Hey, thank you for the welcome back and for all your kind words. I appreciate it. I'm still taking things slow, so updates still aren't as frequent.

I do not own Glee or the characters and I honestly do not own The Billionaire's Embrace.

SAM

I spent the next week in a drunken blur...something I haven't done in ages.

Santana was more than happy to take me out clubbing every night and I slept with more women than I had in the past year... two or three in a night.

I didn't learn any of these women names... I didn't even ask. Because they were nothing to me. They were just willing warm bodies.

I would've felt guiltier about that had I been more than a warm body to them also, but we used each other and everyone went home happy.

Or at least slightly less sad...

Not that I was sad. That would've been absurd. What did I have to be sad about?

Fourth-quarter profits? Buying out a promising tech company from under Google's nose?

Everything in my life was going, as the saying went, swimmingly.

And yet, I couldn't shake that hollow, scooped-out feeling...

I woke up one morning with a killer hangover and while I was emptying the contents of my stomach into my toilet, I realized that I didn't remember anything that had happened the night before.

I do remember arriving at the club with Santana, but after that, nothing.

My memory was a blank, like some great hand had descended from the sky and erased the evening from existence.

It had to stop.

I couldn't afford to lose control in this way and blacking out at night clubs was absolutely unacceptable.

If I keep this up, I'll have my mother leaving me threatening messages about impropriety and lawsuits, soon enough.

Sigh...

I looked at myself in the mirror... bloodshot eyes, a lined face weary with excessive partying and a lack of sleep.

Mercedes was gone.

But I hadn't died yet.

And although I couldn't predict the future, I didn't anticipate dying for quite some time.

But this was no way to live. I had a corporation to run and self-indulgent paroxysms of alcohol and womanizing wouldn't strengthen my position.

The next time Santana calls me, I'm going to tell her no and stick to it. I need to focus on work and stop catering to my empty heart. Worse things have happened.

Life will go on.

And it did. I worked at it. I got back into the habit of daily exercise... weights in the morning and running five miles in the evening after work.

I bought a juicer and I even tried meditating even though I found it excruciatingly dull at first. But I stuck with it, determined to put in a solid month before I abandoned the idea as fruitless.

When I went to pick up my Little Brother that Saturday for an afternoon of wandering around the zoo, he looked at me suspiciously and said,

"Are you on drugs?"

I rolled my eyes.

"I'm not on drugs. I've been juicing."

"That's drugs," he said and yelled over his shoulder into the house, "Ma, Sam's on drugs!"

"Not juicing like steroids," I said. "For God's sake, Calvin. Like vegetable juice."

Just then, his mother came to the door and gave me the same suspicious look her son had bestowed upon me...

"You on drugs, Sam?"

"Vegetable juice," I said. "And meditation. Honestly, Ms. Johnson. You know I'm not into that sort of thing."

She grinned at me.

"Just making sure. Y'all have fun. Don't keep him out too late, he's got that robotics thing tomorrow."

"I'll have him home in time for dinner," I said and sternly pointed Calvin towards the car.

Calvin was ten years old. He liked computers, science fiction and geology.

His mother told me that he mainly hung out with the girls at school but that he was considered so peculiar, nobody messed with him.

I've known him for three years and he's always seemed very content with himself and unbothered by what anyone else thought.

He knew what he liked and what he liked to do and he was going to do it.

His mother had confessed to me a few months back, that she had initially been doubtful that a white man could be the sort of role model her son needed.

To be honest, I still wasn't convinced that I was the right person for the job, but I was doing my best.

I've helped Ms. Johnson enroll Calvin in a magnet school and I sponsored his robotics team. I taught him how to swim and took him to the library as much as he wanted. And I would, when the time came, help him navigate the process of college applications.

I wouldn't have to do anything in terms of actually getting him into college, though. I was confident that he had that part covered.

That afternoon, we went to the Bronx Zoo. It was cold, but we agreed that winter was the best time to visit the zoo, because we had the entire place practically to ourselves.

Calvin showed little interest in the charismatic megafauna...

"They're big," he said about the elephants, looking unimpressed but he would've spent all day in the reptile house if I let him. However, I didn't find frogs particularly interesting, but his excitement was contagious, and I had to dredge my memories of high school biology to answer his questions about camouflage and toxicity.

"So why don't they just make themselves brown, like the lizards? They can't get eaten if nothing can see them," he said. "Why go to all the trouble of making themselves blue?"

"I don't know, Calvin," I said, for the fourth time in a row. "Why don't we find a book about amphibians?"

"I thought you were supposed to know this stuff," he said, and shook his head slowly, so like his mother in his disappointment that I couldn't help but laugh.

He was indeed a chip off the old block...

We had pizza for lunch at the overpriced cafeteria and Calvin said,

"You're acting all sad and stuff."

"Am I?" I asked. I didn't think I was behaving any differently than I usually did.

"Yeah. Like, quiet," he said. "Was somebody mean to you?"

I smiled at him. For all his sharp intellect, he was still very much a child in some ways.

"Sure," I said. "You could say that. It's not a big deal, though. Let's finish eating and go look at the monkeys, okay?"

He didn't mention it again and was so worn out by the time we left the zoo that he fell asleep in the car on the way back.

His mother took one look at him and said,

"Oh Lord, dinner and straight to bed with you, kid." He nodded sleepily and shuffled inside.

"Sorry," I said. "You know how he gets."

"Oh, I know all too well," she said. "You won't come in for dinner, will you?"

I shook my head. She always asked and I always refused. I didn't want to impose.

"I still have some work to take care of tonight. Tell him good luck at his competition tomorrow."

"I will," she said. "Thank you. I know he'll have all sorts of stories to tell me about those animals."

"Make sure to ask him about the frogs," I said and waved to her as I walked back to my car.

I thought about what Calvin said over the next few days...

Was I acting sad?

I didn't think so, but nobody could accuse me of being excessively self-aware.

I asked my mother about it when I had dinner with her on Tuesday night.

She set down her fork and gave me a piercing look...

"You seem perfectly ordinary to me. Is it about that girl you're seeing? Oh, what was her name..."

"Mercedes," I said. I knew my mother hadn't forgotten a name in all the years I've known her; she was being deliberately obtuse in an attempt to annoy me.

"Yes, that's right," she said. "My mind isn't what it used to be. Old age, you know."

I rolled my eyes and took another bite of food. I wasn't going to embark upon this conversation.

"She seemed like a very nice girl," my mother continued, obviously unwilling to let it rest.

"I'm not seeing her anymore," I said stiffly. This wasn't a topic I was eager to discuss.

"Oh?" my mother said, perking up. "That's a shame, although I have to say, she didn't seem as though she would be capable of meeting the demands placed on a politician's wife. She didn't have any fire in her."

That was completely untrue. Mercedes' fire was banked down to hot coals, but it still burned fiercely.

She had, I suspected, spent most of her life trying to extinguish it altogether and she hid it well, but I had caught enough glimpses to know that it was still there.

But I had no interest in defending her. She left me... She threw me away with a five-minute phone conversation that told me exactly how little I meant to her.

So I merely said,

"Mother. I'm not going into politics."

"Of course you aren't, dear," she said, which meant she had already started planning the first campaign.

She didn't push the issue any further. And we finished our meal with a pleasant discussion of the new exhibit opening at the Guggenheim. Then, over dessert and coffee, I said,

"I'd like to ask you a question about Father."

It was a sensitive subject and not one I broached lightly. My mother raised an eyebrow at me and said,

"Go ahead."

"Why did you take him back? After he left," I said. "What made you do it?"

She sipped her coffee and looked at me over the rim of her cup.

"Why are you bringing that up now?"

How should I answer that?

I can't very well say... I've spent the last few months thinking about loss and my father leaving was the first time I realized that I wasn't the center of the universe, or... that other people had inner lives and that even the people who were supposed to love me the most would abandon me if it suited them.

But oh how I wanted to...

I was eleven when my mother discovered that my father had been having an affair for the past two years with a woman in her garden club... the young wife of a plastic surgeon.

I still remembered the late-night arguments behind closed doors after they both thought I had gone to sleep.

It ended with my father moving out.

He was gone for almost five years and during that time I saw him on only a handful of occasions.

He traveled a lot in those years, working on expanding the business overseas and he had no time for an adolescent son who missed and needed him.

I never knew what led to my parents' eventual reconciliation and I had never asked. I just woke up one morning and my father was sitting at the breakfast table, and that was that.

It was never discussed and I did my best to forgive him and put the past behind me, but his absence hurt me deeply.

We never regained the closeness we had when I was a child and even when he was on his deathbed I found that I couldn't relinquish my resentment.

"I've always wondered," I said. "He was gone and then he came back and neither of you ever explained it to me."

"No," my mother said. "We didn't." She took another sip of coffee. "We probably should have. Sam, there are some things in life about duty and loyalty and turning the other cheek that are impossible to explain. You'll have to learn those lessons yourself. Your father and I both made many mistakes. I chose in the end to forgive his and he forgave mine."

"He left me," I said, a plaintive whine that broke out of me without permission. I hadn't intended to say that.

"He left both of us," my mother said, unsympathetic, and finished her coffee.

That was that. My mother was clearly not going to be a good source of insight into my emotional state. So I abandoned that notion and instead took Santana out for lunch at her favorite Chelsea hotspot.

She was happy to accept my invitation and happy to drink three mimosas and order the most expensive item on the menu.

I would expect no less from Santana, of course. She was one of two people I considered an actual friend, the other being Mike, who was currently 'finding himself' somewhere in Southeast Asia.

I have known the two of them since we were all snot-nosed brats at a private school on the Upper East Side.

When I was younger, I had a wide and varied circle of companions, but as I grew older, I realized that most of them were only interested in me for what I could give them or do for them.

One particularly painful incident had led me to cut ties with most of those so-called friends.

Santana and Mike were the only ones who had stuck with me through thick and thin. Through the wild parties and the hungover aftermaths, terrible breakups, post-adolescent ennui and everything in between.

And I trusted that they would never take advantage of me.

Well, Santana was always willing to take advantage of my credit card, but that was different.

She spent a good quarter of an hour chattering about her latest photoshoot, then set down her mimosa and said,

"Okay, Evans, I know you asked me to lunch for a reason other than to listen to my silly model talk. Out with it."

There was no point in beating around the bush.

"Calvin told me that I seem sad," I said.

She laughed.

"Is that all? Poor Sammy, so unaccustomed to having emotions. No, you don't seem sad. It's only that you were much happier when you were dating that woman. Calvin is noticing the contrast, I think." She leaned towards me across the narrow table. "You pretend otherwise, but she obviously meant a great deal to you. But you have mourned long enough, I think."

"I'm not mourning," I said. "We were only together for a about a month. It wasn't serious."

"Of course," Santana said. "Whatever you say. So...does this mean you will go on a date with my friend? She is very beautiful and she just arrived in New York and knows nobody."

"Except for you, clearly," I said.

This was classic Santana... she always had a friend who was new in town and needed to be shown the sights.

"Oh, I don't count," she said with an airy wave of her hand. "Say you will take her out. It will be good for both of you. You're far too serious, Fish Lips. Spend less time working and enjoy yourself. Because soon, you will be too old to have any fun."

"I'm thirty-one," I pointed out.

"Yes, exactly!" she said. "And please don't remind me that we're all in our thirties now. I cannot think of it, I'll grow wrinkles just from the thought."

"You don't look a day over eighteen," I told her loyally. I was fudging the truth, but only slightly. She was still as fresh-faced and wide-eyed as she'd been in her early twenties.

"What a flatterer," she said, but she looked pleased. "So my friend..."

"Yes, okay," I said, succumbing to the inevitable. It was one evening. The worst that could happen was that she would be incredibly boring. And I couldn't spend the rest of my life feeling sorry for myself. "Fine. I'll go on a date with her. Are you happy?"

"Immensely!" she said, beaming.

The girl's name was Emma. I met her on Friday evening at one of my favorite restaurants in Midtown.

I made sure to arrive fifteen minutes early, so I was seated and had already ordered a bottle of wine by the time the maître d' escorted her to the table.

She was, as Santana had promised, very beautiful. She had long auburn hair waving loose over her shoulders, a full mouth and high cheekbones.

And she wore a low-cut dress that revealed ample breasts lightly dusted with freckles.

I appreciated a woman who knew how to display her assets to good effect.

I rose as she approached the table and bent over her hand, very gallant, and kissed her knuckles. She blushed prettily and said,

"Am I at the right table?"

I laughed.

"Did Santana make you think I'm a complete ogre? If that's so, I've got my work cut out for me."

At that, I pulled out her chair for her while the maître d' uncorked and poured the wine. She sat and smiled up at me in thanks.

She really was very lovely. So even if the date went horribly, at least I would have a nice view.

Plus, I could think of worse ways to spend a Friday night than admiring her cleavage.

"So, how did you and Santana meet?" I asked.

It wasn't the most interesting opening, but I've found that the simple approach was often the best...both in business and with women.

"Summer camp, actually," Emma said, smiling. "In high school. Well, I was in high school. Santana was my counsellor. We stayed in touch and when I told her I was moving to New York, she helped me find an apartment and get settled in. She's been so helpful. I would be completely lost without her."

"That's right, I've forgotten about her camp counsellor days," I said. "She did that all through college, didn't she? I still can't believe that anyone put her in charge of helpless children."

"Miraculously, none of us died," Emma said. "Don't tell her I said that! It's just, she was afraid of everything..."

"The snakes, the pine needles," I said. "I can imagine. Well, I'm glad you survived that experience."

"Only a little worse for the wear," she said. She picked up her glass and swirled the wine around. "Is this any good?"

I pressed a hand to my chest in mock affront...

"I would never order anything but the very best."

She grinned.

"That's right, you're some kind of fancy businessman, aren't you? Santana told me you run some sort of company, but I've made it a policy not to go digging around on the internet before the first date."

"You're a wise woman," I said, amused. "Did you move here to be a model?"

"Wow! You think I look like a model?" she asked. "I'm flattered. But no, I'm an actuary. I've been living in Boston for the last few years, but my job gave me the option to transfer to the New York office and I thought it would be nice to have a change of scenery."

I raised my eyebrows, impressed. Beautiful and intelligent? This woman was the full package.

"Tell me about your work," I said. "How did you decide to become an actuary? I thought all little girls dreamed about riding horses professionally."

"What a horrible stereotype," Emma said, laughing and shaking her hair over her shoulder. "Well, I took this statistics course..."

She told me about how she started college intending to be an English major and ended up with a degree in mathematics, and how she loved her work even though it wasn't glamorous or exciting.

Her hands moved as she spoke and I watched her. I should've been plotting to end the night with her in my bed...but I wasn't. There was no spark.

The first time I saw Mercedes, it was like sticking a fork in an outlet. Talking to Emma was more like looking at the outlet, knowing that it held current and seeing no reason to investigate further.

I could already predict how the evening was going to play out... We would have a nice meal and an interesting conversation and at the end of the night, I would go home...alone.

What in God's name was wrong with me?

Actually, I knew, but I preferred not to think about it.

It wasn't Emma's fault, though, and it wouldn't be fair to punish her for my inability to move on with my life. I had agreed to this date; it was my responsibility to ensure that she had a good time.

I did my best to be entertaining and attentive company, asking Emma questions about herself, how she liked New York so far and whether she had picked a baseball team yet.

And she made it easy for me, laughing at my weak attempts at humor and teasing me about how she thought fancy businessmen were supposed to rent out the entire restaurant when they had a date.

If I had met her six months earlier, I would've been completely smitten.

But I didn't. I met Mercedes, and now there was an empty place in my chest where she used to be.

I resented her for it. She had drawn me in, made me care about her in a way I hadn't cared about anyone in a long while, and she hadn't cared about me at all. I was a diversion to her, an amusing pastime.

It wasn't worth thinking about.

The food was excellent, as always. This was one of my favorite restaurants for a reason.

We ordered crème brulee and coffee to finish off the meal. And I watched with great amusement as Emma devoured her dessert.

"It's so good," she said, a little sheepish.

I said,

"I will never judge a woman for enjoying her food. You can even get another one, if you'd like."

"Don't tempt me!" she said, smiling. Then she cocked her head to one side and looked at me, sobering."You aren't going to ask me out again, are you."

I hadn't expected her to say that, but there was no point in trying to deny it. I would be a disaster of a businessman if I couldn't cope with unanticipated events and respond to them appropriately.

I took one of her hands in mine and looked into her eyes...

"It's nothing about you. You're an incredible woman and any man would be lucky to have you."

She chuckled wryly.

"It's not me, it's you?"

"It's me," I said. "I'm... I haven't quite gotten over my last relationship."

"Ah," she said and nodded. "Haunted by the ex. I understand."

"I wish that weren't the case," I said. "You're a delight. If I brought you home to my mother, she would pass out from joy."

"Heaven forbid," Emma said. "I couldn't have your mother's fainting spell on my head." She sighed. "Well, I suppose I'll just have to ask Santana to set me up with some other eligible bachelor of her acquaintance."

"Emma, you are funny, smart, and drop-dead gorgeous," I said. "I can't imagine that men aren't falling all over themselves to talk to you every time you step out your front door."

"You really are dangerously charming," she said. "Santana should've warned me! Don't worry, Sam. I'm sure I'll find true love with one of the delinquents who meows at me while I walk to the subway station."

"Do they really meow?" I asked.

"Oh, the stories I could tell you," she said.

At the end of the night, I walked Emma out to her waiting cab and bent to kiss her on the cheek.

"I truly enjoyed myself tonight," I said. "This is going to sound horrible, but I'd like to be friends, if you're interested."

"That does sound horrible," she said, smiling up at me. "Men always say that and they never mean it."

"I mean it, though," I said. "Give me a call sometime, if you'd like. Santana can give you my number."

"I'll keep it in mind," she said. Then she winked at me and climbed into the cab.

I waited until she had pulled away from the curb, then sighed and pulled out my phone to call Harry.

No more blind dates for me, no matter how much Santana thought it was a good idea. I felt terrible for wasting Emma's time.

When Harry arrived, I asked him to take me to the office. I could already tell that I wasn't going to get much sleep, so I might as well get some work done.

I checked my email on my phone as we headed south...

My inbox was full, as usual, and I idly scrolled through looking for anything that needed immediate attention.

One message caught my eye. It was from Jeremy Allen, the fraudster I'd spent the last year trying to catch doing something incriminating.

He wanted to meet at the Club on Sunday night to discuss some business.

After reading his email, I took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled until my lungs were empty.

I had promised myself that I would stay away from Mercedes, in an effort to give us both the space that we needed, and showing up at her workplace would directly violate that vow.

But if Allen wanted to talk, I couldn't let that opportunity pass by.

I would just have to hope that Mercedes wouldn't be working on Sunday.

Stay happy and stay safe!