8. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Hunter
Hunter woke with his hand spread across Wendy’s empty side of the bed.
The sheets next to him were cool and smooth.
Her pillow still held the shallow dip made by her head, though no trace of her perfume remained.
He stared at his wedding ring against the white linen until the pain in his chest became sharp enough to make him sit up.
Several days had passed since she drove away. He still hadn’t decided which moment had been worse: the rear lights vanishing beyond the gate, or the instant before that, when she’d looked at him and told him she believed he’d rejected Serena.
She’d believed his defense and left anyway.
On the morning Wendy left, Hunter had waited long enough for her to reach somewhere safe before he called.
The call went straight to voicemail. He couldn’t know for certain that she’d blocked him.
He’d assumed she had and sat on the edge of their bed with the phone in his hand, fighting the urge to test his theory with a message. Instead, he’d opened his email.
“Wendy,
I know I explained this badly. I need you to understand–”
He’d filled the screen with the missing context, the song, Billy, the campaign, and every promise he could make if she gave him one conversation.
Then he reached the address line. Most likely, Wendy hadn’t blocked his email.
She hadn’t mentioned it at all. For one desperate second, that felt like an open door.
Then he saw what he was about to do. She’d closed the only direct channel she’d used with him.
Reaching through another one wouldn’t prove his love.
It would prove that he still treated her choices as problems to solve until he got the answer he wanted.
Hunter had deleted the draft. He hadn’t called from another number, hadn’t asked his assistant to reach her, and hadn’t contacted Grace, Noah, or Lily. His mind kept producing new reasons why his need should count more than Wendy’s refusal, and he’d let each reason die without acting on it.
The restraint didn’t feel noble. It felt like standing outside his own burning house with his hands at his sides.
He showered and found Wendy’s skin cream on the sink, the lid set neatly on top.
Her toothbrush was gone. The space where she kept her jewelry was almost untouched because she’d left most of it behind.
Diamond earrings, gold bracelets, the pieces stylists had chosen to finish one public image after another. Hunter looked away.
In the kitchen, he opened a cabinet and stared at two mugs.
“Wendy?” he called, the name leaving him before he remembered.
No one answered. He gripped the cabinet handle. He missed her laugh, her bare feet against the floor, the way she read with her hair pushed behind one ear. He missed the exact pause she made before telling him he was wrong. For years, he’d mistaken knowing those details for paying attention.
He walked downstairs to the room where Wendy had once recorded her podcast. Boxes covered most of the floor.
Old stage clothes hung from a portable rack, and tour gifts sat on top of unplugged equipment.
He picked up a notebook filled with Wendy’s handwriting, read half a page about repair after broken trust, and put it back where he’d found it.
Prepared meals sat untouched in the refrigerator with neat labels and reheating directions.
Staff had continued cooking, cleaning, and managing deliveries while Hunter forgot to eat and slept in short stretches.
For years, that kind of quiet service had included Wendy.
She remembered what he needed before he asked, then made the care feel like love instead of labor.
Now the difference between the woman and everything she’d done for him seemed brutally clear.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. Billy again. The latest message read:
Billy: If you don’t appear today, decisions move forward without you.
Below it sat reminders about sponsor deadlines, an interview block, documentary filming, and the commercial release schedule for “Twenty Again.” Hunter had ignored them all while some stubborn part of him tried to believe the campaign could stay in place until Wendy came home and told him what to do with it.
That part of him had learned nothing.
***
At Canyonlight Studios, giant photographs from the Bowl lined the polished corridor. In one, Serena leaned toward Hunter under blue light, her hair falling over one shoulder while he smiled down at her. In another, their hands almost touched around the same microphone.
Employees glanced at Hunter and quickly became interested in tablets, cables, or closed doors. He hadn’t shaved, and his shirt was wrinkled.
Billy met him outside the production office. His suit looked as sharp as ever, though the skin under his pale eyes had tightened.
“We need ten minutes before you go in,” Billy said.
“You have two.”
Billy shut the office door behind them.
“The video is still gaining traction. Legal has three possible responses, but we can’t choose one while you’re refusing calls. Serena’s team needs to know whether you’re attending the joint interview. Sponsors need reassurance. We need a united front.”
Hunter barely listened to what Billy was saying. It didn’t seem like it mattered much.
“Wendy left,” he said.
Billy became still. “Left the house?”
“Left me.”
The words made it real in a new way. Hunter felt them in his stomach.
“Where did she go?” Billy asked.
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Can security trace the car?”
Hunter stepped closer. “No one traces her.”
Billy lifted both hands. “All right. I’m trying to understand the situation.”
“I think she went to Aria Springs. Her parents are the only people she trusts to give her real shelter when she’s hurt.”
“Good. That’s containable.”
Hunter stared at him. “My wife leaving me isn’t containable.”
“Publicly, it is. We say nothing unless she says something. If she’s with family, we have time to settle the narrative before this becomes a formal separation.
” Billy’s voice lowered into the calm tone that had sold Hunter through every crisis of his career.
“Don’t make permanent decisions while you’re panicking.
Let the team protect you until you can think. ”
“There will be no statement about Wendy. Not from you, Serena, Trace Media, or anyone else.”
“Of course.”
Hunter should’ve known that Billy’s agreement ended where Billy’s strategy began.
Their minutes alone were up, and they moved to the conference room, where people were waiting for the campaign meeting to start.
Billy walked out at some point and returned half an hour later.
Hunter didn’t question his manager. He didn’t even think about what he was doing or what he might’ve been up to.
He could barely focus on what was happening around him.
At some point, an assistant came in and asked Hunter to step into an unused vocal booth. Confused, Hunter did as he was told.
Serena stood inside with her arms folded over a cream sweater. The small space held two stools, a microphone stand, and barely enough room for the anger between them. She closed the padded door.
“Billy told me Wendy left,” she said.
Hunter’s jaw tightened. “He had no right.”
“I’m the other half of a campaign that’s supposed to put us next to each other across this whole rollout. He thought I needed revised talking points.” Her mouth twisted. “So, this is me revising them.”
“There won’t be a campaign,” Hunter said, running a hand over his unshaved jaw. He hadn’t discussed this with anyone. It had just come to him, and he’d said it.
Serena searched his face. “Because you’re going after her?”
“Because I should’ve ended it before she had to leave.”
Serena drew in a breath. “Is she coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then does this change anything between us?”
The question landed hard. Hunter thought of the studio clips, the stage, and every time he’d let Serena believe his silence meant maybe.
“No,” he said.
Her chin lifted. “No for now?”
“No. There has never been an us. I don’t want a life with you, Serena. I never did.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her.
“You smiled for those cameras,” she said. “You sang that song like you meant it. You let me stand there while everyone called me the woman who woke you up.”
“I did.”
“And now you’re telling me I imagined all of it?”
“I’m telling you I gave you reasons to believe something that wasn’t true because it helped my career. That was cruel. But it doesn’t become true because Wendy left.”
Serena’s dark eyes shone. She looked away before any tears could fall.
“You used me too,” she said.
Hunter could’ve defended himself. Serena had encouraged the story, pushed every boundary, and asked him to betray Wendy in the end. None of that changed his answer.
He’d liked Serena’s attention because she looked at him and saw danger instead of age, hunger instead of fear.
He’d let her admiration make him feel like the man he’d been before every song carried a payroll and every choice had a market value.
But he’d never wanted her mornings, her bad moods, her private thoughts, or a home built with her.
He’d wanted the version of himself he saw in her eyes, and he’d encouraged her hope to keep seeing it.
“Yes,” he said.
She turned back. Hurt sharpened her sweet, public face into something older and harder.
“I respect myself too much to keep chasing a man who doesn’t want me.”
“You should.”
“My team will withdraw me from everything that’s left. They’ll handle the contracts. If your lawyers require something, they can speak to my lawyer. Otherwise, you won’t see me again.”
Hunter nodded. “All right.”
Her hand rested on the door handle. “For what it’s worth, I hope she makes you earn even the chance to apologize.”
Serena left.