Down the Rabbit Hole (32 page)

The most important part of the night, for me, was that in the span of one evening he had single-handedly crushed one of my biggest fears about leaving the mansion. Perhaps I wasn't damaged goods after all. In fact, in Criss's eyes, I was quite desirable. After a few glasses of wine, Criss gave me a tour of the Luxor Theater and then accompanied me back to the Palms and walked me back to my suite. He invited himself into my room, offering to “tuck me in.”

“Okay,” I giggled, knowing the cheesy line would get him through the door, but it wouldn't get him any further. After all, I wasn't
that
drunk.

I stumbled towards the large pink bed, jumped in fully clothed, and pulled the comforter up to my chin. As he stood over the bed and leaned in to kiss me, I erupted into a fit of laughter and turned my head away from him.

“I can't,” I playfully reminded him. “Remember?”

He sighed, standing back up. He reached down and removed my earrings from each ear and set them by the bedside table.

He whispered sweet dreams softly into my ear. After walking across the room, he scrawled something on the back page of a room service menu (a note reading: “I miss you”), tearing out the sheet and sticking it next to my curling iron on the bathroom counter.

“Sweet dreams,” I mumbled, immediately drifting off into a peaceful sleep as he exited the suite.

When I woke the next morning to my buzzing cell phone, the last thing I expected to hear was a ferociously angry Hef.

“Thank you,” Hef screamed so loud that my cell phone shook, “for giving me the WORST night of my life.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked Hef defensively. Honestly, I had endured so many verbal lashings lately that I had no idea what could have possibly been the catalyst for this outburst. After getting permission to stay over the night before, I had called him again shortly before his 10
P
.
M
. bedtime to wish him good night. We traded “I love yous” and that was it. Sure, I hadn't offered up my dinner and clubbing plans for later that evening, because I knew he would never allow it.

“I didn't hear
anything
from you last night,” he continued, screaming into the receiver. “I was up
all
night sick with worry!”

“But I called you right before you went to bed . . .” I tried rationalizing with him. “I don't understand what you're talking about. I had my cell phone with me all night . . .” I kept rattling on, before realizing he had to know something. “Why were you up?” I asked.

“Security told me,” he spat. “You had a
guy
in your room last night!”

I paused for a moment, waiting for this information to sink in
. Holy shit,
I thought.
He actually had me followed.

“Nothing happened,” I said firmly and sternly. “I had a few drinks and a friend walked me in to make sure I got into bed okay. That's it.”

And it was. Sure, there was some definite flirting and perhaps some blurred lines on his part, but I hadn't done a damn thing. I had never cheated on Hef. He had slept with an army of different women during our time together, but I remained faithful. Despite all my insecurities and regardless of how desperate I was to have one night out, in my mind I was
still
in a relationship. And I was nothing if not loyal. Whoever was trailing me around Vegas apparently didn't relay to Hef just how quickly Criss exited my suite.

“Oh yeah?” Hef asked, mockingly, “Well, we'll talk about it when you get home.
Thank you,
” he repeated in dramatic Hef fashion, “for giving me the worst night of my life.”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and waited for the line to disconnect. I was equal parts stunned and seething.

How dare he have me followed,
I thought. For seven ridiculous years, I remained entirely faithful to this man. Even if my evening did include some temptations, I had conducted myself like a good girlfriend. I wouldn't even kiss Criss when we were alone in a hotel room in a moment I thought would forever remain private.

I knew Hef well enough to know that in his head, I was already categorized as a “cheater.” I might as well slap a big scarlet A on my chest, because he would never let me live this down . . . even though there was nothing to actually live down. I was sure that for the rest of our relationship he would call upon this incident every time he didn't get his way and use it as leverage. I could kiss good-bye any chance of spending another night away from the mansion again.

One of Hef's favorite stories to call upon during press interviews is how, in his pre-
Playboy
days, his first wife, Mildred Williams, cheated on him during their engagement. When his then-fiancée confessed to being unfaithful, he was devastated, but chose to marry her anyway. Of course the marriage ended, but I always felt he used this incident as a way to justify his philandering behavior and to gain sympathy from the public. It was as if he was saying, “Sure, I'm a womanizer, but my ex-wife made me that way.
She
did this to me.” In fact, he seemed to have a penchant for cheaters. After all, he did crave drama. His second wife was rumored to have been unfaithful (with a member of the mansion staff), and his third wife ran out of their first planned wedding to be with just one of the several men she had allegedly cheated on Hef with.

It would never change,
I thought.
Hef would never change. If I stay, this would be my life.

And in that moment I knew I couldn't stay. I wouldn't stay. I was
finally
done.

R
ETURNING HOME FROM
L
AS
Vegas felt as awkward as you could possibly imagine. I was determined to make my exit as quickly as possible, but Hef kept putting off having too much of a serious conversation about it. He pleaded with me to stay, “despite hurting” him, but I just gave him the cold shoulder. It seemed he felt that if he could somehow stall and put off my leaving as long as possible that I would just forget about wanting to leave and everything would go back to normal (save for the giant imaginary albatross he had to hang over my head). He could sense something inside me had shifted and was waiting for it to shift back. I wouldn't allow him to manipulate me anymore. I had to make it clear to Hef that I was leaving.

Over the course of our relationship, I'd only ever initiated a “serious” conversation with Hef once, maybe twice. The morning after returning home from Las Vegas, I stopped by Mary's office before heading out for the day to tell her I needed to talk to Hef as soon as possible. I felt that if I could get Hef on the phone, I could say what I needed to say without him trying to throw me off course, pull at my heartstrings, or lay on the guilt, as I was sure he would be successful at doing if we tried to talk face-to-face.

“Hey, honey,” Mary said, a bit cautiously when she called a few hours later. For months she'd seen the warning signs and knew what was coming. “Hef's on the line.”

Before I could say a word, I heard Hef speak weakly into the receiver: “Mary says you have something you'd like to talk to me about.”

“Yes,” I said, feeling instantly small and incredibly nervous. I took a determined breath and continued, “I've decided I can't stay any longer. My feelings aren't there anymore and I don't want to fake it. I need to make a life for myself and have a family.”

It felt like a full minute had passed before Hef spoke.

“Are you sure?” he finally asked, continuing to dangle the bait that E! had ordered a sixth season of the show.

If I wouldn't stay for
him,
he assumed that I would at least stay for the show. It seemed as if he thought all a woman could possibly want was fame and money.

I didn't say anything. My mind was made up.

He pleaded with me to stay, to not tell anyone we broke up, to try and work it out.

“I need my freedom,” I tried to explain. “I want to be able to actually hang out with my girlfriends and have fun like a normal person.”

“Ha!” he exclaimed, through a sarcastic cackle. “What makes you think any of those girls will want to hang out with you if you aren't my girlfriend?”

After years of being conditioned to believe that I wasn't anything without
Playboy
attached to my name, I had actually started to believe it. But I knew better now. His frantic attempts to keep me chained to the mansion seemed transparent, desperate, and just made me angry.

“I'm sorry,” I said softly but firmly. I wouldn't be manipulated. Not this time.

And since I clearly wasn't responding to his spiteful attempts to cripple my self-confidence, he tried playing the guilt card, asking me if I wanted him to have another stroke and saying that if he died it would be my fault.

He wasn't above using his age and health as a tactic to get his way. Over the years, in a few of our more heated disagreements, he regularly made dramatic statements along these lines to get me to drop an argument. It was ridiculous considering that our disagreements, up to this point, had always been about things that should have been trivial to him.

But for him it was all about winning. He didn't care if I stayed out of fear or out of pity, as long as I stayed, but I wasn't going to budge.

I sat silently on the other end of the phone line, patiently waiting for this episode to pass. After gaining some self-confidence and a bit of perspective, I saw just how tired his routine had become. It's like I was seeing him with new eyes. He was no longer this infallible icon I created in my mind. He was just a spoiled child in an old man's body.

“I have to go,” I said. “That's final.”

Silence.

“Okay, darlin',” he managed, his voice choking up (sincerely, for a change). “But I hope you will reconsider.”

Hef was in denial about our breakup for a long time. He chalked it up to some kind of phase I was going through. After giving him the “worst night of his life,” he began pursuing me like never before. All of a sudden, I mattered. The entire concept for season six of
Girls Next Door
was to follow Hef and me as we trotted off into forever land . . . just the two of us. To everyone on the outside it appeared as though my wish was finally being granted: Mr. Playboy all to myself.

But it was too late. The switch had been flipped. It wasn't one thing in particular, but more a cocktail of the last few months: his verbal lashings, my newfound confidence as a career woman, and the affirmations of another man all allowed me to see that the fears I'd been living under for seven years were just smoke and mirrors. Now the thought of living with the unfounded “cheater” moniker was just too much to take. I couldn't stay any longer.

After a meeting in Mary's office, Hef and I decided that I would move down the hall into Bedroom 5 while I finished shooting my final
GND
scenes. Most of season five was already in the can when I met up with Criss that night in Vegas, but there was still more to do. It came as a shock to most of the staff and show producers when I actually began the process of moving out of the master suite. (None of my packing was captured on the show. Hef and the producers were still hoping I would change my mind about moving out and that I would be back as Hef's girlfriend by the time cameras started rolling for season six.) I had done a good job of acting like a blissfully happy girlfriend—only the closest of confidants had known about my unhappiness. It was oddly nostalgic to be moving back into the same room I moved into as a mansion newbie seven years prior. Back then, I barely had a suitcase full of possessions; now I had substantially more to pack. I had a large storage closet—full of clothing, mementos, and Christmas decorations—in the mansion's basement, not to mention another one in the Bunny House across the street. Needless to say,
this
move was going to take a bit more time.

As I packed up the vanity in the master bedroom, I labeled each box with a Sharpie, listing the contents. One evening after work, I was making trips from Hef's bedroom to my old room down the hall. I noticed one box had been scribbled on in writing other than my own. In his distinctive handwriting, it read: “Hef's Heart.” In that instant, my own heart sank. Despite everything he'd done to me, I didn't enjoy hurting him. But that wasn't going to stop me. I knew Hef wasn't in love with me. He was in love with the
idea
of being in love. He was in love with the routine and convenience of our relationship. I wasn't interested in settling anymore, I was looking for
my
happily ever after.

During my final weeks in the mansion, Hef waffled between doting on me and punishing me. If I ever seemed to be in too good of spirits, he would do his best to smack me back down with snide comments or attempts at making me jealous by toting around the Shannon twins. I couldn't have cared less. In fact, I wanted him to move on! It would have taken some of the pressure off me. I was beginning to realize that he preferred miserable and uninspired Holly—maybe because she was easier to control. I buried myself in work. For the time being, I was allowed to keep my job at Studio West. While I had hoped it was because of my contribution and the experience I had gained over the last two years, I realized that Hef's team most likely advised him to keep me on staff to avoid any kind of lawsuit or wrongful termination accusations.

Still, while Hef had begun the process of “moving on,” he hadn't lost hope that I would reconsider and move back into his master suite. Any time I would run into Hef in the mansion hallway, it was painfully awkward.

“I'll have the rest of my stuff out of your room by tomorrow,” I told him during once such encounter.

He assured me I could take my time and there was no hurry, but I was anxious to get my stuff out ASAP.