Her Country Star Husband Made Another Woman His Muse (When Billionaires Grovel #5)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Wendy

Hunter’s left knee was bouncing. No one else would’ve noticed.

His black jeans hid most of the movement, and the dressing-room counter blocked the rest. But Wendy had known him when a major show meant forty people packed into a bar that smelled like fryer grease.

Fame had changed the size of the crowd, not the small betrayals of his nerves.

She set down her velvet clutch and ran two fingers under the worn leather guitar strap stretched across his lap.

“Bad gas-station egg?” she asked.

Hunter’s gaze met hers in the mirror. His brown hair was styled into careless order, and a neat beard sharpened the grin that had sold bourbon, guitars, and more concert tickets than Wendy could count.

“Could be,” he said. “Those things stay with a man.”

“For fifteen years?”

“Some eggs are powerful, Wen.”

She laughed, and his knee stopped bouncing.

The excuse had begun before his first paid show.

He’d blamed a gas-station breakfast for throwing up behind a feed store, then walked onstage with a borrowed guitar and enough confidence to fool everyone but her.

He’d made her promise never to expose the truth.

She’d honored that promise through packed theaters, stadiums, and now a live broadcast from the Hollywood Bowl.

Outside the closed door, shoes hurried over concrete.

Crew members called cues, and equipment wheels rattled past. The sounds were muffled in here.

Polished guitars waited on stands under white lights.

Fresh shirts hung in a row. Printed schedules covered one end of the counter, most of them marked with blocks she wasn’t allowed to see.

Among all that clean, expensive order, the old strap looked almost out of place.

Dark brown leather. Soft edges. A pale scar where it had once torn.

Wendy had repaired that spot with blue thread in a motel room when they were twenty-one and too broke to replace it.

Hunter used the strap only for milestone shows.

She tested the buckle, then pulled firmly on the repaired section.

“Still good,” she said.

“You sure?”

“I’m a couples therapist. I know when something’s being held together by a questionable repair.”

His smile tilted. “That sounded personal.”

It landed closer than he knew.

In recent months, too many dinners had cooled while Hunter worked at Canyonlight Studios with Serena Gene.

Too many conversations had paused while he checked Billy’s messages.

Wendy had watched clips of Serena leaning over Hunter’s shoulder, laughing into his neck, or resting a hand on his arm while captions praised their chemistry.

Whenever Wendy said the campaign felt too intimate, Hunter called it harmless promotion.

Temporary pressure. Work. Then he’d kiss her forehead and promise they’d talk when things settled down.

Things never settled down.

Wendy knew Hunter and Serena had recorded a collaboration.

Everyone with a phone knew that much. Serena posted studio clips almost every day: coffee cups next to a mixing board, her hair spread over the back of a couch, Hunter laughing at something outside the frame.

The actual work stayed sealed. No title, no clear audio, no lyric sheet caught under a careless hand.

When Wendy had asked what they were making, Hunter had said they were still finding it and promised she’d hear it when it was ready.

She’d assumed ready meant before a television audience did.

That assumption had felt so basic she hadn’t known it needed to be spoken aloud.

But he’d put his phone facedown when she entered tonight. He’d sent his stylist and assistant out. For these few minutes, his green eyes stayed on her instead of a screen, and the man she’d loved since she was twenty seemed close enough to touch.

He was close enough. His hand settled at the base of her back when she stepped between his knees.

“Tell me something,” he said.

“Your guitar strap won’t break.”

“Something useful.”

She lifted a brow. “That advice was free. The next answer costs you.”

“Put it on my tab.” His thumb moved over the silk of her dress. “For ‘Back Road Mercy.’ We cut everything after the bridge except my guitar, then bring the band in on the last chorus. You still like that, or should we keep the full arrangement?”

The question eased a tight place inside her.

Hunter had brought her unfinished songs for as long as they’d known each other.

First, they were melodies hummed into a cheap phone.

Later came half-written verses from hotel rooms, and new chords played at their kitchen table.

No matter how many producers, executives, or musicians entered his life, Wendy had always been the first person he wanted to hear them.

Lately, he hadn’t asked as often.

She studied his face to make sure this wasn’t a request for quick praise. His hand stayed warm against her back. His phone remained facedown. He waited.

“Strip it down,” she said. “But don’t rush to fill the quiet. Let them sing the final line after the bridge. Come back in when they finish it.”

Hunter went still in the way he did when an idea caught him fully.

“No band under them?” he asked.

“Nothing. They’ll know the words.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then you’ll finally learn humility in front of several million witnesses.”

He laughed under his breath. “There she is.”

“I’ve been here all along.”

For a moment, his smile faded. Something in his eyes made her think he’d heard more than she’d meant to say. His fingers pressed lightly into her back.

Then a knock came at the door.

“Two minutes, Hunter,” a voice called.

“Got it.” He didn’t look away from Wendy. “We’ll do it your way.”

The knot under her ribs loosened. Maybe this was why she’d stayed hopeful through all the missed dinners and delayed talks.

Hunter still knew how to make her laugh.

He still reached for her without thinking.

When he chose to listen, he listened with his whole attention, as though her opinion mattered more than every expert waiting outside.

She glanced toward the schedules. “Am I going to understand any of those blacked-out sections once I’m in my seat?”

His hand paused.

Wendy kept her tone light. “Your people have guarded that run sheet like it contains state secrets. One of the producers took mine away when I tried to turn past the second act.”

“We’ve got a few production surprises.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“No?”

“Is there anything I should know before a camera records me finding out?” she asked, more careful now.

He held her gaze. The bass from the stage vibrated faintly through the floor.

“There’s nothing you need to worry about,” he said.

The answer wasn’t quite the same as no. Wendy noticed that. Her training made it almost impossible not to notice careful wording.

But then Hunter took her hand. He turned it over and pressed his mouth to the center of her palm, right above the wedding band on her finger. The familiar tenderness of it pushed past her caution.

“Go make me look good, Mrs. Trace.”

“I believe that’s the lighting department’s job.”

“They’ve done what they can.”

She touched his cheek. “I’ll be the woman applauding when you pretend the stripped transition was your idea.”

“That’s why our marriage works.”

His grin returned, warm and sly. Wendy carried it with her when she left.

Her assigned seat was near the front of the VIP section, centered perfectly for the broadcast cameras.

A printed program waited on the chair. The names of actors, musicians, label executives, and brand partners filled the rows around her.

Above them, the Hollywood Bowl glowed under controlled white and gold light.

Camera cranes swept over the crowd. Giant screens showed a live countdown, then old footage of Hunter at twenty, lean and hungry, singing into a dented microphone.

Thousands of phones rose around Wendy like small squares of light. She sat, smoothed her dress, and gave the camera nearest her the calm smile everyone expected from Hunter Trace’s wife.

The show opened with the first single he’d ever played for her.

Genuine pride warmed her chest as Hunter walked into the light wearing the old guitar strap across his shoulder.

He looked toward her section before the first chord.

She couldn’t know whether he found her among the crowd, but her body reacted as if he had.

The retrospective carried her through the life they’d built. Grainy club footage. Their first award show. The summer his third album made him impossible to ignore. Songs she’d heard when they were only loose words, and hope became polished landmarks in a career worth billions.

During “Back Road Mercy,” the band fell silent after the bridge.

Hunter waited.

The audience sang the final line into the open space. Only then did his guitar return, followed by the full band and a burst of gold light. The crowd leaped to its feet.

Wendy did too. Her smile came without effort. He’d listened to her. He’d done as she’d suggested.

The cameras caught her clapping, and for once, she didn’t mind. That moment belonged to them, even if no one else knew it.

After the song, the stage went dark. In the program on Wendy’s lap, the section ended with a line of black ink and the words CONFIDENTIAL LIVE REVEAL.

A low guitar phrase moved through the dark.

Wendy didn’t know it. She knew every Hunter Trace melody.

Even during the months when Serena filled his studio footage, Wendy had assumed the actual music would reach her before the public heard it.

Hunter had shared every song since the night they met.

Some had arrived as scraps, some as voice notes recorded at an airport gate.

One had been nothing but four chords played against her bare shoulder because he hadn’t wanted to leave bed to find his guitar.

This melody was complete, confident, and wholly strange to her.

A spotlight found Hunter alone at center stage.