Kate’s POV:
“Your husband has checked in with someone else. ”
“What?”
I choked on the water I was drinking. For a second, I thought I’d heard her wrongly. I had barely placed my handbag on the marble counter and the receptionist hadn’t even looked up properly before saying it. I blinked.
“Sorry?”.
The receptionist finally looked at me. Her smile disappeared almost immediately.
“I’m sorry ma’am.”
I glanced toward the elevators, then back at her.
“What did you just say?”
She shifted awkwardly.
“I said Mr. Whitfield had already checked in. ”
“I heard that”
I leaned slightly closer. I was going to ask whether the Belmont Suite still had the orchid arrangement I had requested, whether housekeeping would turn the room down early so it would be perfect when Hugo landed tomorrow morning. I wanted to walk in ahead of him, light the candles, have the champagne already sweating in the ice bucket. So that when my husband finally came home from Geneva, tired and jet-lagged, something romantic would be waiting for him instead of another empty apartment. Except he wasn’t in Geneva. He was upstairs.
“What room did my husband check into?”
The receptionist’s face did something. That’s the expression of a person realizing half a second too late that she said something she wasn’t supposed to. She cleared her throat, straightened, pulled her professional voice back on.
“I’m sorry ma’am, I’m not able to discuss guest information. That’s confidential.”
“He’s my husband.”
I heard my own voice rise.
“I’m Kate Whitfield. I am the reservation!”
“I understand, but that’s hotel policy.”
I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I felt it happened anyway. Felt the couple by the lobby fireplace glance over, felt the weight of being a woman causing a scene.
“Either something changed and nobody told me or you have the wrong Whitfield. So what is it?”
She looked for a second like she wanted to call security.
“I really shouldn’t ”
She said as she turned the monitor a few degrees away from me.
“Turn it toward me. ”
My hands were already on the marble counter.
“Please”
Maybe it was the please. Maybe she just wanted it to be over. Either way, she turned the screen.
Whitfield H – Room 1242
Checked in – 9:50 pm
No. Of guests – 2
Two guests?
I made myself keep reading before my brain could stop me. The way you keep pressing on a bruise because some sick part of you needs to know exactly how much it hurts.
Name of guest – Hillaire B
Bianca?
My best friend since we were 19 and sharing a dorm room the size of a closet. The woman who’d stood next to me at my own wedding in lilac, crying into a tissue she swore was happy tears. The woman who knew everything about my marriage. The woman who had spent the last few months telling me that Hugo was probably just stressed. The woman who had told me not to overthink his late nights.
“Ma’am?”
The receptionist’s voice had gone gentle now, the way people get gentle once the damage is already done.
“Would you like me to do anything else for you? ”
“No,” I said sharply.
I had been married to Hugo for five years, and suddenly I was standing in one of our hotels, staring at my husband’s name beside my best friends. I reached for my phone. There were two missed calls from Hugo. Then a message.
Hugo: Can’t wait to see you tomorrow. I almost laughed, except nothing about this was funny. I opened my conversation with Bianca. The last message she’d sent me was from less than an hour ago.
Bianca: Don’t stress yourself over Hugo. Men are terrible at balancing work and marriage.
I stared at the words. Something inside me went completely still. I didn’t cry, at least not yet. I turned and walked away. I kept my back straight and my face calm, like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t just discovered that my husband was in a hotel suite with a woman I had trusted more than anyone. I remember the cold hitting my face before I registered that I was already outside. I was already slightly soaked in the rain. I didn’t call a cab or anyone. I just walked cold, soaking through mascara, running in lines. I sat on the wet curb because I couldn’t stand anymore. That’s when I heard him.
“You’re going to catch a cold.”
I looked up.
Dark hair slicked flat from the rain, an umbrella held over me not himself, and a face that made the entire evening go quiet in my head for a second before it all came crashing back.
“I’m fine”
“You’re really not.”
He crouched down anyway, angled the umbrella over me. I should have gotten up, found my own cab, gone home alone and screamed into my pillow. Instead, I looked at this stranger crouched in the rain and something in my chest felt warm.
“Can you just take me home?”
My voice broke on the last word. Something shifted in his expression. It wasn’t pity, which I would have hated. Like he understood exactly what I was and wasn’t asking for.
“Okay”
He said simply.
“No questions, I promise ”
I let him walk me to his car and gave him my address.
“He betrayed me”
I finally opened up and broke down.
“I’m sorry”
He squeezed my hands gently and said in the most comforting voice ever. The drive was short because I zoned out most of the time. We finally got to my house, and he walked me up to my door. When I turned to say goodnight, I didn’t say it.
“Stay”
He stood there looking at me. I didn’t know where the courage came from. I took off my coat slowly while still staring into his eyes. Everything seemed to speed and spin around me. I pulled him closer to me. The thick, silky feel of his hair between my fingers as I held him close. I pressed a kiss to his jaw. The heat of his body warming me everywhere. He closed his mouth over the side of one breast and worked his way around to the other side before pulling my nipple into his mouth and sucking with a deep moan of pleasure in his throat. My breath caught, my back arched, and I was instantly lost in a swirl of lust that had been repressed for far too long.
“Are you good?”
I couldn’t even respond, so I just nodded. His hands gripped my hips and pulled me into him, rocking me into his erection while his lips moved to the other breast. With a groan, he lifted me off my feet. I held his shoulders tight as he dropped my ass on the kitchen counter. He dragged my panties over my hips and down my tights, then let them drop to the floor. He went inside of me. I could feel him growing bigger.
“Oh, God…”
I moaned. I had never felt anyone as big as he was. Not even Hugo. He thrust deeper and I felt the utmost pleasure. I ran my fingers from the back of his head to his neck.
I whispered into his ear.
“Fuck me like it’s your last.”
He lifted me and took me to the bedroom. It felt so good. This was what Hugo deprived me of and he gave it to another.
“Eyes on me, I want to see the orgasm slide through your beautiful face.”
It was such an intimate moment, although this was meant to be a one-night stand. The climax was so deep and consuming. My body convulsed and jerked. The sounds that came from me weren’t anything I’d heard before, not in my greatest pleasure or deep despair. And when the peak broke, all my muscles gave and I fell forward. He caught me and held me close.