3. Chapter Three #2
“You keep talking as if I betrayed you with her.”
“You stood in front of thousands of people and sang my memories to another woman while cameras waited to see if I’d break. Then you announced a tour I learned about with everyone else.”
“It’s a professional tour.”
“It’s a major decision that affects our life. We agreed we’d make those together.”
“The dates aren’t even final,” he backpedaled.
“But the announcement is.”
He planted both hands on the desk. “No one said Serena and I are together. No one directly lied.”
The precision of it chilled her.
“We also agreed you wouldn’t sell a romance with another woman,” she said in a smaller voice.
“We’re selling music,” he said.
“Then why does the music need everyone to think she made you feel young again?”
“That’s your interpretation.”
Wendy stared at him. “Is it?”
“The audience brings its own meaning. That’s how songs work.”
“And the videos? The interviews? The tour reveal with her next to you?”
“Promotion gives people a story. It doesn’t make the story real.”
“It made it real enough to humiliate me.”
His expression shifted, pain breaking through the defensiveness. For one dangerous second, hope rose in her. He’d cross the desk. He’d tell her the truth. He’d say he was sorry and give her the one answer that could put solid ground beneath them.
Instead, he said, “You’re taking this apart like it’s a session transcript.”
“Don’t use my work to dismiss me.”
“I’m not dismissing you. But your therapist mind gets hold of something and builds a whole pattern from it. You’re hurt, and now every social media clip looks like proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That I wanted this to hurt you. That Serena took something from you.”
“I haven’t blamed Serena,” she said.
“You’re being unfair to her. She showed up and did her job. She isn’t responsible for whatever people decided the song means.”
Wendy pushed back from the desk. “I’m asking about you.”
“And I’m telling you there is no affair.”
“Was the song written for her?” she forced herself to ask again.
He looked directly at her. He knew the question. He knew why it mattered. She could see that much in the careful set of his mouth.
“I’m not going to let jealousy turn a simple collaboration into something ugly,” he said.
The last of her hope went quiet. His answer wasn’t yes. It wasn’t no. It was a door shut with her standing on the wrong side.
“I’m hurt,” she said. Her voice stayed calm, which made each word feel sharper. “I’m tired of finding out what my husband is doing from staff messages and screens. I’m tired of being useful enough to manage your life but not important enough to be told the truth about it.”
Hunter straightened. “You are important.”
“Then answer me.”
He came around the desk. “Wen.”
She should’ve stepped back. Instead, she let him take her arms. His hands were warm, familiar in a way that hurt worse than anything on the internet.
“Last night got out of control,” he said. “I should’ve prepared you better.”
“Prepared me?”
“For the announcement, for the cameras, all of it.” He drew her closer. “But this pressure is temporary. Once the tour settles down, we’ll get away. We’ll talk without Billy, or the label, or ten people waiting on an answer.”
Wendy looked past his shoulder at the Vesper Hill binder. “There is always an after with you.”
“I mean it.”
“You meant it about my podcast.”
His grip loosened. “That’s not fair.”
“You meant it about Vesper Hill.”
“We can still do those things.”
“When?”
He didn’t answer that either. Hunter lifted one hand to her face. His thumb moved over her cheek, and her body remembered comfort before her mind could refuse it. He kissed her forehead, slow and tender.
“You know I love you,” he murmured.
Her eyes burned. “That wasn’t my question.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He closed his eyes, then took it out and checked the screen.
“I have the post-show voice appointment.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll be back after. We’ll finish this.”
Wendy didn’t point out that he had a label debrief after the appointment and Billy’s proposed campaign meeting after that. She didn’t remind him that finishing a conversation required answering the question she’d asked three times.
He kissed her hair and left.
Wendy stood among the stacked boxes and listened to his steps cross the hall. Some foolish, faithful part of her expected them to stop. She waited for him to turn around, return to her, and choose one hard truth over the schedule waiting outside.
The front door opened and closed.
She sat at the desk and opened the Vesper Hill proposal to the page with the studio and therapy cottages. Her notes covered every practical risk: privacy, licensing, staffing, boundaries, emergency plans. She’d known how to build a place where honesty could survive discomfort.
In her own marriage, she’d brought her pain to Hunter like a case file. She offered evidence, careful language, and every generous explanation. Then she waited for him to rule on whether her hurt was legitimate.
This time, the facts were simple. Hunter had understood her question. He’d heard what refusing to answer was doing to her. He’d chosen silence because the truth would cost him. What exactly? She didn’t know.