The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Men

  When I finally peeled myself off the floor an hour later and reluctantly tiptoed down the dark, deserted path into the living room, Jamie was gone.

  And as it had in the hallway, his absence left an empty space far too big for just one person to live in.

  22

  moldy expectations

  When I didn't show up to work the next morning, my phone started ringing. But I didn't answer. Eventually, by night time I simply shut off the ringer. I knew I had a whole schedule full of people waiting to hear the fate of their relationships. But I didn't care. I found it hard to care about anything at this point. Especially when the fate of my own relationship was so dismally grim.

  Plus, I really couldn't bring myself to get off the couch. I just lay there for three days straight, with my head on my pillow and my heart lying in a million shattered pieces on the floor. Sometimes I would watch TV, but most of the time I would just stare numbly at the wall or the ceiling.

  Once again, I was alone.

  Which ironically was exactly how I always imagined my life to be before I met him. Alone but never lonely. Single but never desperate. Unmarried but never unhappy.

  But now I felt nothing but loneliness, desperation, and overwhelming unhappiness.

  Which only made me convinced that I was better off not knowing him at all. Better off just living my life the way I always thought I would live it.

  By Sunday, I had reached an all-time low. Four days and no contact with the outside world. I had consumed just about everything in my fridge. Or at least I had tried. Half-eaten evidence of my unsuccessful attempts to nourish myself were lying scattered throughout the room. I had no doubt that some of the more perishable items were now growing layers of mold, but the thought of doing any actual cleaning made me want to lie down and take another nap. Which was exactly what I did.

  It was around seven on Sunday evening when a key turned in the lock and the bolt on my front door twisted.

  "Oh. Sweet. Lord," was John's appalled reaction to my current living arrangements. Then he glanced behind him and announced, "She's alive!"

  I barely even turned my head as John, Zoë, and Sophie all piled into my living room thanks to the use of Sophie's spare key.

  Sophie was hardly through the front door before she was up in arms. "So first you faint at my wedding, then you don't even call me to welcome me back from my honeymoon, and then I call you for three straight days and get nothing. I thought you were dead, Jen. Seriously. I thought the bump on your head got infected and you died of pneumonia in your sleep."

  I rolled my eyes and pressed the back of my head hard into the pillow. "Go away," I muttered.

  "What is the matter with you?" Sophie said, still exasperated as she eyed my disheveled appearance.

  John came and sat on the couch, instantly regretting his decision to get that close to me. "Ugh, you stink!" he shouted, holding his nose dramatically, as if he were driving past a manure farm.

  Zoë glanced around the room, taking in the used Kleenex, dirty, food-crusted plates, and overall disaster that had become my living room. "And this place is disgusting. Did your maid quit on you or something?"

  I grabbed a throw pillow from the floor and smashed it into my face. "No," I mumbled, my voice muffled. "Jamie did."

  It took my friends a good ten seconds to fully understand what I had just told them. I couldn't see their faces because my head was still buried in the pillow, but I recognized Sophie's reaction first. It was a strange combination of a gasp mixed with a strangled cry. "What?"

  "What the fuck are you talking about?" That was Zoë.

  John's reaction came last. "He quit on you?"

  I removed the pillow and tossed it off to the side. "Yes, okay. He's gone. It's over. No more engagement. No more anything."

  Sophie ran to me and cradled my head awkwardly in her arms. "Jen, oh, my God. Tell me what happened."

  I couldn't look any of them in the eye. But with Sophie sitting to my left, Zoë hovering over the couch to my right, and John planted firmly by my feet, there was really nowhere else to look but straight up in the air. Back at the ceiling. A familiar landscape for me these days.

  "I broke my promise to him," I said vacantly. "I took on an assignment. Well, technically it was two, but the second one turned out to be a setup."

  Sophie twisted her face in confusion. "What do you mean, a setup?"

  "I mean, he suspected I would start taking on assignments again, and so he sent some woman into my office to request a fidelity inspection and for me to conduct it. I guess he always thought I wouldn't be able to resist the chance to get back into the game again. And apparently I couldn't, because I said yes and I went. And Jamie was there waiting for me."

  "But that's entrapment!" Zoë protested.

  I shrugged in response. There wasn't a day that went by that someone didn't accuse my agency of entrapment. And I denied it until I was blue in the face. Every single time. But the truth of the matter is, it doesn't really matter what it is or what you call it. I still failed. And now I had to live with the consequences. End of story.

  "But why did you do it?" Sophie's voice was strangled. Troubled, even. I looked up at her and could see the struggle in her eyes. She wanted so badly to be on my side. To support me through my hardship, because as my best friend, that's what her job description required of her. But I could tell from the look on her face that it was no longer a simple task.

  I launched into an explanation about Vegas and Shawna and the arrest and Benjamin Connors's inspection. I told them about Darcie Connors's visit to my office, the things she said to me, and how her gratitude had made me feel whole again. And right about then was when fake Julie Bleeker came to see me.

  Then I fell silent. And I let the weight of my words sink in. Not only for them . . . but for me. Somehow, narrating it all in sequence like that made everything seem so transparent. As if I were somehow destined to be lying here on this couch with Jamie no longer in the picture and my friends doing their best to console me.

  As if this whole chain of events had somehow been inevitable.

  "I don't know," I whispered, answering some unspoken question in the room. "All I've ever wanted to do was help people. Offer them the truth. I guess I just wasn't capable of letting someone else do it for me. I guess that just wasn't enough for me."

  I glanced up at Sophie, trying to gauge her reaction to all of this. But she wouldn't even look at me. My answer to her question hadn't facilitated her plight to comfort me.

  I could feel the disappointment emanating off of her, and I knew that I had let her down. Because in her eyes, I had always been above this. My history and my past and everything that I'd seen in my life had put me on some type of moral pedestal. And now I had fallen off of it.

  No. Worse. I had jumped.

  I looked to John and Zoë, who thankfully appeared to still be on my team.

  "Well, what did he say when you explained all that to him?" Zoë asked, perching herself atop the back of the couch and looking down at me.

  I shook my head and closed my eyes against the pain of reliving that night. But in the blackness, the memories were only stronger and more vivid. Replaying against the backdrop of my eyelids, like a projector blasting the images onto a blank screen in a darkened room.

  "He said I chose my job over him. That I would rather expose someone else's unfaithfulness than stay faithful to him."

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt myself waiting for the refutation. For someone to tell me that was crazy, ludicrous, and totally untrue. Maybe not Sophie, but John or at the very least Zoë. Someone was going to defend me. Someone was going to take my side on this.

  But none of them said anything. They all just kind of looked at one another, completely speechless. I suppose they didn't really have to say anything.

  I used every ounce of what was left of my strength to push myself up and prop myself against the arm of the couch. "You think that, too, don't you?" I accused all of them,
glaring from one person to the next. But they all avoided my eyes. "You think I sacrificed my relationship with Jamie for my job."

  Zoë was the first to speak. And she was uncharacteristically gentle. "Well, you kind of did, Jen."

  My eyes widened, and I immediately shot a look of disbelief at John and Sophie. They both nodded their confirmations.

  "I mean," Sophie began, "you broke your promise to Jamie to help a client. Is there really any other way to categorize that?"

  I immediately opened my mouth to protest, but nothing came out. So I quickly closed it again. As much as I might have wanted to fight the accusation to the death, I couldn't seem to find a valid argument to fight with.

  Maybe Jamie and my friends were right. Maybe I did choose my agency over my relationship. After all, I had managed to convince myself that breaking my promise to Jamie was less important than keeping my promise to Darcie Connors. Or to the fictional Julie Bleeker, for that matter.

  On that fateful night in Vegas, when the choice came down to giving Darcie Connors the answers she was looking for and keeping my word to Jamie, I chose Darcie. And although the guilt immediately overwhelmed me from the moment the decision was made, I soon realized what a gift I had been able to give her. And then I never looked back.

  Worst of all, I was willing to do it all over again.

  So what did that mean? And what kind of person did that make me?

  Three years ago, I had made a vow to help people. And I had forsaken everything else to keep that vow. But then one day I decided I didn't want to live that life anymore. That I wanted to be Jennifer Hunter and nobody else. So I made another vow. This time, to someone else. Someone I loved. But when push came to shove, I had forsaken one vow for the other.

  I was never meant to be a wife. Like the plates of half-eaten food scattered across my living room, that was a title I could never fully digest. My destiny had always been a fidelity inspector. And those two roles would never coexist.

  I didn't need a law degree to recognize that all the evidence thus far had been leading to one conclusion. And it was a conclusion that I never wanted to face, but one that Jamie ultimately sensed regardless.

  "I never wanted to get married." I said the words aloud. Not because I needed my friends to hear them, but because I need to hear them. It was a truth that would never be fully accepted until it was freed from the deep hidden corners of my subconscious.

  John, Zoë, and Sophie exchanged worried glances. "You don't really mean that," Sophie asserted, grabbing my hand and giving it an anxious squeeze.

  "I do." I turned my head and looked into her panicked eyes. "I was never like you, Sophie. My happily ever after never looked like yours. I was always content being alone. And I will be again someday. After I get through this, I'll be fine."

  Sophie shook her head adamantly. "No," she insisted. "Where's the ring?"

  I sighed. "It's still in the top drawer of my dresser from when I went on that last assignment. I spent more time hiding it than I did wearing it."

  "You two will work this out. I know it. You'll apologize and he'll take you back and you'll be engaged again." Sophie's eyes were starting to brim with tears, and she stared at me with such intensity that I almost feared she might take longer to mourn this breakup than I would.

  I cracked a gentle smile as I squeezed her hand back. "I don't think so, Soph."

  "You're just saying that because you're upset!"

  I slowly shook my head. "No, you guys were right. You were absolutely right. I did choose this job over Jamie. Because it's always been more than just a job. It's been my life's work. My quest. And clearly, it hasn't been fulfilled yet."

  23

  un-retired

  These were the words that finally got me off the couch and back into the office on Monday morning. Not lagging, not disheartened, not even with puffy eyes and a red nose. No, when I strutted through the double glass doors of the agency that I owned, that I founded, that I poured my heart and soul into, I felt renewed and energized. I felt as though a weight had been lifted and a roadblock had been removed. After a year of detours and wrong-ways and trying to convince myself that the bumpiness in the road was normal, I had finally made it back to the path I was meant to walk on.

  Hadley jumped to her feet the moment she saw me, shock and awe spray-painted across her face. "Ashlyn! You're here! Oh, my God, are you all right? I didn't know where you were. I didn't know how to reach you. I don't have any number but your cell, and it was shut off. I was going to go to the police and fill out a missing persons report, but Lauren told me Ashlyn wasn't even your real name."

  I shook my head. "It's not. And I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to scare you. I had a little personal emergency that I had to deal with. I should have called. I apologize."

  She continued to gape at me as if she didn't really believe it was actually me standing there, but maybe a femmebot dressed like me with a voice that sounded surprisingly human.

  "So," I said, standing in front of her desk. "I'm assuming there were messages while I was out."

  Hadley broke from her trance and sprang into action, gathering stacks of pink message slips from her desk and forming them into a neat pile. "After you didn't show up on Thursday, I was going to start canceling all your appointments because I didn't know when"— she gulped—"or if you were ever coming back. But Lauren kind of just stepped up to the plate and took over while you were gone. She told me not to cancel anyone and that she would take your place and meet with the clients until you got back."

  "Excellent," I said, feeling proud of my associate's initiative. It felt good to know that I had such loyal, trustworthy, responsible people working for me. That I could have a meltdown and the agency wouldn't fall apart. "Well, you can call her and let her know that I'm back."

  Hadley glanced anxiously at me and then in the direction of my office. "Actually, she's in there now. You can tell her yourself." Then she jumped to add, "Or I could buzz her!"

  I laughed at her ever endearing eagerness. "It's fine, Hadley. I'll go in and tell her myself. Thanks for these." I held up my stack of messages.

  "You're welcome," she replied after a moment of stunned silence. She still couldn't quite believe I was there. And just before I left, she mumbled timidly, "Um, what is your real name, by the way?"

  But I simply smiled in response and continued down the hallway.

  Lauren seemed significantly less surprised to see me. When I walked in the room, she just flashed me this knowing smile, as if she knew it was only a matter of time before I took care of whatever mess was keeping me from the office.

  "Welcome back," she said, rising from my chair and offering it to me.

  "Thanks," I replied, taking a seat as Lauren pulled out her PDA and began catching me up on everything I had missed.

  "A girl named Lexi Garrett keeps calling. Hadley says she wanted you to test her father, but you refused."

  "Yes, she calls about once a week to see if I've changed my mind."

  Lauren tapped on her screen with a stylus. "Katie called earlier this morning. She wrapped up everything at the Stantons' on Friday night."

  "So I assume Dean Stanton finally failed inspection?"

  Lauren nodded. "It appears so, but Katie wasn't overly forthcoming on the phone. She assured me she'd give us all the 'juicy deets' at the staff meeting tomorrow."

  I rolled my eyes. "After nearly a month, they better be juicy."

  Lauren laughed, then continued with her debriefing. "These are the new client bios from the meetings I took last week." She placed her hand gingerly on a stack of crisp new crimson folders. "I was going to start formulating the assignment details for them this week, but I guess you can handle that now that you're back."

  "Okay," I replied, visibly impressed by her diligence.

  "And these," Lauren continued, indicating another neatly stacked pile of folders, "are the clients that have already been given the results of their assignments and are ready to be entered
into the database."

  "Great."

  Lauren clapped her hands together definitively. "And I think that's it."

  "Thanks," I replied, exhaling. "You did an excellent job keeping this place running. I really appreciate it."

  "You're welcome."

  I had pretty much prepared myself for an entire week of working frantically to get back on track, with many apologetic phone calls to clients and a mountain of unattended paperwork to sort through. It was a relief to come back to such organization.

  It only made me that much more eager and excited about my decision to get back in the game and continue doing what I loved most. And now the agency had one more full-time associate to add to its repertoire.

  After lunch, I finally got around to listening to all the messages that had accumulated on my cell phone during the four days that I had it shut off. There were seven from Sophie, ten from Hadley, three or four apiece from John and Zoë telling me to call Sophie so she would stop calling them asking if they'd heard from me, two from Willa Cruz, and one from my dad. It was the one he had left that night at the W Hotel. I had never gotten around to listening to it.

  In the message, he asked me to call him back so that we could "chat." I didn't know what that meant, but I did know that I didn't feel like "chatting." Especially because at some point in the conversation, I would have to mention that Jamie was no longer in the picture, and then ten minutes later I would undoubtedly get a frantic phone call from my mother demanding to know if this was some kind of sick joke. And that was a conversation I wanted to have even less.

  After work, I drove straight to Sophie's house. She had asked that I come over to look at honeymoon photos, and I had happily agreed. Not because I was looking forward to listening to Sophie's five-minute captions for each of her three thousand photos (ever since the invention of the digital camera and the two-gigabyte memory card, Sophie's photo presentations had become especially brutal), but because the thought of returning home to an empty house made my stomach cramp.