Thank you for your continued interest and support and for all your kind words.
I do not own Glee or the characters and I especially do not own The Billionaire's Embrace.
SAM
Sunday night, and the Club was in full swing by the time I arrived around 8 pm. The hostess recognized me right away and sat me at a small table near the stage.
I ordered a Scotch and watched the dancer gyrate around the pole, contorting herself into positions that broke at least three laws of physics.
Blondes weren't my type, but I couldn't deny that she was incredibly attractive. Of course, Brittany ran a tight ship, and wouldn't hire a girl who was anything less than jaw-dropping.
I looked around the room, noting a handful of familiar faces, customers and servers alike.
Christ. I should admit it to myself... I was looking for Mercedes. Allen was the ostensible reason I had come here tonight, but the real reason was Mercedes.
Obviously a stupid decision. I had promised myself that I wouldn't come looking for her, and yet here I was, pathetically looking over my shoulder as though she would materialize and beg me to take her back.
If I hadn't told Allen that I would meet with him, I would've left right then. I should leave anyway and send him an apologetic email claiming that something came up at the office.
Jeremy Allen, for all his many faults, was a businessman at heart; he would understand that the demands of my company took precedence over everything else.
Well, almost everything.
I had halfway talked myself into abandoning the meeting when I saw Allen approaching me. Too late, then, so I discreetly checked that my wire was still in place.
If I couldn't get him on tape, it didn't matter what he said to me, it would be my word against his. And the prosecutors would never be able to get the charges to stick.
I knew this man through my father. He had been something of a protégé at one point, before my father realized that he lacked a moral compass and had no compunctions about doing whatever it took to turn a profit.
There was no overt falling out, but my father had subtly distanced himself from him and instead of becoming a VP at Evans Industries like everyone expected, Allen had gone to work for a hedge fund.
All of this happened before I was old enough to understand the details, but I still had enough of an association with him that federal prosecutors had approached me for assistance with building a case against him.
That had been one of the strangest meetings of my life... two men in dark suits talking in circles until I finally figured out what they were asking me to do.
At first, I had felt a little like James Bond, wearing a wire to Allen's favorite sex club and doing my best to entrap him into revealing sensitive information.
But as the months wore on, the novelty wore off.
I had been inviting him to private parties at the club for a solid year and he had shown every inclination to take advantage of the nude dancers and no inclination whatsoever to tell me the details of his ongoing securities fraud.
Also, I despised the man. He had no respect for women and it gave me the creeps.
I stood up as he approached the table and held out my hand for him to shake. His palm was clammy and he looked, as always, both sweaty and excessively pale.
He was pudgy in the way that settled on men as they approached middle age, unless they made concerted efforts to avoid it; and Allen spent most of his time sitting behind a desk, eating greasy takeout.
He was good at what he did and one of the hardest workers I knew, but he had gotten greedy and succumbed to the timeless allure of insider trading and Ponzi schemes.
"Good to see you, Sam," he said. "Jesus, what a day I've had." He slumped down into an empty chair and rested his elbows on the table. "Thanks for meeting with me, pal."
"You don't have to thank me," I said. "I'm always happy to see an old friend."
The words tasted sour in my mouth. I didn't enjoy lying, even when it served the greater good.
"Good man, Evans," he said.
A waitress approached our table and Allen ordered a martini, extra dry, because he was evidently determined to be a walking stereotype. And as soon the waitress walked away, he turned to me and said,
"Business first and then let's party."
"Sure," I said. "Whatever you want."
I had little hope that tonight would be the night he finally spilled something worth listening to, but the FBI agent who was my primary contact had told me again and again that my most important duty was cultivating a friendly relationship with Allen.
Spend enough time making nice, the idea was, and eventually he would let something slip.
"We're having this problem at the office," he said. "New kid, real smart, thinks he knows more than he does, but don't they all? Seems like he's got real promise."
"That doesn't sound like much of a problem," I said.
"Yeah, well, he tried to screw the secretary and when she told him to get lost, he told her, and I quote, women are too stupid to work anywhere but on their backs. I mean, he's right, but you can't say that anymore, what with all of the feminazis."
God, I despised him...
"Sure," I said, forcing myself to nod in agreement. "Feminazis."
"So anyway, now the kid needs a new job," he said. "And I thought, he's smart, maybe you can snap him up. He'd be a real asset, Sam. I had a chat with him about keeping it in his pants at the office and I thought maybe you could..."
"I'll try," I said, seething inside. "You know I'm not directly in charge of personnel decisions, but..."
"Right, of course," he said. "I know that, but I thought, maybe you could put a good word in..."
"Send me his resume and I'll make sure it goes exactly where it needs to," I said, meaning my trash folder, not HR, but Allen didn't need to know that.
"Thanks, Sam," he said, looking relieved. "You're a real champ. The kid's dad is one of my best clients."
Ah, and there it was... nepotism at work. Allen had likely promised to get the son a job to secure the father's continued business, and with the job suddenly vanished into thin air, he was concerned that the business would disappear as well.
"I'll do what I can," I said.
"Yeah, I know you will," he said. "Okay. Great. Problem solved. Let's drink!"
And drink we did...
Five martinis for Allen over the next hour, while I sipped my Scotch and listened to him rant about his job.
His co-workers were idiots...
His superiors were incompetent...
And whoever hired the black guy was taking affirmative action way too seriously.
Prick!
As he drank more, he talked less and spent more time staring at the dancers on the stage; and so, I encouraged him to get refills as soon as he emptied his glass.
A silent Allen was, in my opinion, the only good Allen.
My plan was so successful that he staggered to his feet around 9:30 and slurred,
"Gotta get home. Work in the mornin'. Seeya later, Evans."
"Take care, Jeremy," I said, and he stumbled off towards the door.
Christ. Another wasted evening. I was beginning to think that I would never get anything useful out of the man. Maybe I should start billing the FBI at my hourly consulting rate and donate the proceeds to Calvin's robotics team.
I finished my drink and stood up, preparing to head home and get to bed at a reasonable hour. However, I looked around the club one last time, trying and failing to pretend that I wasn't looking for Mercedes, when I noticed that Brittany's office door was cracked open.
I hesitated...
I had resisted the temptation to call Mercedes, or to show up at her apartment in a fit of deranged masochism, but surely speaking with Brittany...
Well, it likely counted as stalking. But I was here already and I... I missed her. That was all there was to it. I couldn't explain the pull she had on me. She wasn't the most beautiful woman I had ever met, or the wittiest, or the easiest to talk to, but being with her had been uncomplicated and right in a way I had never experienced with any of the other women I dated.
Not even with the woman whom I had asked to marry me.
And I had screwed it up somehow and lost her. I lost Mercedes.
I wished I knew what had happened while she was in California...
Brittany's open door beckoned to me... The light was on; she was in there working and the temptation proved too much for me to resist.
I went over...
I knocked on the door...
"Come in," she said and I pushed the door open and stepped into her office.
"Mr. Evans," she said, looking surprised but pleased. She stood up to shake my hand. "I haven't seen you in a while. I hope everything has been going well for you."
"Yes, just fine," I said. "It's good to see you again, Brittany. I was hoping you could answer a question for me."
"I'll certainly do my best," she said.
She sat down again and folded her hands on top of her desk.
"There's a waitress who works here," I said. "She served my private parties a few times. Mercedes, I think?"
"Yes, of course," she said. Her face was carefully blank. A polite fiction on both of our parts, then. She knew I had been dating Mercedes.
"I didn't see her here tonight," I said. "But I was hoping she would be available for a party later this week."
Brittany sighed...
"I shouldn't tell you this, but I will. Mercedes doesn't work here anymore."
I held very still, forcing myself not to react.
"That's a shame," I said. "She was very discreet."
"Yes, it's a shame that she decided to quit. But I believe she was happy with her decision."
She said it with such finality that I knew I wouldn't get any additional information from her.
"Well, thank you anyway," I said. "I'll leave you to your work."
"Good evening, Mr. Evans," she said, already turning back to her paperwork.
That was it, then. Mercedes had quit to avoid running into me at the club.
It was a clear message... she never wanted to see me again.
It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did, but I never seemed to learn the fundamental lesson that life had been trying to teach me, over and over again, for the last twenty years... everyone would leave me in the end.
My best friend would sell me out to the tabloids...
My fiancée would have an affair while planning our wedding...
My father would walk out with no warning...
And my money was enough to lure people to me, but it wasn't enough to convince them to stay.
I had thought, foolishly, that Mercedes was different, that she saw me as a person instead of a bank account; and that maybe she was interested in me, the person, as opposed to Sam Evans, the CEO.
But I had been mistaken. She was the same as everyone else.
And I needed to forget about her and move on with my life.
I didn't end up going to bed early like I had planned. Instead, I stayed up far too late, drinking and watching horrible reality television. And the next morning was far from pleasant.
Like most people, I hated Mondays and a Monday with a slight hangover and far too little sleep was more unpleasant than most.
I didn't even enjoy television. I had no idea why I maintained my cable subscription. Masochism? Blind loyalty to the American dream?
I spent the next few days doing my best to bury myself in work and avoid thinking about Mercedes. I failed, of course. My brain mercilessly replayed my conversation with Brittany and...far worse...my final conversation with Mercedes.
Anger and bitterness were tempting emotions, ready salves for a bruised ego, but when I was honest with myself, what I mainly felt was sorrow.
As I thought about it more, I was forced to admit to myself that I didn't truly believe that Mercedes had never cared about me. I didn't think she was that callous or manipulative.
Her lack of guile was one of the traits that originally drew me to her, and I knew that I hadn't misinterpreted our relationship so thoroughly.
She had mattered to me so much in part because... I mattered to her.
But it was a moot point. My regrets didn't matter.
It was over.
Thursday dawned gray and rainy and nothing improved after I arrived at work. An actual yelling match broke out in my first meeting of the day between two top executives who really ought to have known better.
The coffee maker in my office also broke. And the accountants, hell-bent on filing taxes before April 15 for the first time in the history of the company, kept sending me endless, mind-numbing memos about minutiae of the tax code that I neither understood nor cared about.
Next, my secretary called in sick and her temporary replacement, while very sweet, couldn't figure out how to transfer calls appropriately and kept sending annoyed investors straight to my office line.
It was, in short... a beast of a Thursday.
And then, to cap it all off, I received an email from my cousin, informing me that my aunt wanted to know if investing in coin was a good idea, and would I please give him a call to discuss the matter.
I sighed...
I knew next to nothing about coin, but my cousin would just keep emailing me until I succumbed.
So I checked my calendar... I had half an hour until my next meeting; plenty of time to give him a stern talking-to about keeping his mother off the internet.
I scrolled through my phone, looking for my cousin's phone number. The sheer quantity of my contacts bordered on the absurd. There were hundreds.
I never called these people. I didn't need to have their numbers on hand. That was why I had a secretary.
In a fit of pique, I went through and started deleting...
My former housekeeper, ex-VP of Operations whom I had fired, someone named Cindy...all deleted. I had a million other things I needed to be doing, but this felt oddly satisfying.
Getting rid of the old, making room for the new... Purging!
I was making good progress when I came to one name and stopped...
Jocelyn Barrow.
It sounded oddly familiar.
Jocelyn...
That was Mercedes' friend! The girl with the hair!
Why did I have her phone number?
She had called me. I remembered now. The night we went to her apartment for dinner, she had called to ask me to bring some wine. I must've stored her number for some reason. Out of habit, probably.
Without giving myself time to think, I fired off a quick text message...
This is Sam Evans. Would you be willing to speak with me about Mercedes?
Christ. Why had I done that?
I needed to stop thinking about Mercedes altogether, not pathetically try to pump her best friend for information. What good would it do me, anyway? She had washed her hands of me. Pursuing the matter would accomplish nothing, save burdening me with yet more misery.
Whatever. It was too late now. I had already sent the message. There was nothing to do but wait...
Jocelyn's answer came a few excruciating minutes later...
Holy crap yes! I work in midtown want 2 do lunch?
I blinked. That...wasn't what I expected. I had anticipated a quick "fuck off" and nothing more, but if she was willing to talk to me, I wasn't going to turn her down.
It was no doubt, a terrible decision, but no matter how much I tried to convince myself that it was a lost cause, I couldn't bring myself to let go of Mercedes just yet.
Her final phone call had been so confusing and ambiguous that I knew there was more to the story, and I wasn't ready to let it rest.
Also, I was a glutton for punishment. Why stop twisting the knife when I had an opportunity to cause myself further emotional agony?
Sam: Is tomorrow too soon? I'll meet you wherever you'd like.
Jocelyn: Starbucks on 6th near Rockefeller ctr, high noon, come alone, tell no one.
I grinned. Very secret agent. I should take a black briefcase just to mess with her.
My smile faded... I was an idiot. Mercedes had made it very clear that she wanted nothing further to do with me and I should respect her wishes and leave her alone.
I had many words for men who pursued uninterested women and none of them were flattering.
But...
But if her best friend thought there was something that needed to be discussed, maybe my gut feeling wasn't wrong... Mercedes had panicked. Something had happened to make her run scared. Maybe all hope wasn't lost.
Alternatively, maybe Jocelyn wanted to tell me off for being a creep who needed to leave well enough alone.
Well. I would find out soon enough.
The Starbucks on 6th was, of course, packed, but I was able to spot Jocelyn quickly enough, even though she had changed her hairstyle so that it was twisted in small knots all over her head.
She saw me as I walked towards her and gave an enthusiastic wave.
That was a good sign, at least.
She had staked out a minuscule table in a corner, I noticed. So I set down my briefcase and slid it towards her.
She stared at me for a moment, brows furrowed, and then burst out laughing.
"Seriously? Tell me there are fat stacks of hundred dollar bills in there."
"There are fat stacks of hundred dollar bills in there," I said. "Not really, though. I thought about filling it with Monopoly money, but that seemed like too much work."
"I mean, can't you just call the head of the Monopoly company and have it bike messengered to your door? Seems like laziness," she said. "Have a seat. I got you a latte because all white people like lattes."
I sat down and accepted the drink.
"Is that a universal truth you've uncovered?"
"Are you denying it? You can't, because it's true," she said.
"I do indeed like lattes," I said. "Thanks. And thanks for agreeing to meet with me."
"I didn't do it for you," she said. "I mean, nothing against you. You seem like a nice guy. But I've got an ulterior motive, and it's Mercedes, you know?"
"I figured as much," I said. "I don't expect you to reveal any, ah, sensitive information. But I was hoping... Well, I don't know what Mercedes told you, but she called me from California and broke up with me, and..."
"And she's been going fucking bananas ever since," Jocelyn said. "Yeah. There was apparently some intense shit that went down with her mom and her ex, and I think being home was just a lot for her to deal with in general."
Her ex? Mercedes had an ex?
Who had apparently been important enough to her to still, six years later, be the source of intense shit.
"She didn't say much about it," I said.
"Yeah, I figured," Jocelyn said. "It doesn't sound like she handled it very well. I think she had, like, stayed up all night sitting at her grandmother's wake and then she called you. Anyway, I think she regrets it. Breaking up with you, I mean. But she'll never do anything about it. So if you want her back, it's up to you."
"She told you that?" I asked. I wasn't sure what to make of everything that this woman was saying. It was too much to process.
I had spent the last two months telling myself that Mercedes didn't care about me, that she had left me without a second thought. The idea that she regretted it, that maybe she missed me, caused such intense cognitive dissonance that I felt as though the known universe had been inverted, and I had discovered a new and peculiar plane of existence, one involving an extra dimension or two beyond the realm of ordinary physics.
"Not in so many words," Jocelyn said. "You know how she is. She told me about the breakup and she hasn't mentioned you again since. That's how I know. The less she talks about something, the more it matters to her."
"Maybe it's just that she's already forgotten about me," I said.
Jocelyn gave me a skeptical look...
"Yeah, right. You were the first man she'd been with and she hasn't had a relationship since high school..."
"Wait," I said. "What?"
"Well, she was a virgin, of course," Jocelyn said, and took a sip of her coffee, looking so innocently wide-eyed that I knew she was aware of the bomb she had just dropped on me. "Like, she never straight-up told me, but come on. It was pretty obvious."
"It wasn't obvious to me," I said, through gritted teeth.
Jesus fucking Christ.
That put an entirely new and unfortunate spin on the situation.
Why hadn't she told me?
If I had known...
Well, if I had known, I wouldn't have touched her. Maybe that was the reason she hadn't told me.
"It's okay, men are pretty oblivious," Jocelyn stated. "Don't worry about it. Anyway, the big problem here is that she's got her head up her ass and won't admit that she made a mistake."
"I'm not going to show up at her apartment with a boombox, if that's what you're thinking," I said. "She told me it was over and I intend to respect that."
Jocelyn sighed...
"Sam, look... she didn't break up with you because she wasn't into you, or because you did something wrong. Her big fear is that she isn't good enough for you. She hasn't been able to articulate that to me, of course. She said a few things about how you were 'too different,' which in Mercedes talk, means she thinks she's gutter trash."
How could Mercedes think she wasn't good enough for me? If anything, I wasn't good enough for her.
Maybe we were both afraid. Maybe that was the problem. Neither of us had enough courage to face down our fears.
She was afraid of inadequacy and I was afraid of abandonment. What a sad pair.
I rubbed my face and said,
"Why don't we just cut to the chase. What is it that you think I should do?"
"Okay," Jocelyn said. "I'll be honest with you, I'm not convinced that the whole high-flying billionaire thing is good for her, but she was happy and now she's not, and I'm invested in her continued happiness. Do you understand what I'm saying? You do what I tell you to and I'll work on bringing her around."
"That sounds a little threatening," I said, carefully non-committal. I knew a watershed moment when one beat me over the head. This was my last chance to walk away with my heart and dignity intact.
Jocelyn leaned towards me...
"It doesn't sound like you're saying no."
In for a penny...
"I'm not," I said.
"Good," she said. "Now, listen up. I have a plan..."
Stay happy and Stay safe!