Six Weeks After Giving Birth, I Discovered His Affair and Left With Our Son novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Room 214

Her card is declined, so she pays cash for a hotel room and names her terms to the manager, who says he's holding the café footage. Taryn turns up at dawn with bagels and warns her Carter is coming with an officer. HOOK: a patrol car pulls up outside the lobby.

I didn't answer Carter's text.

I drove to the only place he would never expect me to go, which was the Alder Hotel.

It was nine at night when I carried Charlie's car seat through the lobby doors for the second time that day.

The man from the morning was behind the front desk with his sleeves rolled up.

He looked at the car seat, then at the suitcase, and didn't ask a single question.

"Ma'am," Nate Ostrow said.

"I need a room. Just for a few nights."

"Room 214 is open. It's a king, quiet side, away from the elevator."

"What's the rate?"

"One eighty-nine."

I slid my debit card across the counter.

He ran it, and the machine made a flat little noise.

He ran it again.

"Declined," he said gently.

"That's my card. That's my own account."

"It may be a bank error."

It wasn't a bank error.

I knew it at once.

Carter had closed the joint account between breakfast and five o'clock.

I dug through the diaper bag and found the emergency envelope my mother-in-law had pushed on me at the baby shower.

There were two hundred and twelve dollars in it.

I counted out one eighty-nine in twenties and laid them on the counter.

Nate looked at the money and then at me.

"I can put the first night on the hotel," he said. "It happens."

"No."

"It's not charity. It's a policy."

"Is it a policy?"

He paused.

"It could be."

"Then write it down, because I'm paying the full rate," I said. "No favors. If I owe you, I want to owe you by the night."

Something at the corner of his mouth moved.

"The rate is the rate," he said, and took the money.

He came around the desk and picked up my suitcase before I could stop him.

"Elevator's this way."

On the way up he said, in a plain voice, "I put a hold on the café footage at eleven this morning. It won't overwrite."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because you filmed them first and walked over second. People who do it in that order usually need the footage."

He unlocked 214 and held the door.

There was a king bed, a desk and a window over the parking lot.

"Give me ten minutes," he said, and left.

He came back with a bassinet from the housekeeping floor, a stack of clean towels and a bottle warmer someone had found in a closet.

He set up the bassinet beside the bed without being asked where.

"Dial zero for the night desk," he said. "They know which room you're in and they won't tell anyone else."

"Thank you."

"The rate's the rate," he said, and left.

I fed Charlie and changed him and put him down in the bassinet.

He woke up as soon as I let go.

I lifted him again, and walked.

At midnight I lay down on the bed with him on my chest and slept for the first time since Wednesday.

It was three hours.

It was the best three hours I had had since August.

At two a bottle of formula I hadn't asked for appeared outside my door on a tray, with a note that said: Just in case. Not a favor. Sold separately.

I laughed so suddenly that Charlie startled.

At dawn someone knocked.

I opened the door a crack with the chain on.

Taryn stood in the hallway in her gray cardigan with a paper bag in one hand.

"Everything bagels," she said. "I brought coffee too, decaf. I'm so sorry. Can I come in?"

I took the chain off.

She hugged me and held on, and she smelled like cinnamon and cold air.

"How did you know I was here?"

"Carter called me at midnight. He was frantic." She pulled back and looked at my face. "Libby, he said your car is on the phone plan. He can see where it is."

I hadn't known that.

I said nothing for a second.

"He said he followed you here?"

"He said the app showed the Alder lot. I told him to leave you alone." Her eyes filled. "I told him you needed to sleep, that's all I said. You haven't slept in weeks."

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

Taryn sat beside me and took Charlie so I could eat.

"How much did you get last night?" she asked.

"Three hours."

She got her phone out of her pocket with one hand and typed.

"That's good," she said under her breath. "Okay. That's good."

"Taryn."

"Listen." She put the phone face down on her knee. "I have to tell you something, and I hate it."

"What?"

"He's coming at ten. He called the police for a welfare check, Libby. I told him not to. He said he's worried you'll hurt the baby from exhaustion."

"I would never."

"I know." She squeezed my arm. "I know you wouldn't. I said that. I said it twice."

I looked at Charlie asleep on her shoulder, and then at the clock on the nightstand.

It said nine fifteen.

I washed my face, changed my shirt and put my hair up.

Then I took my phone, opened the feeding log and checked every entry from the last three days.

At five to ten I carried Charlie to the window and looked down over the parking lot.

A patrol car pulled up outside the lobby doors, and Carter's car was right behind it.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend