Robby

Quick Facts

• Role: Executive Protection Agent at Glenn Schultz Executive Protection; primary antagonist and professional rival to Hannah
• First appearance: Early chapters as Hannah’s boyfriend and colleague
• Key relationships: Hannah Brooks (ex), Jack Stapleton (foil), Taylor (fling), Glenn Schultz (boss)

Who They Are

Handsome, stylish, and “astronautish,” Robby is the kind of man who looks like the answer to a question he’s never bothered to ask. He enters as Hannah’s confident boyfriend and top-performing colleague; he exits as a polished void—an image of success concealing contempt and fear. His character embodies the book’s meditation on Appearance vs. Reality: everything about him gleams, yet nothing holds. As a foil to Jack, he catalyzes Hannah’s transformation in the novel’s exploration of Love and Vulnerability.

• Surface appeal: buzz cut, “new, slim-cut suit,” vintage Porsche, and the “black lashes edging his blue eyes” that make strangers assume depth where there is only sheen.
• Narrative function: a mirror that reflects Hannah’s old judgments about worth (status, polish, pedigree) and a test she must fail, then learn from, to choose intimacy over image.

Personality & Traits

Robby performs competence and charm, but his defining trait is an incuriosity about other people’s inner lives—especially Hannah’s. He reads rooms for advantage, not empathy. Once Hannah’s grief threatens his convenience, the mask slips, exposing a man who trades in power plays, not partnership.

• Overconfident and status-driven: He’s described as “wildly overconfident,” belittling Hannah’s skills and even her looks to argue she “can’t pass in that world” when she’s assigned to protect Jack. His confidence isn’t leadership—it’s gatekeeping.
• Cruel and emotionally stunted: He breaks up with Hannah the day after her mother’s funeral, brushing off her loss with “You weren’t even all that close.” The timing reveals his allergy to emotional labor and his belief that vulnerability is a nuisance.
• Manipulative, not remorseful: He inventories Hannah’s “three deal-breaker flaws” to justify leaving and later pivots to jealousy, undermining Jack to reel her back. His desire to reclaim her is about possession, not connection.
• Unprofessional and opportunistic: He violates boundaries by pursuing Taylor on assignment, is caught kissing her on the job, and then shrugs: “She was just … there.” His ethics bend whenever proximity offers him a shortcut.

Character Journey

Robby doesn’t grow; he’s revealed. He begins as the sleek boyfriend Hannah and her mother admire, all astronaut charisma and immaculate suits. His breakup—in a car, in the rain, the day after a funeral—instantaneously reframes him from “impressive” to “small.” From there he doubles down: undermining Hannah in a team meeting, sneering at her ability to blend into celebrity spaces, and later watching her on surveillance monitors with a proprietary fury that masquerades as contrition. His late bid to “win her back” is a final misread—he mistakes Hannah’s healing for malleability. He secures the London promotion, but the prize rings hollow; the novel treats it as a trophy for a game that no longer matters. He remains static so Hannah can move, his emptiness sharpening the outline of the life she chooses instead.

Key Relationships

• Hannah Brooks: Their relationship is the crucible of Hannah’s arc. Robby’s callous breakup and later gaslighting force her to redraw her sense of self from “useful and acceptable” to “worthy and loved.” Her eventual refusal to be re-objectified by him marks a decisive step toward self-respect.
• Jack Stapleton: Robby never truly engages Jack as a person—only as a status arena. His digs at Hannah’s ability to “pass” in Jack’s world reveal insecurity masquerading as sophistication, while Jack’s kindness and vulnerability expose the poverty of Robby’s definition of strength.
• Taylor: With Taylor, Robby swaps intimacy for availability. Calling her “better than nothing” reduces her to a circumstance, not a person, and underscores his pattern: when real empathy is required, he opts for convenience.
• Glenn Schultz: Robby’s rivalry with Hannah thrives under Glenn’s results-first culture. Glenn values Robby’s skills but senses his arrogance; the tension highlights how talent without character corrodes team trust.

Defining Moments

Robby’s scenes are short but surgical: each peels back polish to show what his power is made of and what it costs.

• The Breakup (Chapter 2): He ends things with Hannah the day after her mother’s funeral and itemizes her “three deal-breaker flaws.” Why it matters: It reframes him as emotionally unsafe and propels Hannah toward a new standard for love.
• The Sabotage Attempt (Chapter 4): In a team meeting, he argues Hannah can’t credibly play Jack’s girlfriend, sneering that “nobody in a million years” would believe it. Why it matters: He weaponizes beauty standards and class signals to police access, revealing his fragility around status.
• The Confrontation (Chapter 20): After watching surveillance footage, he tries to reclaim Hannah, blaming her for his infidelity and warning she’s being “played.” Why it matters: He confesses not love but entitlement, making Hannah’s “no” an act of self-definition.

Essential Quotes

You only say that because you don’t know what love is. This line crystallizes Hannah’s eventual diagnosis of Robby’s limitation: he can imitate romance but not practice it. The novel uses this truth to distinguish performance (grand gestures, shiny credentials) from care (risk, attention, repair).

You have three deal-breaker flaws... One, you work all the time... Two, you’re not fun, you know? You’re so serious every minute... And three, you’re a bad kisser. Robby frames abandonment as assessment, reducing Hannah to a performance review to dodge accountability. The “flaws” are projections that reveal his fear of intimacy: if love is labor, he’d rather quit than show up.

Just look at her. She can’t pass in that world. By invoking “that world,” Robby polices the boundary between spectacle and belonging. He underestimates Hannah’s competence because he overvalues aesthetics, exposing his core belief that worth is costume-deep.

I didn’t even like her, okay? She was just … there. At a hard time in my life, she was better than nothing, okay? That’s all she was. His defense of the affair is an indictment of his ethics. Treating Taylor as situational filler reveals how he converts people into utilities, confirming that his intimacy runs on availability, not affection.