Chapter 10: The Room Number

Mateo's POV

She saw the screen before I could turn it over.

I watched her read it, and I watched her face go quiet.

There was no good way to say what I had to say.

"That's Marisol," Ingrid said.

"Yes."

"And that's you."

"I was sixteen. She was twelve. Our mother took it at a neighbor's Halloween party in San Antonio."

Ingrid pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

She had buttoned her blouse wrong, and I wanted to fix it, and I knew better than to reach.

"She's your sister," she said.

"My half-sister. Same mother. Different fathers, different last names."

I put the phone face down on the table.

"She never told you, because she wanted the job to be hers. She didn't want anyone saying a night manager's sister got it."

"And you never told me either."

"No."

"For eight months you've worked in my building."

"I know."

"You stood in that stairwell with me."

"I know."

I had practiced this in my head for two weeks, in every version.

None of them had her standing in a linen room with her hair wrecked and my shirt button on the floor.

So I told her the plain version.

Two weeks ago, a Monday, at three in the morning, Marisol had come into the back office with a bag of her mother's tamales.

She had not been able to open it.

She had sat down in my chair and cried until she was sick.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé Cheated in Our Hotel, and My Father Booked the Room from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.