The Billionaire's Broken Marriage

6. Carly

CARLY

The recording studio sat in a converted warehouse on the east side of Nashville.

I pulled into the gravel lot and cut the engine.

The building was all brick and tall windows, the kind of place that looked industrial and cool at the same time.

Boone's truck was parked near the entrance, along with a black SUV I didn't recognize.

My hands were still shaking from the drive over.

I gripped the steering wheel and tried to steady my breathing, but my pulse kept hammering in my throat.

Go to him as his wife. That's what Dee had said. Not as help. Not as the woman who disappeared into the background. As his partner. As the woman he'd married ten years ago and promised to love.

I twisted the ring on my finger and got out of the car.

The September heat hit me like a wall, thick and heavy.

I walked across the lot, my shoes crunching on the gravel, and pushed through the front door.

The inside of the studio was cool and dim, all concrete floors and exposed ductwork.

Music drifted from somewhere down the hall, a melody I didn't recognize played on a guitar. My stomach tightened.

I followed the sound.

The main recording room was at the end of the hallway, behind a heavy soundproof door with a window set into it. I could see movement through the glass. I stopped a few feet away, my heart pounding, and looked inside.

Boone was there. He was sitting on a stool with his guitar in his lap, playing something slow and pretty.

His head was bent over the strings, his whole focus on the music.

He looked relaxed, happy even, in a way I hadn't seen in months.

The melody was unfamiliar, something new he must have been working on without me.

Savannah was there too.

She stood next to him, close enough that her shoulder almost touched his.

She was wearing jeans and a white blouse, her blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail.

She looked casual, effortless, like she belonged there.

Like this was her space as much as it was his.

She leaned in, watching his hands move across the strings, and said something I couldn't hear through the glass. Boone looked up at her and grinned.

Something twisted in my chest.

He played a few more bars, stumbled on a chord change, and stopped.

He frowned at the guitar, adjusting his grip, and tried the section again.

It still didn't land right. I could hear it even through the door — the rhythm was off, the melody sagging in the middle the way it always did when he rushed the transition.

I'd heard him make that same mistake a dozen times. I knew how to fix it.

Savannah leaned closer. She put her hand on his shoulder, her fingers resting there light and easy, and tilted her head to look at the fretboard. She said something, and Boone nodded. Her hand stayed on his shoulder. She didn't move it. He didn't move away.

I stood there in the hallway, frozen, watching the two of them through the glass like I was watching a scene in a movie I didn't want to see. My stomach dropped. My hands curled into fists at my sides.

It was nothing. It was just her hand on his shoulder. People touched each other all the time. It didn't mean anything. She was helping him with the song, pointing something out, being supportive. That was all. That was all it was.

But it didn't look like nothing.

It looked like she belonged there. It looked like they were writing together, like she was his partner now.

It looked like intimacy, the kind of easy closeness I used to have with him when we sat at the piano and worked through a melody until it was perfect.

Her hand on his shoulder, his head tilted toward hers, the two of them bent over the guitar like they were the only two people in the world. Like I didn't exist.

God, I felt like someone had punched me in the chest.

I couldn't breathe. My pulse was pounding in my ears, and I could feel my face going hot.

My hands were shaking again, and I had to press them flat against my sides to keep them still.

I wanted to leave. I wanted to turn around and walk back down the hallway and get in my car and drive away and never come back.

But I didn't.

I pushed the door open.

The soundproofing was good, but the door made a soft click when it opened, and Boone looked up. His face changed when he saw me. Not guilty. Not surprised. Just confused, like he couldn't figure out why I was there.

"Carly," he said. "Hey."

Savannah straightened. Her hand left his shoulder, and she turned to look at me. She smiled, warm and welcoming, like we were old friends. "Carly," she said. "Hi. I didn't know you were coming by."

Neither did Boone, apparently. He set his guitar down and stood up, running a hand through his hair. "Everything okay?" he asked.

My throat was so tight I could barely get the words out. "Yeah," I said. My voice sounded thin even to my own ears. "I just thought I'd stop by. See what you were working on."

Boone glanced at Savannah, then back at me. "We're just going over some ideas for the new album," he said. "Savannah had some thoughts on the direction, and we wanted to nail down a few things before we pitch them to her dad."

We. He said we, like the two of them were a unit now. Like I wasn't part of it. Like I'd never been part of it.

"That's great," I said. I forced a smile. It felt like my face might crack. "Sounds like it's going well."

"Yeah." Boone picked up a bottle of water from the floor and took a sip. "It's coming together. Slowly."

Savannah tilted her head, studying me with that same kind, curious expression she always wore. "Do you want to sit in?" she asked. "We could use a fresh set of ears."

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to pull up a chair and listen to the melody Boone was working on and tell him exactly how to fix the transition he kept stumbling over.

I wanted to remind him that I'd been doing this with him for ten years, that I knew his music better than anyone, that I was his partner even if nobody else knew it.

But I didn't say any of that.

"I don't want to interrupt," I said.

"You're not interrupting," Boone said. He was already looking at his phone, his thumb moving across the screen. "We're just messing around."

Just messing around. Like it didn't matter. Like the work they were doing together wasn't the same work he used to do with me. Like I was supposed to believe it was nothing.

I stepped into the room and sat down on the couch against the back wall.

The leather was cool under my legs, and I folded my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking.

Boone didn't notice. He was still looking at his phone, frowning at whatever was on the screen.

Savannah picked up a notebook from the console and flipped through it, her expression thoughtful.

"So," Savannah said, looking at Boone. "What if we took the bridge in a completely different direction? Something unexpected. Like instead of building up to the big emotional moment, we pull back. Make it quiet. Intimate. Let the vulnerability do the work instead of the volume."

Boone's head snapped up. "Yeah," he said. He set his phone down, his whole attention on her now. "Yeah, that could work. Like, strip it down to just the guitar and the vocal?"

"Exactly." Savannah's face lit up. "And then you bring everything back in on the final chorus. It'll hit so much harder that way."

They kept talking, their voices overlapping, building on each other's ideas.

Boone picked up his guitar again and started playing, trying out the change Savannah had suggested.

She leaned over his shoulder, humming along, and I sat there on the couch watching them like I was invisible. Like I was a ghost in my own marriage.

Nobody asked what I thought. Nobody looked at me.

I wanted to say something. I wanted to stand up and walk over there and tell Boone that the idea was good but the execution was wrong, that if he pulled back too much on the bridge the whole song would lose its momentum.

I wanted to remind him that I knew how to do this, that I'd been fixing his songs for a decade, that he needed me even if he didn't realize it.

But I didn't.

I just sat there with my hands folded in my lap and my throat aching and my chest so tight I thought I might break in half.

I pressed my nails into my palms, hard enough to hurt, and tried to keep my face neutral.

Tried to keep the devastation from showing.

Tried to pretend like this was fine, like I was fine, like watching my husband work with another woman didn't feel like watching him forget I existed.

Boone played the bridge again, this time with the changes Savannah had suggested. It sounded better. Not perfect, but better. He grinned at her, that big, genuine grin that used to be just for me, and she grinned back.

"That's it," he said. "That's exactly what it needed."

Savannah laughed, bright and easy. "See? I told you. Sometimes you just need someone to push you in a different direction."

Someone. Not me. Someone else. Her.

My jaw tightened. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something I'd regret. The pain was sharp and grounding, and I focused on it instead of the hollow, helpless feeling spreading through my chest like ice.

Boone set his guitar down and stretched, rolling his shoulders. "I need a break," he said. "My back's killing me."

"You've been hunched over that thing for two hours," Savannah said. She picked up her coffee cup and took a sip. "No wonder you're sore."

Two hours. They'd been working together for two hours, and I hadn't even known.

I'd been at home, waiting for him to come back, thinking he'd be gone for a couple of hours like he'd said.

But he'd been here the whole time, with her, writing music and laughing and building something I wasn't part of.

Boone finally looked at me. "You want something to drink?" he asked. "There's water in the fridge, or I think Tuck left some soda."

"I'm fine," I said.

He nodded and pulled out his phone again. The screen lit up his face in the dim studio light, and I watched his expression shift as he read whatever was there. His thumb moved across the screen, tapping, scrolling. He frowned. He smiled. He kept reading.

I was sitting three feet away from him, and he didn't even see me.

"Boone," I said.

"Mm?" He didn't look up.

"I was thinking maybe we could have dinner tonight. Just the two of us. We haven't done that in a while."

"Yeah." His thumb kept moving. "Sure. Sounds good."

He wasn't listening. I could tell by the way his eyes stayed glued to the screen, by the way his responses came out automatic and distracted. He didn't hear a word I'd said. He didn't care.

Savannah's phone buzzed on the console. She picked it up and glanced at the screen, then looked at Boone. "Daddy wants to know if we can send him a demo of the new stuff by tomorrow," she said. "Think we can pull that together?"

Boone's head snapped up. "Tomorrow?"

"I know it's tight." Savannah gave him an apologetic smile. "But he's leaving for L.A. on Wednesday, and he wants to hear it before he goes. If we can get him something solid, it'll keep the momentum going."

Boone ran a hand through his hair, thinking. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, we can do that. We'll just have to stay late tonight and knock it out."

"I can stay as long as you need," Savannah said.

Of course she could. Of course she'd stay late with him, working on music in this studio while I sat at home alone waiting for him to remember I existed. Of course she was the one he wanted here, the one he turned to, the one who got his time and his attention and his focus.

I felt myself fading, like I was becoming transparent.

Boone looked at me, finally, and his expression shifted. "Hey," he said. "About dinner — can we do it tomorrow night instead? I need to get this demo done, and it's going to take a while."

I stared at him. He'd just agreed to have dinner with me. Thirty seconds ago. And now he was canceling, pushing me aside, choosing her and the music and the deal over me. Again.

"Sure," I said. My voice came out flat and lifeless. "Tomorrow's fine."

"Thanks, babe." He was already turning back to Savannah, already moving on. "Okay, so if we're doing this tonight, we need to figure out what we're sending him. I'm thinking the ballad, the uptempo track we worked on last week, and maybe the one we just fixed?"

Savannah nodded, pulling her notebook back out. "I like that. Three songs, three different moods. It'll show him range."

They started planning, their heads bent together over the notebook, and I sat there on the couch feeling like I'd been erased.

My throat ached. My hands wouldn't stop trembling.

I pressed them flat against my thighs and tried to steady my breathing, but it kept coming in short, shallow gasps that made my chest hurt.

I could leave. I could stand up right now and walk out of this studio and get in my car and drive away.

I could go back to Dee's bar and tell her she was wrong, that going to him as his wife didn't work, that he didn't see me no matter what I did.

I could take the ring off my finger and set it on the console and walk away from all of this.

But I didn't.

I thought about what Dee had said. You go to him as his wife.

You remind him who you are. I'd come here to do that.

I'd driven across town with my heart in my throat and my hands shaking because I wanted him to see me.

I wanted to be part of his world again, not just a fixture in his house. I wanted to matter.

Leaving now would be giving up. It would be admitting that I couldn't do this, that I didn't belong here, that Savannah had won and I'd lost. And I wasn't ready to do that. Not yet.

So I stayed.

I sat on the couch and watched them work.

I listened to them talk about chord progressions and lyric changes and what Savannah's father would want to hear.

I watched Boone's face light up when Savannah said something that made him laugh.

I watched her hand brush his arm when she leaned over to point at something in the notebook.

I watched them build something together, something I wasn't part of, something that used to be mine.

And I said nothing.

I showed nothing.

I twisted the ring on my finger and told myself this was what a wife did. She showed up. She stayed. She supported him even when it hurt. Even when it felt like she was being erased. Even when every instinct in her body was screaming at her to run.

Boone played another section of the song, and Savannah hummed along, her voice blending with his. It sounded good. It sounded right. It sounded like a harmony that didn't need me at all.

I stayed anyway.