“It’s just wrong. It’s so, so wrong, man.”

My best friend Chris was harping on to one of his colleagues about some injustice or another, and I turned my attention back to my phone. Sighing with boredom, I scrolled through the latest tabloid bullshit about me that was making the rounds on the internet. I’d come to Chris’ office building to meet up with him after work—he was an accountant—so we could go and grab a beer, but he presently seemed more interested in gossiping with his coworker. Hence the phone.

I grinned as I spied an article about my current sex life. Apparently I was having regular threesomes with a blonde swimsuit model and the leggy redheaded host of Saturday Night Social. Well, that was the first I’d heard of that happening, but hell…rumors like that were great for me. They bolstered the scandalous reputation my agent had worked long and hard to build for me, and they also helped cover up certain other things about my existence which I didn’t want the media to find out about.

Or anyone else, for that matter.

“How can she get away with this?” Chris said from his cubicle. He was still going on about whatever issue his colleague had brought to him. “Jake, get in here and listen to this!”

“I thought we were going for a drink,” I replied, lazily making my way into his cubicle and lighting a cigarette as I did so.

“We are, but you gotta hear this shit first,” he said. He gestured to my smoke. “No smoking in here. What the hell, Jake? It’s not the fucking sixties.”

I shrugged and put out the cigarette before tossing it into his wastebasket. Whatever. I’d been planning on quitting for the last year or so anyway. May as well make it today. I tossed the rest of my packet in the wastebasket too, and I tried to feign interest as I glanced at Chris’ colleague. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s this big story?”

“My ex,” the guy said. He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair as he spoke. “Shit, I just realized. You’re Jacob Archer. I’m James. I love your show.”

“Thanks,” I said with a brisk nod. I was used to hearing that. Too used to it. Everyone loved the show I’d been starring on for the last year—a medical drama called Code Grey—but to be honest, I wanted to branch out of TV and do more movies. I’d done a couple in the past, but neither of them were major blockbuster successes. So that was my next mission, and I’d been doing a lot of auditions and screen tests lately to ensure it happened. “Go on.”

“Well, my ex-girlfriend… man, where do I even begin? I was just telling Chris what she did last night. Oh, and everything else she did during our relationship, as I recently found out.”

“And what would that be?” I asked, eyebrows knitting together as I took a seat on one of Chris' office chairs.

I was actually starting to get a little interested in this sad breakup story. See, I’d never been fucked over by a woman before—‘love and leave ‘em before they can screw with you’ was my motto—but I was interested in hearing a real example of what it was like so I could get inside James’ head and try and feel what he was feeling. Might come in handy if I ever had to play a spurned lover in a movie somewhere down the track. Good actors did that; they got inside their character’s heads and tried to understand their feelings so they could portray a genuine emotional response on film. Method acting, they call it.

“Well, for starters, she was cheating on me the whole time. She even tried to sleep with my uncle last Thanksgiving. He only just told me about it recently. Apparently he thought it was too awkward to bring up before,” James said bitterly. “But fuck, I’d rather have a little awkwardness in the air if it meant finding out my girlfriend is a cheating whore.”

“So that’s it. She cheated on you?” I said. I was starting to get bored again.

“Not just that. Nora faked cancer, faked being in a car accident, and faked a drug addiction for attention.”

“Fuck. Seriously?”

He nodded. “She even faked going to a psychiatrist when I found out about the lies, because I told her she needed serious help from a professional for her obvious compulsive lying issues.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Hold on… she lied about getting help for her lying? Oh man. That’s kinda funny.”

James let out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, it’d be fucking hilarious if it hadn’t happened to me. Anyway, I really thought I could help her. Obviously she was unwell, mentally speaking. But when I found out that she lied about seeing the psych and also found out about the guys she was fucking behind my back, that was it. Couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Tell him about the website,” Chris said, nudging him.

James sighed. “Oh yeah, the best part. She wasn’t just cheating. She was fucking other guys and getting paid for it.”

I frowned. “She’s a hooker?”

He shook his head. “No. She actually has a good job at a movie consultancy company. I guess she figured if she was gonna cheat, then she may as well make some extra cash doing it. Or she did it for the thrill of it, maybe. I dunno. But it’s fucking messed up.”

I raised a brow. “How’d you find out?”

“Friend saw her profile on Matcher. You know, the dating app? Anyway, he matched with her, and when they chatted she mentioned that she’d need payment for her ‘services’. He arranged a meetup with her in real life to make sure it wasn’t just some catfish pretending to be her, because that was the most likely scenario. But lo and behold, she showed up.”

“Shit.”

“There’s more,” Chris cut in. “Get this, Jake. She even stole his dog.”

James nodded. “Yep. I bought a golden Labrador recently. Last night when I confronted her about all this crap and told her to get the hell out, she packed up her stuff and loaded it into the car along with Oscar. That’s the dog. I didn’t realize until she was speeding off down the road.”

“It’s just not right.” Chris shook his head. “Cheating is one thing. But stealing your dog? That’s the lowest shit I’ve ever heard. If she dropped any lower she’d be halfway to Russia. Fuckin’ women these days…”

James nodded again. “Tell me about it. Anyway, after I leave here, I have to go visit my family and tell them what went down. That’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to having. They all loved her.”

My forehead crinkled. “They did? Why? She sounds bat-shit insane.”

He shrugged. “She was a master at covering herself. She seems so amazing when you first meet her. There’s no way you’d ever suspect what lies beneath. I mean, look at her. Perfect picture of sweetness and light.”

He pulled out his cell phone and opened a picture from the photo gallery app. I leaned over and looked, and I immediately drew in a sharp breath. Holy shit. He wasn’t exaggerating. The woman in the picture was a fucking goddess. She put all the hot actresses and models I saw in my line of work on a daily basis to shame, and I almost had to cram a fist in my mouth to stop myself from groaning as I drank in her features. Heart-shaped face, long dark hair, big expressive eyes, and a frame with curves in all the right places.

Shit, this was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

I could barely look away from the photo; couldn’t turn away from that luscious hair, those big hazel eyes, that pert little button nose. Oh, and that gorgeous rack and those long legs… fuck.

“Jesus,” I muttered, shifting so that my rapidly-stiffening cock wouldn’t be visible through my pants in my seated position.

“See?” James said, misinterpreting my reaction as horror. “Looks like an angel, but she’s a fucking demon.”

My mind snapped back to reality as I recalled all the things this beautiful woman had done. Looks aside, James was right. She was a demon who practically made Satan himself look like an innocent cherub. The shit she’d pulled, the lies she’d told…hell, she even stole a guy’s beloved dog!

I hated calling women bitches, because it seemed like such a nasty, demeaning thing to say about someone, but if anyone could be called a bitch, it was her. In fact, this woman was the biggest bitch I’d ever heard of. The things she’d done…

Christ, it was just wrong.

It was also pretty damn wrong how attracted I was to her despite all that shit. No wonder she’d ensnared James for so long. If she could attract the attention of a guy like me—one who had multitudes of gorgeous women throwing themselves at him from every angle on a daily basis—then it was no wonder that she’d managed to bag a boring accountant like him and pull the wool over his eyes for so long.

“Anyway, I’ll leave you two to your bro-date. I’ve gotta head to my family’s place for the big chat,” James said with a sigh. “Jacob, was great to meet you. Keep up the good work on your show. And Chris, I’ll see you Monday. Take care.”

We bade the poor guy goodbye, and then we headed to the elevator.

“Glasshouse for drinks?” Chris asked as he pressed the ground floor button.

I snorted with derision. “Nah. Bouncer there called the paps last time we went. I’m in the mood for a quiet drink and going unnoticed.”

He grinned. “Damn. Paparazzi sucks balls, but I’ve gotta admit, I love it when you get noticed when we’re out. Means I get noticed by default. And by that I mean…”

“You mean you get your knob polished by girls who think you’re famous by proxy. I know,” I interjected with a smirk. “Well, sorry, not tonight. I thought we could either go have drinks at your place, or go to Bar 420.”

Bar 420 was a tiny hole-in-the-wall whiskey bar in downtown LA that hardly anyone went to. At least not the sort of people who wanted to go bar-hopping and celebrity-spotting. From what I’d experienced, those types tended to hang around West Hollywood, and I wasn’t in the mood to meet any wannabe starfuckers like that tonight. A place like Bar 420 was the ticket to a quiet evening, and after the week I’d had meeting with producers and doing table readings, I was in sore need of that.

“We’ll go to the bar,” Chris replied with a nod. “My place is trashed at the moment. Bob’s renovating the kitchen… again.”

Bob was Chris’ landlord. He was always messing around with the place, trying to increase the value in case he ever decided to sell up. Nice guy, but I knew it annoyed the shit out of Chris. Still, the rent was cheap and the house was in a good area, so he couldn’t complain too much.

“Bar 420 it is,” I said.

It took us twenty minutes to get there despite it only being a couple of miles away (fucking LA traffic) and when we arrived and stepped through the door, no one looked our way, as predicted. Chris grabbed us some drinks while I chalked up some pool cues at the back of the room, and we shot the shit for a while as we played a game.

The whiskey and conversation flowed as the night went on, and by the time it hit ten, Chris and I were very well-lubricated from all the drinks.

“You sure you wanna hang here all night?” he asked, his voice slurring ever so slightly. “I’ve heard good things about this new bar in Silver Lake. Lots of those sexy hipster chicks. Plenty of pussy to go round.”

I rolled my eyes. “If you’re that desperate to get laid, get on that Matcher app for a hookup. I hear it’s a good place to find a sure thing.”

“Man, you’re boring today.” He flashed me a teasing grin. “You know, it’s not as easy for the rest of us as it is for you. Not all of us are famous actors who get their dick sucked by a different starlet every week.”

“Every day, actually,” I replied with a wink. He pulled a face, and I laughed. “I’m just kidding. Definitely not every day. But look, it’s all about the attitude. If I didn’t act like such an arrogant, cocky fucker, half the chicks I hit on probably wouldn’t be interested. Women love confidence. It’s a fact as old as time.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure your annoyingly-perfect face and all those muscles don’t help at all,” he grumbled sarcastically. “Anyway, fine, I’ll give Matcher a try. Maybe I’ll see James’ slutty ex on there.”

I let out a throaty chuckle. “Maybe. But she charges, remember?”

Chris nodded. Then a slow smile spread across his face. “Holy shit. I have the best idea.”

“What is it?”

“You’ve got the looks and the attitude to get literally any woman. Like what we were just talking about.”

“If you say so.”

“That nasty bitch Nora really fucked James over. I don’t know the guy as well as I probably should considering his cubicle is right near mine, but he’s always seemed pretty decent. Quiet, friendly. He doesn’t deserve that shit.”

“Yeah, it sucks. But what’s that got to do with us?” I asked, hoping he’d make his point sometime this century.

Chris spread his palms wide. “Everything. It’s all in the plan.”

“Really making me work for this, aren’t you?” I said with a sigh. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

“You should go and find this Nora woman. Doesn’t have to be tonight, but sometime soon at least. It can’t be too hard. I know her last name from James, and she probably has social media profiles. I bet she tags herself on pictures when she goes out, like most women in this city. Could find her that way. I also remember James saying she loves this one particular bar… Raffles, I think. You could look for her there.”

“I’m not going to track a woman down and attack her, if that’s what you’re asking me to do. Just because I play an asshole on Code Grey doesn’t mean I’m actually a violent psycho.”

Chris held up a hand. “Jesus, man, I’m not asking you to do that! I just mean you should track her down and try to pick her up. You know, turn on the old Jacob Archer charm.”

I wrinkled my nose. “And then what?”

“Then take her on the worst date ever. Like, so bad that she’d rather resurrect Stalin and date him instead. It’ll make her regret treating a nice guy like James like trash; make her regret ever crossing him. Maybe she’ll even grow a conscience and apologize to him, although I doubt that.” He snapped a finger. “Oh, and if you can, get close enough to her place so that you can steal the dog back.”

I shrugged. “Seems kinda lame to get involved in other people’s shit. And James can steal the dog back himself, can’t he?”

Chris shook his head. “No, he’s too much of a pussy to ever do that. Plus I think he said she lives in a gated neighborhood. You need permission to get in, and I doubt she’s gonna be giving it to him anytime soon. And fuck, Jake, since when have you cared about doing what’s right?”

I swigged the rest of my whiskey, mulling things over. Then I nodded slowly. “You know what? I guess it might be worth it just for the dog. I fucking love dogs. The thought of that poor boy being taken away from his home by some vindictive harpy…” I trailed off and took a deep breath. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

“Yeah?” Chris was grinning from ear to ear now.

“Fuck yeah,” I said, slamming my glass down a little too hard. The warm whiskey buzz was really hitting me now. “You’re right. She deserves to know what kind of guys are out there once she’s done trashing all the nice ones.”

“Exactly.”

“So we’ll hunt her down, I’ll get her interested, and then I’ll give her the worst damn time of her life.”

“After you’ve stolen the dog back already,” Chris added.

I waved my hand. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get the dog. Somehow.”

“This is gonna be great. James will love me.”

I nodded. “Yep, he’ll definitely love you. And this Nora woman… she’ll fucking hate me. I’m going to make her miserable.”

Chris laughed. “Have you already got something specific in mind for the date?” he asked a few seconds later, adopting a quizzical expression.

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know what to do,” I said. “People like her deserve to be treated badly, right?”

“Hell yes.”

I smirked. “Well, luckily, I know how to be very, very bad…”