Page 37 of The Hotel Room

Because whether she wanted it or not, James would be a part of this too.

And she couldn’t imagine telling him without it breaking her heart all over again.

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Kate stood alone in the guest room, the door closed, a faint sliver of afternoon sunlight spilling in through the half-drawn curtains. The pale glow lit up the blank canvas in front of her, untouched, waiting.

The painting supplies had been in the back of the closet, buried beneath Christmas boxes and forgotten albums. She hadn’t thought about them inyears.

But when she’d been sorting through the clutter earlier—trying to feelusefulin this house where she now felt like a stranger—her fingers had brushed over the old wooden paintbox.

She could have left it there. Could have shoved it deeper into storage like she always had.

But something—some quiet, aching pull—made her take it out.

And now here she was, brush in hand, heart pounding louder than it should have for something so simple.

The truth was, she had nothing else to give right now.

She’d poured herself into this family for seventeen years—given everything she had to James, to the kids, to being a wife and a mother. And now, in the quiet aftermath of his betrayal, she felt…empty.

Like she wasn’t even sure who she was without them.

Or worse—if there was anything left ofherat all.

Her hand tightened around the brush, the wooden handle familiar, worn. She dipped it carefully into the paint, the deep, rich blue coating the bristles.

It wasn’t like before, when she used to paint soft, delicate florals or calm seascapes—the things James had once calledbeautifulandgraceful.

No. This wasn’t graceful at all.

She pressed the brush to the canvas, and the stroke came out jagged, raw, the blue bleeding unevenly across the stark white.

Another stroke. Then another.

And before she even realized what was happening, the motions became faster, messier, the colors darkening—indigo, charcoal gray, deep wine red—layer after layer until the canvas wasn’t soft or pretty anymore.

It was chaotic.

It wasaching.

It washer.

Kate didn’t know how long she stood there, lost in the rhythm of it. Of color. Movement. Thereleaseof everything she’d been holding back for weeks.

The betrayal. The anger. The unbearable, suffocating ache of knowing her marriage—the life she had built so carefully—was over.

And beneath all that—something quieter.

The secret she hadn’t told anyone yet.

The baby.

Her free hand drifted unconsciously to her stomach, fingers curling there as if to shield it.

She hadn’t told James. Hadn’t toldanyone.

Because how could she? How could she explain that she was carryinghischild while she was also trying to figure out how to walk away from him?

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