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      “ALEXANDER NIKOLAS STAMOS of Chicago and Tenley Jacinda Marshall of Sawyer Bay, Wisconsin, were married on Saturday in a traditional ceremony at St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church. Stamos, president and CEO of Stamos Publishing, and his bride will reside in Lincoln Park after a honeymoon in Tahiti.” Celia Peralto leaned back in her chair and sighed. “So they’re going to live happily ever after.”

      Angela Weatherby glanced over her shoulder. “Alex Stamos was the exception to the rule,” she said softly. “He’s an aberration, part of the margin of error.”

      “And what about Charlie Templeton?” Ceci asked. “He’s getting married, too.”

      “He’s engaged. He’s not married yet,” Angela said stubbornly. She spun to face Ceci, her hands clutching the arms of her desk chair. “Listen, this isn’t doing me any good. Every time this happens, I start to doubt the thesis of my book. Please, can you just keep these stories to yourself until I finish?”

      This book was turning into a nightmare. Every time Angela thought she had her thesis nailed, something came along to screw it all up. She just needed to be right about this. These men—these smooth operators—weren’t supposed to change. They weren’t supposed to fall in love and get married and live happily ever after.

      She hadn’t set out to write a book about bad boys and the women who loved them. With her career as a freelance writer stalled, Angela had begun writing a blog, ruminating on the state of the male-female dynamic in contemporary dating. After hundreds of women had begun relating their own dating disaster stories, the blog had turned into a Web site, filled with profiles of thousands of men and a catalog of their dating atrocities. And now, Angela was about to put all of her theories and research into a book, Smooth Operators: A Woman’s Guide to Avoiding Dating Disasters.

      “Ever since you’ve started this book, you’ve been really tense,” Ceci said.

      “I should be tense. It was due at the publisher three months ago and I can’t seem to finish.”

      “Maybe you should put it down for a while and reconsider your reasons for writing it.”

      “I know what you think,” Angela said. “And I’m not doing this because I want to prove something to my parents.”

      “Oh, really?” Ceci asked. “Both your parents are psychologists who’ve written numerous books. They both teach at prestigious universities here in Chicago. Your older sister is a neurosurgeon and your younger sister is a physicist. This is your chance to step up to the Weatherby plate and hit a home run.”

      “A baseball metaphor?” Angela asked. Her thoughts shifted, an image of a handsome man flashing in her mind. Max Morgan. Professional baseball player. Classic smooth operator. And the subject of Chapter Five—the Sexy Devil.

      “Sorry,” Ceci said. “It’s all Will can talk about. Baseball, baseball, baseball. He’s in this ridiculous fantasy league and they get together every Monday night at some bar over in DePaul. I have no idea what they do, but he can’t stop talking about it.”

      Angela turned back to her computer. Max Morgan. For such a long time, she’d barely thought of him. And then, one day, she’d been looking at profiles on the site and there he was. Twenty-six women had commented on him, and the comments were far from flattering. Since then, she couldn’t keep from wondering what had turned her teenage Prince Charming into one of her bad-boy archetypes.

      Throughout her childhood, Angela tried her best to please her parents, cultivating a rational and practical facade. But inside, Angela knew she wasn’t like her sisters. They dreamed of academic glory while she secretly dreamed of romance and adventure, of being rescued from her dull existence by a white knight with a heart of gold.

      As a young girl, she’d waited, secretly smuggling romantic novels into her backpack at the library—Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Gone with the Wind. As she devoured each one, she became the heroine, strong and feisty, the kind of girl every man wanted for his own.

      And on the day she began high school, she’d met the man of her dreams, her prince, her white knight—Max Morgan. They’d bumped into each other in the registration line and from that moment on, Angela knew they were meant to be together. He’d been tall and beautiful, with chocolate-brown eyes and a mop of unruly, sun-streaked hair.

      He’d said one word to her—“sorry”—and she’d fallen deeply and madly in love, or at least as deeply as a fifteen-year-old could. He’d never noticed her again. Forget about Mr. Rochester, Mr. Darcy and Rhett Butler. Max Morgan became the stuff of all her secret fantasies.

      She’d