Your Love Is But a Dream (Clara and Wren) novel Chapter 5

It was already dark out when Clara got home. She went to her art studio to look around. After all, her paintings for her university admission were still incomplete.

Clara had just arrived at the door when she saw a housekeeper rearranging the interior and cleaning the space.

Clara's easel, which originally sat next to the window, had vanished. In its place was an expensive imported piano.

There were no traces of her art and paint supplies. They were replaced with Ivy's music scores and other belongings.

"Where are my paintings?" Clara asked the housekeeper, her voice trembling.

Those art pieces weren't just her prized possessions. Among them was one specific painting—the last thing her mother had painted before dying.

Clara's parents perished on their way back from the countryside. They had gone there to look for inspiration for Clara's mother's paintings.

Clara's grandmother blamed these paintings as the reason for Clara's father's death. So, she burned all of Clara's mother's art pieces.

One painting survived because Clara lunged into the flames and burned her hands to save it. It was the last thing she had of her mother's.

Clara cherished the painting a lot. Even Wren wouldn't dare touch it back then. However, it was missing now.

The housekeeper bore a nervous expression after seeing that Clara was on the verge of tears. She was unsure how to respond when someone spoke up from behind, "You're back, Clara."

Ivy held a score sheet and smilingly entered the room. She only snapped out of her smugness after realizing Clara was crying. Right away, she put on an apologetic front.

She said, "Sorry for hogging your studio. Wren told me this room's spacious and has the best lighting, so it's the perfect place to be my piano room. He's allowed me to move into this room to practice for my upcoming piano competition."

Clara stepped closer to Ivy. "Where are my paintings?"

"Oh, those paintings?" Ivy smiled sweetly. "Wren said they weren't important and told me to do whatever I pleased with them. So, I asked the housekeepers to throw them away."

Clara's eyes widened in disbelief, and her entire body trembled. Wren knew how important that painting was to her. However, he allowed Ivy to get rid of it to make her happy.

"Are you alright, Clara?" Ivy asked.

Clara's head snapped upward just then. She grabbed Ivy's outreached hand. Her eyes reddened as she loudly questioned, "Where have you thrown my paintings? Give them back!"

"You're hurting me, Clara." Ivy frowned due to the pain and deliberately said, "They're in the outdoor bins. There's no telling if the garbage truck has already cleared the bins…"

Clara shoved Ivy away before running outside at once.

It was drizzling outdoors, but Clara dared not delay things any longer. She dug through each garbage bin one after the other. Finally, she found the discarded paintings in a bin near the villa.

Unfortunately, all the paintings were destroyed. The oil pigments had bled all over the place.

The painting she made of her and Wren looked the worst. Her face got smeared with black paint. It was like someone had taken their anger out on her, and her face was unrecognizable in the painting.

Clara couldn't be bothered to feel sad about it. She merely knelt beside the bin and looked around until she found her mother's painting. Luckily, it sat beneath all the other paintings and was safe from the rain. It only had a slight stain from the other bleeding pigments.

Now that Clara had found what she lost, she hugged it tightly as she walked home in the rain. Her humiliation at that moment couldn't compare to the anger brewing in her chest.

When she passed the art studio, she saw Wren hugging Ivy with concern. He softly spoke while trying to cheer Ivy up. Carlisle, Katrina, and Shirley also surrounded Ivy.

As Wren looked up and saw Clara, he coldly stated, "Get over here."

Clara's fingers tightened around the frame of the painting as she tensely entered the room. All eyes were on her just then.

Katrina felt bad for Clara when she saw the latter was drenched. She was about to speak up when Wren beat her to it.

Wren's stern tone rang out, "I'm the one who let Ivy move into the art studio. You can take any grievances you have with me. Why did you harm Ivy?"