhat I meant!” he snapped, but the words sounded weak. Hollow.

She shook her head, blinking rapidly like she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.

“No, James. That’sexactlywhat you meant. And if you think this—” She gestured vaguely at the house around them. “This life we built means I have to stay with a man who betrayed me, you’re the one trying to trapme.”

James's pulse thundered in his ears, the burn of her words sinking deeper, sharper than he expected. She was twisting this—making it worse, makinghimthe villain when he was just trying to fix what was broken.

His voice rose, rough and raw, driven by the panic clawing at his chest.

“You’re mywife, Kate!”

The words lashed out louder than he meant, echoing off the walls. His fists clenched at his sides as he stared at her, desperate, furious—pleading.

But she didn’t flinch.

She just stared back, her expression carved from stone, eyes glassy but unrelenting.

And when she spoke, her voice was cold. Final.

“Not anymore.”

Then she turned away, leaving James standing there—alone with the silence, the weight of his own words pressing harder than ever before.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Kate

Kate sat on the closed lid of the toilet, the pregnancy test trembling in her hands, though she already knew. Shefeltit, even before the second pink line bloomed clear as day on the small plastic screen.

Positive.

She stared at it, unblinking.

The tiny, unmistakable symbol confirming the impossible.

Pregnant.

A hollow breath escaped her lips, and she didn’t know if she felt numb or overwhelmed or both.

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