I nod, suddenly realizing it’s very possible that—on top of everything else—I am about to get fired. I’m like the pilot episode of a sitcom about a man whose life goes to shit before he changes careers and decides to become a cattle rancher in that quirky town his grandmother lives in. Except all of my grandparents are dead and, in the real world, losing your job doesn’t actually lead to a hilarious but poignant epiphany about what you’re supposed to be doing. Just a sudden need to add LinkedIn to the daily ritual of social media that makes you feel like crap about yourself.

Leanne must see the panic in my face, because she tries to soften the blow. “It’s no secret that you’ve always been my best employee, Miles. You were great at what you did. Nobody has as many success stories as you. How many weddings have you been invited to? Three?”

“Four,” I mumble. Always as an old friend of the groom because, of course, none of them could bear to tell their future wives that their relationship was built on what is—let’s be honest here—something of a lie.

“That’s incredible,” Leanne says gently, before her voice takes on the firm but fair tone that made her a superstar creative director back in her agency days, when I was working as a copywriter under her. “But I can’t rely on what you did; I have to rely on what you do. I have to know I’m sending someone out there who’s going to listen to our clients’ wants and needs and work his hardest to get them to meet up with their perfect match.”

“Right,” I say, not adding that what Leanne needs is someone who actually believes in such a thing as a perfect match. Once upon a time, that was me. But not anymore.

“So this is what’s going to happen,” she says, and I’m expecting her to produce—if I’m lucky—a severance package from within her desk to hand to me. Instead, she takes out her iPad. “You have one more chance to make good here. One more client who’s going to need the old Miles to reappear and give him the real Tell It to My Heart Experience.” Obviously, she doesn’t say the trademarked bit, but I can practically hear it in her voice. Another one of Clifford’s brilliantly expensive ideas. “So, pick one. Go ahead. There are three to choose from.”