One Year in Paris
by Susan Horsnell
Contemporary Romance
Date Published: 07-25-2025
Publisher: Lipstick Publishing
Jett lives for the game. Annelise lives for the canvas. But when fate intertwines their worlds on a rain-soaked street in the City of Lights, neither is prepared for the slow-burn connection that follows.
As their hearts tangle between café tables and gallery walls, the intrusion of the press and career choices threaten to pull them apart.
Jett faces pressure to return to New York.
Annalise wrestles with who she is beyond her art.
And just when they start to find their rhythm, a devastating injury changes everything.
Set against the romance of Paris and the quiet beauty of rebuilding a life, One Year in Paris is a tender story of love that endures the noise, finds strength in the silence, and blooms where it’s least expected.
Excerpt:
ONE YEAR IN PARIS
Copyright © 2025 by Susan Horsnell
The right of Susan Horsnell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed, or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon, or similar organizations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical or mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning, AI training, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, or events are entirely coincidental.
Edited: Redline Editing
Proofread: Leanne Rogers
Published by: Lipstick Publishing
Information and Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction written by the named author.
Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental or historical.
PSC is Paris Saint-Clark Football Club and is completely fictitious as are the players.
As far as I am aware there is no such place as Le Délice De Paris or the Burnside Gallery in Brooklyn. The reviews mentioned and those who gave them on the gallery exhibition are completely fictitious.
The characters and situations are productions of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously.
Chapter One
Paris, France.
March.
Paris smelled like warm bread, rain, and the kind of freedom you didn’t realize you were starving for until you tasted it.
Annelise Garner pressed her sketchbook to her chest as she crossed Place du Tertre, her long blond curls pulled into a loose braid and a soft, excited nervousness fluttering in her chest. This wasn’t just a vacation—it was a year away from all expectations. No cotillions, no pageants, no family name to maintain. Just art, sunlight, and the faint promise of something more.
She passed a café tucked between a bookstore and a patisserie, where laughter spilled onto the street. A gust of wind tugged at her scarf, and she caught it just before it flew—only to stumble directly into someone walking briskly around the corner.
Hard chest. Expensive cologne. An arm around her waist, steadying.
“Whoa—pardon,” a deep voice rumbled. American, unmistakably. Rough with surprise. Smooth with heat.
Annelise looked up—and found herself staring into the greenest eyes she’d ever seen.
The man holding her was tall…Ridiculously tall. His hair was dark and swept back in the kind of effortless way that meant effort had definitely been involved. A few people nearby had slowed down to look. Some pointed.
“Y-you’re American,” she blurted in surprise before she could stop herself.
He smirked. “So are you.”
“Atlanta.”
“New York.”
They paused.
“I’m Annelise.”
“Jett Hunter.”
And as he stepped back, letting her go with a soft brush of his fingers, she noticed the gym bag over his shoulder, scuffed cleats peeking out the side.
That name…Jett Hunter. It tickled something in her brain. A memory from a sports magazine her friend from back home, Abigail, had fawned over.
She blinked.
“You play soccer…”
He gave her a crooked smile. “A little.”
“How long have you been in Paris?”
“Two years…You?”
“Two months…I’m here studying art for a year courtesy of a generous inheritance from my grandpa.”
“My contract ends in seven months.”
Annelise nodded. “I wish I could stay forever, but—” she shrugged.
She didn’t give a reason and Jett didn’t know her well enough to ask.
Jett Hunter didn’t believe in fate. He believed in timing—on the field, in life, in love, if that was even something he still believed in at all.
But when he spotted her again the next morning, crossing Rue des Abbesses with a portfolio twice her size and sunlight catching in her golden hair, he felt something stir.
She hadn’t seen him yet. She was juggling her sketchbook tucked under one arm and what looked like a artists satchel in the other. Same soft curls, same honey-sweet presence…Annelise.
He pushed his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose to be sure.
Yep. It was her.
Jett stood up from his table before he thought better of it, dodged a Vespa, and stepped into her path just as she looked up.
She gasped, nearly bumping into him again, and blinked in surprise. “You?”
He gave a crooked grin. “Starting to think you’re following me.”
Her lips parted—then curved. “Or you’re following me.”
“Touché.”
She shifted the satchel and sketchpad awkwardly. “Do you usually begin your mornings by bumping into strangers?”
“I had a need for croissants,” he explained. “And accidental run-ins with beautiful strangers are a bonus,” he added.
Her cheeks colored faintly. It looked good on her. Real. Not rehearsed like the women he usually met who were after him for nothing more than his fame and fortune.
He nodded toward the café behind him. “Sit with me?”
She hesitated for a breath. Then nodded.
They sat under the striped awning, a plate of flaky pastries between them. Two Americans in the heart of Montmartre pretending Paris wasn’t working some strange kind of magic on them.
Annelise told him about her art studies and Georgia summers. She spoke briefly of her political family, being an only child, how she used to sketch horses in the back pasture and dream of painting sunrises in another country.
Jett told her about New York, the endless push of fame, and how Paris had been a necessary escape. He didn’t mention the pressure from the club or the headlines speculating about his focus slipping. Not yet.
“I prefer to keep to myself. I don’t usually do people,” she admitted, stirring her espresso slowly. “They’re too…complicated.”
“Yet here you are sat across from one this morning.”
Annelise looked up. “You’re different. You feel like—” She stopped herself.
“Like what?” he asked softly.
“Like someone real.”
Jett became quiet. It had been a long time since anyone had said that to him. Even longer since it felt true.
When Annelise stood to leave, she gave him a smile that felt like spring.
“Same café tomorrow?” he asked, not wanting to let her slip from his life.
She looked over her shoulder as she walked away. “If the croissants are this good again.”
He watched her go—shoulders relaxed, curls bouncing lightly, sunlight wrapped around her like a promise.
Jett sat back in his chair, let the Paris air fill his lungs, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel like he was running toward the next match or away from himself.
He just felt…here.
And that was enough.
Annelise had come to Paris for quiet.
She’d told herself that a year abroad would be a kind of controlled escape—a pause between what everyone expected of her and what she hadn’t quite figured out for herself yet. Painting was supposed to fill the space. Walks through the Tuileries. Gallery visits. Days defined by color and light…not people.
Not men like Jett Hunter…She wasn’t even into soccer. And yet, somehow, he had made his way into her sketchbook.
She stared down at the page in her lap as she sat on her narrow balcony enjoying the warm evening breeze brushing her skin and tried to figure out when she'd started sketching him. Just outlines at first—broad shoulders, strong jaw, a half-smile that lived somewhere between confidence and weariness. She hadn't meant to draw him. Not really. But he kept appearing—In the crook of an elbow here, in the curve of a smirk there. In the green she’d started mixing into her palette, even though she hardly ever painted with green.
Jett had looked at her like she wasn’t someone he was trying to impress.
Like she surprised him.
And that scared her a little.
She reached for a clean page, trying to redirect her thoughts into something safe—stone staircases, old doorways, a rusted café chair with peeling paint. But her hand moved with memory. His voice, teasing and warm. The way he leaned in, like what she had to say actually mattered.
You feel like someone real.
She’d said that without meaning to. She hadn’t planned to be vulnerable, especially not with a man like Jett. A complete stranger.
She’d seen the way people looked at him as they passed where they sat. The way they knew him, even if they didn’t. But somehow, with her, he hadn’t worn that mask. At least it hadn’t felt like he had.
Still, it wasn’t safe. Not for her heart. Not when Paris already felt like a dream she’d have to wake up from eventually.
Her phone buzzed from its place on the small table and she snatched it up, wondering who it could be. She already spoken with her mother. No one else had bothered to stay in touch after she’d left. She peered at the screen, her eyebrows drawing together…
Unknown Number: I asked the barista for your name and number. Hope that’s not too creepy. Croissant tomorrow? —Jett
She smiled, biting her lower lip.
Annelise: Only if you don’t spill espresso on me.
Jett: Deal. But I make no promises.
She set the phone down, stared out over the rooftops, and pressed the sketchbook closed.
Paris wasn’t going to let her disappear the way she thought it would.
And maybe…she didn’t want to after all.
The next morning, sunlight spilled through the café’s tall windows, flickering over checkerboard tiles and glinting on pastry cases. Annelise arrived first, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she scanned the room. Jett was already there, waving from a little table in the corner, a crooked smile on his lips and two perfect croissants waiting between them.
“Not a drop of espresso spilled,” he announced as she slid into the seat across from him.
She arched an eyebrow. “The day is young.”
Their conversation picked up easily, laughter and gentle teasing woven with the soft clatter of spoons and the aroma of coffee. Jett seemed looser as he spoke, his mask nowhere in sight. He asked her about her sketches, and she found herself telling him more than she’d meant to about the city and the colors she saw in dreams.
As plates emptied and the morning unraveled, Jett leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I was thinking… If you’re not tired of me yet, there’s a jazz bar I know. Tonight. It’s nothing fancy—just old songs, warm lights, and too much saxophone.”
She hesitated, tracing the rim of her cup. But Paris had started to feel less like a dream she’d experience alone, and more like a place where maybe, just maybe, she could share with a friend.
“I’d like that,” she said.
It was nearly midnight when they left the jazz bar on Rue Saint-Louis.
Annelise’s laughter lingered in the air like perfume—light, warm, a little surprised by itself. Jett walked beside her, hands in his pockets, trying not to look as affected as he felt.
He'd never laughed this much without trying. Never wanted so badly to learn everything about someone—the way she sipped her wine, the way she studied buildings and objects like they were already half-sketched in her mind.
“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who just wanders the streets at night,” Annelise said, nudging his arm gently.
“I’m not,” he admitted. “Until you.”
She blinked, and for a moment, the quiet wrapped around them like a held breath.
They turned a corner and stepped into a quieter street, cobbled and gold-lit by the glow of an old streetlamp. The world felt paused—just them, the hush of Paris, and the soft shuffling of their steps echoing between buildings.
“Do you miss home?” she asked, voice softer now.
He didn’t answer right away. “I miss…parts of it. My brother, mostly. But not the pressure. Not the noise.”
“And here?”
“Here,” he said, glancing at her, “feels quieter. When you’re around, it feels like the noise stops.”
She stopped walking.
So did he.
They stood in the center of the narrow street, the silence folding between them. Annelise looked up at him, her hair catching in the breeze, the tip of her nose a little pink from the night air.
“I don’t know what this is,” she whispered. “But it’s starting to feel like something I’ll miss when it’s gone.”
He reached out, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then maybe…don’t let it go.”
She didn’t respond with words. She just looked at him—really looked—and something in her expression shifted.
Jett leaned down slowly, giving her time to change her mind.
She didn’t.
Their lips met in a kiss that wasn’t rushed or wild…but sure. Warm. The kind of kiss that felt like closing a door behind you and knowing you were finally where you belonged.
She pressed into him, her hands gentle on his chest. He held her like she was made of bubbles and clouds and something he couldn’t afford to lose.
When they finally parted, her eyes fluttered open.
“I didn’t expect that,” she murmured.
“I’ve been hoping for it since we met,” he admitted.
A soft smile tugged at her lips.
“Do it again?”
He did.
And Paris, that night, didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like the beginning of a story they were writing together. One step, one kiss, one quiet confession at a time.
I have published over 60 books and novellas, many of which feature strong, independent heroines and rugged, alpha male heroes. Some of my popular series include the Outback Australia series and The Carter Brothers series.
My books are known for their well-researched historical details and vivid descriptions of the Australian landscape.
My work has garnered praise from readers and critics alike, and I have won several awards for my writing.
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