Standing at the foot of my bed, I stare down at the two shirts I’ve laid out, wondering which one will make me look less like a liar. The flouncy pink one with roses is definitely giving Tenderhearted Romance Author (the exact image I’m aiming for), but is it trying too hard? The other option (crisp, white, sleeveless) has more of an edge, but is it too edgy? Will my readers take one look at the aggressively high neckline and know I’m hiding something?

I realize the same sort of wardrobe questions probably run through the mind of a serial killer preparing to take the stand. Except in my case, the jury will be hundreds of my most devoted readers, and instead of a court hearing, I’ll be feigning innocence during a live stream promotional event for my latest book. Which starts in—I glance at my alarm clock—twelve minutes. Shit.

I cross my arms over my bra in a futile attempt to self-soothe. After six novels and their subsequent book tours, one would think I’d have this whole living-a-lie thing locked down by now. Or that I’d at least be able to pick out a shirt. But according to my underboob sweat, one would be wrong. Because despite occupying the body of #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Margot Bradley (the title my publicist insists every interviewer, podcaster, and unsuspecting Starbucks barista address me with), I live in perpetual fear that my fans will somehow learn the truth about me. That beneath all the romance tropes and triple-orgasm sex scenes I peddle like snake oil, I’m more jaded about love than a former Bachelorette star, mid-divorce.

I know it begs the question: How can she write romance novels if she believes love is Satan’s pyramid scheme? To which I would answer: I haven’t always been this wise and all-knowing. No, no. Once upon my twenties, I experienced the sort of swept-off-your-feet, can’t-stop-staring-at-their-forearms, logic-melting chemistry that romance tropes are made of. I thought I’d found love in the heady rush of endorphins and desire, perilously tied to that most tenuous of human bonds—trust. I know the feeling of a two-point-three-carat engagement ring sliding onto my finger. Coincidentally, I also know how it feels when that ring slides off for good. How those helium-high feelings inevitably ignite on a spark of truth and explode, crashing to earth in a fiery inferno of pain and horror.

Too much? Maybe not. I’ve found that most people who reach their thirties have experienced at least one breakup that left them subsisting on dry Froot Loops because they were too busy inwardly collapsing to pour themselves milk. I also happen to know that the brokenhearted often seek comfort and escape through the billion-dollar romance novel industry. How? Because I’ve been one of them. I learned the hard way that in this bleak swipe-left world, romance novels give hope to the hopeless. They make you believe that a sensitive, multilingual, insanely jacked doctor named Hunter is just waiting in the wings of your life, ready to laugh with you about all the toads you dated while cuddling after your nightly synchronized orgasms.

Unless you’re me, of course, and bitter experience has taught you that Dr. Hunter isn’t coming—to you or in you. So instead, you use the faded remnants of your old hopes and dreams to write those romance novels that no longer provide you solace but still pay your bills and comfort others. And by others, of course, I mean my readers, whose unwavering loyalty deserves to be repaid in the currency they crave most. In golden-hour kisses. In snowed-in cabins with only one bed. And above all, in Happily Ever Afters.