Influenced by Eva Robinson (best free ebook reader TXT) 📗

night in the Montmartre cemetery. They’d snuck in before dawn, and she’d laughed so hard that her belly had hurt. Snuggling together, they’d watched the sun come up.

In comparison, she felt like a dried-out husk of a person now.

A sharp tendril of guilt coiled through her chest when she thought of him. With a lump in her throat, she turned on her phone and searched for a picture of the two of them together. There they were—a beautiful couple on a trip to London. They stood in a sun-dappled garden near Temple Church, her head resting on his shoulder.

That was before she’d ruined everything.

Her hand shook as she poured herself another glass of rosé and stared out over the Charles. If sheer longing could make someone materialize, she’d see Marc striding down the riverside path, fresh off the airplane from the U.K.

Her publishers wanted at least a chapter about him, but four would be best. Dating him was what had made her career—a simple, wide-eyed ingenue from New England wandering into a Parisian fairytale with a real European intellectual.

And even if she had never been a simple, innocent girl, it had all felt like magic then. That had been real.

She lifted her wine glass before the setting sun, and when the rays of light hit it, they lit it up like a gem. With or without Marc, she needed to discover a sense of magic again. For her, it was harder to find in America, but it was still there. And that was what she needed to convey in her books: how to lead an enchanted life, even if you live in some terrible town with nothing but strip malls and shuttered factories.

“Okay, Rowan. Let’s make magic happen on the page.” She closed Facebook, Instagram, and the news sites, and her fingers hovered above the keys.

Except the words weren’t flowing when they were supposed to. Whenever she tried to write anything, the voices of her commenters drowned out her other thoughts.

What is this drivel?

Do you actually think people care about your philosophy on sunlight? Idiot.

How about calling this diary of a desperate narcissist?

I hope you die slowly.

At this point, she’d read so many negative messages that their voices had started growing in her mind like an invasive species, one that took over the terrain completely. She was no longer sure what she actually thought about her own work—she only knew what she imagined other people would think of it.

So far, she’d written one entire paragraph. It was about an amazing breakfast. Since her brand was “vaguely French-inspired,” there would be no quinoa and avocado. Instead, it was pain au chocolate, or berries and cream. This wasn’t some austere Gwyneth Paltrow crap; this was about pleasure. That was what Americans wanted out of France, and out of Rowan. Pleasure, luxury, and magic.

She frowned at the blank page. Maybe she should skip the food chapter. It was incoherent and lacked focus. Maybe she should start with writing about Marc. He was, after all, her primary obsession and the obsession of her readers.

With her heart racing, she called his number. He picked up after a few rings, his voice husky. “Hello?”

The excitement of hearing his voice lit up her entire body. “Marc.”

“Rowan? I was sleeping.”

“Oh, of course. Sorry, I guess it’s after midnight there.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, it’s fine. Sorry. I was just thinking of you. And I’m wondering if I shouldn’t write the book I’m supposed to write. You know how I am with writing.” She shouldn’t have brought up that topic. “Well, I’m wondering if I should maybe go to graduate school. And do something important. Like my friend Arabella.”

“I don’t know, Ro. I need to go back to sleep.”

She felt her cheeks burning now. What a first-class idiot she was. “Of course. Sorry.”

“Talk to you later, Ro.”

Cringing, she started flicking through her phone again, looking for him. He’d moved back to England from France, and his Instagram showed images of countryside walks in the lake district, sunlight dappling a mossy ground. Wherever he was, he created a true enchantment.

She was relieved to see no signs of a new girlfriend yet, but he’d stopped liking her photos weeks ago. And what did that mean? It meant he was no longer thinking about her.

It meant he’d moved on. And if he’d moved on, nothing else mattered.

That thought sent hot blades of anger through her chest. The sense of abandonment seared her, and she wanted to burn the world down with her.

Ten

Rowan finished the last of the wine in her glass, then poured herself another round of magic. Sometimes, she had the sense that someone was out there by the river across the street, walking past just to look at her. Turning around, walking past the other way. But with enough wine, some of the fear started to leave her mind. She was no longer thinking about who wanted to cut her into little pieces.

Give people the magic they want, Ro.

She opened Spotify and selected a track from a French melodic techno musician. Writing music.

Marc had introduced her to this artist, and they’d seen him perform with a live orchestra in France. She remembered leaning back into Marc’s fit body and nestling her head into the crook of his neck. She took a few deep breaths, opening his Instagram.

Every day, nearly a million people watched her, obsessed over every single thing she did. Yet the one person she wanted to pay attention to her wouldn’t. He was out in the countryside, photographing sheep. For crying out loud, were the sheep more interesting to him than she was?

He had always been the only one who made her feel calm, like he could see right into her soul. When she was spinning out about her haters, he was the one who’d helped her see that it didn’t matter. She knew he cared about her, the real her, and she trusted him completely. The fact that he’d dumped her after what she’d done only proved his