Taylor

Quick Facts

• Role: Executive Protection Agent; Hannah Brooks’s closest confidante turned betrayer
• First appearance: At the agency run by Glenn Schultz
• Key relationships: Hannah Brooks (best friend → estranged), Robby (secret relationship), Glenn Schultz (boss/mentor), Jack Stapleton (through Hannah)
• Visuals: Striking green eyes that “pop” with mascara; a sleek “European bob” she adopts after the Madrid assignment

Who They Are

Bold, capable, and initially indispensable, Taylor begins as the steady anchor in Hannah’s life—someone who fields late-night grief calls and backs Hannah’s professional instincts without question. Her sudden turn—starting a relationship with Hannah’s recent ex, Robby—shifts her from safe harbor to storm, making her a lens on how trust shatters and how shame can harden into cruelty before it softens into remorse. Taylor embodies the tension between who someone appears to be and what they do when it matters, pressing on the story’s concern with Appearance vs. Reality.

Personality & Traits

Taylor’s personality is defined by competence and care—until her betrayal exposes an insecure, defensive streak. The very traits that make her a good agent (decisiveness, loyalty to the team) are warped by personal fear and loneliness, yielding justification, lashing out, and, ultimately, contrition.

• Supportive (at first): She patiently answers Hannah’s late-night calls during grief and heartbreak, acting as an emotional first responder when Hannah has no one else.
• Highly competent: Glenn calls her the agency’s “next best thing” to Hannah and trusts her with a high-stakes Madrid assignment—proof of skill, discretion, and leadership under pressure.
• Betrayer: She begins a secret relationship with Robby immediately after his breakup with Hannah, placing personal desire above friendship and professional solidarity.
• Defensive, even cruel: When confronted, she hides behind technicalities (“technically” broken up) and delivers a cutting line that reframes their entire history as merely professional.
• Remorseful and service-driven: After Robby discards her, she owns her choices with actions—volunteering to guard Hannah’s apartment, showing up to help with Hannah’s date prep, and seeking repair without demanding forgiveness.

Character Journey

Taylor’s arc runs from stalwart ally to destabilizing wound and, finally, toward imperfect repair. Early on, she is Hannah’s rock—competent at work, warm in friendship. The Madrid assignment becomes her pivot: proximity to Robby tempts her into a decision that collapses both personal integrity and Hannah’s trust. In the fallout, she reaches for blame-shifting and precision cruelty as a shield, insisting she was only a “work friend.” But when Robby discards her with the same callousness he showed Hannah, she is forced to face the emptiness of the choice she made. Her “sick day,” the tearful appearance at surveillance, and the quiet gesture of asking for the unglamorous duty of guarding Hannah’s apartment signal a turn from self-justification to amends. By the close—and in the Epilogue—Taylor participates in Hannah’s wedding in a limited, humble role, suggesting that while full trust isn’t restored, honesty and boundaries allow a cautious, more truthful connection to grow.

Key Relationships

• Hannah Brooks: This friendship forms the story’s emotional spine. Taylor’s betrayal fractures not only Hannah’s love life but also her sense of chosen family, pressing the theme of Grief, Family, and Healing. Their careful, incremental steps back—guard duty, date prep, a modest role at the wedding—show how apology must be enacted, not just spoken.
• Robby: Taylor sacrifices her friendship for a relationship Robby later dismisses as an “on-assignment thing,” exposing its transactional roots. His callousness mirrors how he treated Hannah, confronting Taylor with the reality that she traded something profound for something hollow.
• Glenn Schultz: As her boss and a barometer of competence, Glenn’s endorsement (“our next best thing”) underscores Taylor’s professional standing. That stature makes her personal lapse more jarring: she fails not because she’s careless at work, but because she misjudges the moral lines between team loyalty and private desire.

Defining Moments

Taylor’s turning points chart the fall from trust to rupture to restitution. Each moment clarifies who she is—and who she is trying to become.

• The Madrid Assignment

  • What happens: Glenn selects Taylor to cover a three-week detail with Robby in Madrid.
  • Why it matters: The professional vote of confidence becomes the crucible for personal compromise; excellence at work cannot insulate her from flawed choices off duty.

• The Driveway Confrontation

  • What happens: Hannah spots Taylor and Robby kissing on surveillance footage; the ensuing driveway admission and argument are brutal.
  • Why it matters: Taylor’s “work friend” line aims to minimize intimacy, revealing her shame and fear of accountability; the friendship effectively ends here.

• The Apology (in Deeds, not Demands)

  • What happens: After Robby dumps her, Taylor shows up at Hannah’s new apartment, volunteering for guard duty and asking how to make amends.
  • Why it matters: She accepts consequences without insisting on instant absolution, signaling genuine remorse and a willingness to do unglamorous repair.

• The Date Prep

  • What happens: Taylor helps a frantic Hannah choose an outfit and does her hair and makeup for her first real date with Jack.
  • Why it matters: A tender echo of their old intimacy, reframed by boundaries; Taylor serves rather than centers herself, rebuilding trust one small act at a time.

Essential Quotes

“She’s our next best thing.”
— Glenn Schultz

This line situates Taylor as a top-tier agent and Hannah’s closest peer, amplifying the shock of her later breach. It also frames her arc as not just moral but professional: someone praised for reliability makes an intensely unreliable personal choice.

“I was never your best friend. I was your work friend. And the fact that you don’t know the difference? That’s your whole problem right there.”
— Taylor to Hannah Brooks

The cruelty here is strategic—an attempt to downgrade the friendship to avoid owning its betrayal. The sentence exposes Taylor’s defense mechanism: redefine the past to reduce the present guilt, even if it further wounds the person she wronged.

“I asked for this duty.”
— Taylor, explaining why she is guarding Hannah’s apartment

A quietly pivotal admission—Taylor chooses the hard, unglamorous task as penance and protection. The phrasing foregrounds agency: she is not assigned remorse; she enacts it.

“I’m not forgiving you, by the way. I’m just letting you reduce a small amount of your soul-crushing guilt.”
— Hannah Brooks to Taylor

Hannah’s line sets boundaries while permitting incremental repair. It reframes reconciliation as calibrated and conditional, reminding us that forgiveness is a process—one Taylor must keep earning.