Page 47 of The Ex Project (The Heartwood #3)

HUDSON

I still can’t get over how breathtaking Wren looks in that red dress.

The deep, blood red is striking against her pale skin.

And the fact that she’s mine ? We’re stepping out of the black town car that picked us up together ?

It still amazes me. I glance over at her as she gets out of the car and stands next to me.

The art show has already started, the crowd inside visible through the expansive windows at the front of the building. The gallery is located on the outskirts of Vancouver, nestled in the thick, towering, regal evergreens. But the building itself has a rustic feel.

It’s already dark out, so the place is illuminated only by a soft, ambient glow. Fairy lights are strung up in the lower boughs of the trees leading up to the entrance, and the effect is enchanting.

Wren is enchanting.

She lets out a sigh, still standing at the edge of the path leading to the heavy wooden doors. Something is weighing on her, keeping her feet stuck in place.

“We’re kicking ass tonight, remember?” I remind her, but still, she doesn’t move to go inside.

“Kicking ass, right,” she says absentmindedly before turning to look back at me. “I just wish my parents could be here. And strangely enough, Claire, too. I finally feel successful, and happy , and … they won’t get to see it because they’re too stubborn and stuck in their own ways.”

My mouth forms a tight line, and I nod slightly, looking down at my feet.

Although I understand where she’s coming from, wanting her family to see her for who she truly is, to celebrate her achievements, I can’t help but feel like she needs to let go of caring about their opinions altogether.

She gave them their chance, and if they don’t want to be a part of this, share in her success, bear witness to her becoming … it’s their loss.

I look up at her from under my eyebrows and instinctively reach for her hand. My fingers wrap around hers, giving it three consecutive squeezes.

“I’m here. I’ll always be here,” I remind her. “It’s their loss. Wren: 100, Brenda and Ian: zero,” I say, and it earns me an appreciative smile. She squares her shoulders, squeezes my hand back, and we head inside.

Heads turn as we walk through the door, hand in hand. All eyes land on Wren. Whispers ripple out through the crowd that she has arrived, as people recognize her from the small photo on the wall next to her paintings.

I only notice it there because Wren’s painting is front and centre as we enter.

The one she painted at the swimming hole.

Next to it is the one she was working on the day I ended up with my head between her legs on the kitchen chair.

Her paintings are meaningful to me, but probably for different reasons than most.

“Wren! You’re here!” an unfamiliar voice calls out, causing both of us to look around to find the source.

A woman parts the crowd and approaches Wren with both arms open.

She’s got long, dark grey hair cascading in waves down her back with one streak of white through the front section.

She jingles when she walks, her silver bracelets clinking together.

“I’m Gwen,” she says as she backs away from pulling Wren in for a double cheek kiss.

“Gwen, hi,” Wren greets her, her voice smooth as she puts on a tone I’ve only heard once before.

At the meeting with Shelley. It’s her work voice, the one she uses when she’s trying to have someone believe she’s always polished.

She’s good at it, too. There’s no hint of the Wren I had bent over the bathroom counter moments ago, her raspy, breathy moans steaming up the mirror in front of her.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you. It’s such an honour to be featured at your gallery. This place is incredible.”

“Oh, the honour is mine, darling. I can’t believe I’m the first to get an original Wren Miller.” Gwen is sweet, genuine, authentic to her bones. Wren got a good impression over e-mail, and she was excited by the idea of partnering with a female curator.

She was deliberate in her choice of who she responded to out of the many requests from various galleries—said she wasn’t going for the biggest and the best this time.

Success at all costs wasn’t what she was seeking this time around, if art was to be a paying gig for her.

She wants this to mean something, to be fulfilling in a way her previous career never was.

It’s refreshing to see the shift in her, and I get the impression once Wren fully lets go of caring what other people think of her, her success is going to be exponential.

Gwen asks me if she can steal Wren from me with a wink, and steers her through the crowd, grabbing a flute of champagne off a server’s tray and shoving it into her hand.

I do the same, taking two as the server passes by.

The first one goes down quickly, and the second, I sip on so I have something to keep my hands busy.

This event, this crowd, makes my palms sweat. It makes my tux feel two sizes too small, my collar constricting my neck. Everyone seems perfectly lovely, it’s just so different from anything I’ve ever experienced back in Heartwood.

No one wears floor-length gowns to Jack’s, no one describes art using the words visceral and transcendent . You talk about art in Heartwood, and you’re going to talk about nude paintings of Norm, creepy, hand-painted porcelain dolls, and claymation. As weird and wacky as it is, I like it that way.

To say I’m out of place here is an understatement, though as I spot Wren floating around the far side of the room, that polished smile still pressed to her face, it’s apparent she’s in her element.

Every once in a while, she pokes her head up to scan the crowd, looking for me.

We make eye contact across the room, and she gives me an inquisitive look followed by a wink.

I nod and wave my hand in a don’t worry about me gesture.

I take a long pull of my champagne, the bubbles burning the bridge of my nose. This is where she thrives, and here I am, standing on the sidelines, feeling like I wouldn’t be able to keep up even if I tried.

I’ve found myself a quiet corner of the gallery to stand back against the wall, taking everything in from afar. No one has bothered trying to talk to me. They look at me, though, through sidelong glances. It’s as if, even wearing a tux, I stick out like a sore thumb.

The collar of my shirt is suddenly feeling tight, my neck prickling with discomfort.

The muscles in my neck and shoulders tense at the sensation.

It feels like the room is closing in. It’s new for me, feeling insecure and judged.

I decide to step out for some fresh air, away from the stares and the reminders that I don’t belong.

I leave the gallery, and the noise of the crowd inside quiets as the heavy wooden door closes behind me. I exhale a pent-up breath and let the tension in my shoulders float away on the soft breeze wafting through the forest around me.

“Your wife is very talented,” a gravelly voice says from behind me.

I turn to see a man, tall and slender, with long dark hair slicked back, wearing a suit with those short pants, the ones that come up above the ankle.

No socks. He’s leaning on the side of the gallery, taking a long, drawn-out drag of a cigarette.

The lilt in the way he speaks tells me he’s not from here.

My eyes dart behind him, where I catch Wren through the windows.

“She is.” I don’t bother correcting him that she isn’t my wife.

I let myself live for a moment in the fantasy that we’re married, because the possibility of Wren and I getting to a place where we’re ready for marriage seems …

well it didn’t seem that far off, but after tonight I’m not so sure.

She’s not ready to give up her dreams, nor should she be. Nor would I ever expect her to be.

“I was very disappointed to hear she’s unable to come to my gallery in Paris,” he says, flicking the ashen tip of his cigarette onto the concrete beside him.

My mind falters. Paris, as in France? “I own a magnifique gallery attached to a studio I offered her for her use, but she declined. Dommage .” He mutters the last word with a shake of his head.

I consider my next words carefully.

“Did she say why?” I inquire casually.

“Something about finding happiness with what she has.” The man looks up at me now and our eyes meet.

He points a finger at me, still holding the cigarette.

“I have a feeling it had something to do with you. Vivre d’amour, c’est donner sans mesure ,” he says, and he must see the confusion on my face because he translates.

“To live from love, is to give without measure. She must really love you to pass up an opportunity like that.”

My stomach drops the same way it did when Spencer showed me the attention Wren was getting over her paintings online.

Though the heaviness I’m feeling now has nothing to do with the success she’s having, and everything to do with the fact that she hasn’t filled me in.

She’s once again turned something down because of me.

I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet, shoving my hands in my pockets. When I look over my shoulder toward the gallery, my eyes land on Wren inside. She’s glowing, she’s magnificent, she’s alive in a way I thought I might never see again.

Suddenly, I’m thrown back in time, to ten years ago. Watching Wren from afar, meeting new people, making new connections. Feeling like every time she called me from her dorm, she was missing out on some opportunity to stay in and talk to me.

I didn’t fit in with the life she envisioned for herself then, why would time have done us any favours? How could a decade between us have brought us closer together? It’s becoming increasingly apparent we’ve grown farther apart than I thought.

Now, even the outside air feels stifling. The air here is humid and warm, and with the clouds rolling in, I’m feeling a headache coming on. I head back inside to find Wren.

It doesn’t take much to find her because she’s already approaching me as soon as I enter. Despite my increasing insecurity, I smile when I see her. I can’t help myself.

“Hey, you,” she says. “I was looking for you. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, keeping my hands in my pockets to still them.

I glance around the room, anywhere but at Wren.

What am I going to tell her? I feel like a fool for coming here?

I told her I would support her no matter what, I would be here for her when no one else was. She narrows her eyes at me.

“Liar.” Her mouth tilts to one side in a smirk. She knows she has me. I search my brain for a reasonable excuse to explain why I’m not feeling my best .

“I’m hungry.” I nod towards a server carrying a plate of crudities. “Whatever those little bite-sized thingies are they’re serving, I’ve eaten like ten thousand of them and I’m still starving.”

“Let’s get out of here, then.” She says it as if leaving this event is such an easy decision, as if she wouldn’t even second-guess prioritizing my comfort over her opportunities.

“No,” I blurt, and it comes out faster and more forceful than I intended. Her eyebrows pinch together, so I soften my tone. “Don’t leave because of me. I’m fine. I’ll go back to the hotel and get room service or something.”

“Well, what if I want to? You can’t tell me what to do, Landry.” Her jaw tenses, and she stands a little taller. She’s being Wren, never giving up without a fight.

“I can take care of myself,” I reassure her, kissing her on the temple. “Stay. Talk to people about what a creative genius you are.” I give her another nod to say I’m serious .

She leans in and kisses me, her impossibly high, impossibly sexy heels making it so she doesn’t have to stretch up as much.

“I’ll see you later,” Wren says hesitantly, and I wink at her.

“Go get ‘em.”

When I go back outside, the taxi pulls up in front of me, and I open the back door to climb in. As the cab pulls away from the gallery, and I head back to the hotel alone, my stomach drops further, nearly bottoming out.

Wren and I, no matter how much we fight against it, are repeating old patterns. We haven’t fixed the root of the issue that caused the rift between us in the first place, and something tells me time has only caused the valley to deepen, eroding whatever was left keeping us together.

Maybe making sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes isn’t about being smarter or savvier the next time around.

Maybe not falling into old traps is about being able to recognize them from afar, and staying well away from them to begin with.