3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Wendy - Present Time
Wendy’s phone lay facedown on the white stone counter for less than a minute before it vibrated again. She turned it over. The screen showed another message from Hunter’s publicity team under three missed calls, two revised schedules, and a link with more than four million views.
The frozen image showed her at the Hollywood Bowl, looking up at the stage while Hunter stood next to Serena Gene.
Serena’s hand rested over her heart. Hunter’s face held the soft, open expression Wendy had once believed belonged to the most private parts of their life.
The caption under the clip read: THE MOMENT HIS WIFE REALIZED SERENA WAS HIS MUSE.
Wendy locked the screen. She’d slept for perhaps twenty minutes after coming home.
Every time she closed her eyes, she heard the crowd scream when the tour announcement filled the screens.
Then came Hunter’s voice thanking his wife for her constant support, as if she were a polished rail he could lean on while walking toward someone else.
The phone vibrated again. Wendy answered simply because she didn’t have it in her to ignore the calls anymore.
“Hi,” Hunter’s assistant greeted her. “Sorry. Billy needs an answer on the reaction footage.”
“What answer?”
“The team cut a supportive version. You applauding after the song, then a wide shot during the tour announcement. They want to post it with the caption ‘Proud of you always.’ They just need your approval.”
Wendy stared at the untouched coffee in front of her.
“I’m not posting that,” she said.
“It would help calm down the speculation.”
“Use the wide shot after ‘Back Road Mercy.’ No close-up of me, and no caption in my voice.”
The assistant paused. “Billy thinks silence might look hostile.”
“Billy can say the concert was a celebration of Hunter’s career. That’s true.”
“Okay. And Tuesday’s sponsor dinner now conflicts with the added rehearsal block. Do you want me to hold the private room for Wednesday instead?”
Wendy opened the calendar on her tablet before she caught herself. She knew which interview had an early call, how long Hunter’s voice needed after a show, and which sponsor would forgive a move if the request came from her instead of Billy.
“Wednesday won’t work. Hunter has the radio appearance Thursday morning, and that dinner always runs late. Ask for the following week. Tell them he’ll call personally.”
“Perfect. Also, the car service needs–”
“Send the rest in one email.”
“Of course. Is Hunter available? Billy hasn’t been able to reach him.”
Wendy looked across the silent kitchen toward the empty hall. “No.”
“Do you know when he will be?”
“No.”
Another pause. “All right. Thank you, Wendy.”
The call ended without anyone asking whether she was all right.
She spent the next half hour fixing what other people had broken.
She rejected a clip that caught her blinking hard.
She moved a fitting, protected Hunter’s vocal rest, and told the social team not to argue with fans calling Serena the reason he’d found his joy again.
She approved one harmless photograph from the opening number. In it, she was outside the frame.
The house stayed cool despite the sun beyond the glass.
Every counter was clear. The cream sofas showed no dents, and the large art above them had been selected to fill photographs without drawing questions.
Staff could move from the service entrance to the kitchen and upstairs without crossing the main rooms. Hunter had paid for comfort, beauty, privacy, and control.
There was very little evidence of how two people actually lived.
Wendy left the tablet on the counter and went to find an old cable for her portable recorder. She wanted to record what had happened before the details blurred, in a voice no one else could edit.
Her old podcast room was at the far end of the lower hall.
The door opened against a box stacked too close behind it.
Dust covered the desk where she used to record.
The microphone remained fixed to its metal arm, unplugged, with the cable looped beside it.
Boxes held tour gifts and holiday decorations.
A garment rack held Hunter’s old stage jackets.
Behind it, an archive box contained episode notes and letters from listeners who’d trusted Wendy with their worst days.
She crouched and lifted the lid.
The first letter had been folded around one of her old episode worksheets.
A couple had written that the questions on repair helped them have the first honest conversation of their marriage.
Wendy remembered reading the letter aloud to her friend and fellow therapist Lily over the phone, both of them laughing and crying because their work had reached a kitchen table in a town they’d never visited.
Back then, Wendy had a respected practice, a growing audience, and a waiting list long enough to make her feel guilty.
She’d cut her client hours when touring made weekly appointments unreliable.
The podcast became less frequent after Billy warned that a country star’s wife discussing relationships invited people to examine her own marriage.
Hunter had asked her to pause for one album cycle.
They could revisit everything after the tour.
One album became several. One tour became the shape of their life.
Wendy set the letter down and moved a stack of old notebooks. A thick forest-green binder rested under them. Cream tabs divided the pages.
Vesper Hill.
Her breath caught as she carried it to the desk.
The first pages held photographs of the old vineyard outside Aria Springs: weathered stone, rows of vines along the slope, oak trees lining a narrow trail.
Wendy and Lily had built the plan together.
Private therapy cottages offered couples space away from the main inn.
A workshop barn gave group sessions room without making them feel clinical.
The podcast studio sat inside the working property, close enough for visiting therapists to join conversations and far enough from the cottages to protect privacy.
Wendy turned to a hand-drawn layout. Her own notes filled the margins in black ink. Lily’s purple writing slanted across the bottom: International guest weeks later – when we can do them right.
She’d wanted to do them right. Not as a celebrity wellness weekend, not as a beautiful background for photographs. A real place, with licensed clinicians, strict privacy rules, long walking trails, and enough quiet for people to tell the truth without performing it.
Hunter had listened when she first described it. They’d been sitting on the floor of a rented house because they owned one chair between them. He’d studied every rough sketch as if it were a map to somewhere they would certainly go.
“After my first major tour,” he’d promised. “We’ll build it together.”
Wendy pressed her fingers to the edge of the binder.
She knew the language for what she’d done since then.
Accommodation, rationalization, avoidance dressed as patience.
She’d spent years explaining Hunter to herself.
His father had taught him that failure could empty a man out.
Fame brought pressure few people understood.
Touring kept him off balance. The next deadline was always real, and his exhaustion was never fake.
Her training gave her endless ways to make his behavior understandable.
She’d used every one of them against herself.
She could identify a broken pattern in a client’s marriage and ask why one person’s fear had become the other person’s permanent burden. At home, she’d presented her pain carefully, with context and compassion, then waited for Hunter to decide whether it was reasonable enough to require change.
Footsteps crossed the hall.
Hunter appeared in the doorway wearing black trousers from the concert and a gray T-shirt. His hair was damp, but exhaustion had drawn shadows under his eyes. He looked around at the boxes, then at the binder in Wendy’s hands.
“There you are.” His voice was rough.
“Your team has been calling me,” she said.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “My phone died at the reception. I only just charged it this morning.”
“Billy’s been trying to reach you.”
“I’ll deal with Billy.” Hunter stepped into the room. “I need your help first. Serena’s team moved the full-band rehearsal to Tuesday, and it overlaps the sponsor dinner. Can you get the dinner shifted? They listen to you.”
For a second, Wendy could only look at him. He expected her to arrange the campaign that had pushed her out of her own marriage. He expected the same calm answer she’d given his assistant, the same quick review of calendars, of egos, and consequences.
“No,” she said.
Hunter’s hand dropped from his neck. “No?”
“Not before we talk about last night.”
His gaze moved to the binder again. “Can we do this after I’ve slept?”
“I haven’t slept either.”
“Wendy, I know the surprise didn’t land the way we hoped.”
“We?”
He exhaled. “The team.”
“Was ‘Twenty Again’ written for Serena?”
Hunter went still. The question lay between them in plain words. Wendy didn’t soften it or offer him an easier version.
“Serena helped turn it into a duet,” he said.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“The arrangement changed in the studio. Her voice gave it something different.”
“Was it written for her?”
He walked closer, stopping on the other side of the desk. “Songs aren’t sworn testimony, Wen.”
“That one used our life.”
His jaw tightened. “It used things I remember.”
“Our truck, the rain, being twenty and broke enough to run out of gas. You gave those memories to Serena before you let me hear the song.”
“The band heard it too.”
“The band isn’t being called your muse.”
“I can’t control every headline,” Hunter said, sounding exasperated.
“You controlled the stage last night.”
Hunter glanced toward the hall. “Nothing happened between Serena and me.”
“I didn’t ask whether you slept with her.”