Page 33 of One-Star Romance

So she turned away from Gabby and stumbled down the path along the side of the house, over tree roots and patches of moss, to the smaller, more hidden dock around the bend, little more than a place to tie up an extra rowboat. She would deal with this alone.

To be devastated in a place like this felt wrong. The ferns and rushes rustled in the breeze, the afternoon sun casting a great golden beam across the water, the surface of the lake a glimmering soft blue. Goddammit, here came a loon, gliding by her with its low call. The beauty of it all seemed to say, How can you look at me and feel anything besides awestruck?

And yet Natalie was miserable. The water shimmered in front of her, yes, but so did the future she’d pictured for herself. That future grew fainter, then was carried off by the wind, to be given to someone else instead. What was she doing? She was twenty-eight years old. Everyone else had been laying the groundwork for the rest of their lives while she’d fixated on this book being her purpose, convincing herself that she didn’t need to worry about backup plans. So much time had slipped by while she’d let herself be dazzled by the illusion that she was special. Now, not only was she not special, she was unprepared for everything else.

Why had she thrown herself into a career with so much heartbreak involved? She could have been…an accountant and not cared too much and had BENEFITS and saved her energy for other things instead of basing her entire self-worth on whether some people she’d never met decided that her book was worth publishing.

She glanced down once more at the email on her phone, reading the message from Leslie at Penguin, a paragraph of praise followed by:

Unfortunately, after consulting with the team here, we don’t have a vision for how to publish this book in a big way, so I’m going to have to step aside. I’m sure someone else who loves it will snatch it up!

But there was no one else who loved it. Natalie, apparently, was the only one. She loved it with a passion so deep it hurt. With a certainty that this was the best thing she’d ever done. The best she could do. She’d dug inside herself, then dug even more, tunneling into her core until there was simply nowhere else to go, and this book was what she’d returned with, dirt-stained and exhausted and triumphant. And the response had been a collective Sorry, but not good enough.

A noise startled her, and she whirled around. Rob appeared in his bathing suit, neat navy shorts, a few remaining droplets of water clinging to his skin. He approached hesitantly, a man stumbling upon some wounded animal in the woods, feeling it was his duty to investigate. Dammit, he was the last person she wanted to see her like this.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I thought I saw you over by the other dock, peering through the bushes, looking all shifty and morose.”

“I’m not morose!” she said. Then she burst into tears.

He took a step forward, reaching out a tentative hand before thinking better of it and gluing it back to his side. “What’s wrong?”

Water sloshed against the dock. Hot tears stained her cheeks. She tried to wipe them away, but they kept coming, uncontrollable. “I…” She sniffled. “I’ve got great news for you. I won’t get to publish another book.”

“Ah,” he said.

“Yup. Go ahead and gloat.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you wanted to burn Apartment 2F at the stake.”

“Because of Dennis.” He scratched at his ear. “And the new one doesn’t have a Dennis type.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “You read it? I told you to erase that email from your inbox and your memory!”

“Well”—he cleared his throat—“I was curious.”

“And what did you think?” She cut herself off, shaking her head, furiously scrubbing her face. “No, I don’t want to know.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Okay.”

She paced the length of the dock back and forth, wiped the snot from her nose, then said, “Fine, tell me.”

He hesitated. “I thought it was good.”

“Wow. Stop before my ego explodes from the torrent of praise.”

“You’re a talented writer.”

She bit her thumbnail. “So, what? Two stars this time?”

“Five,” he said, avoiding her eyes.

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