by Dev Bentham
Buyout – A Love Story
By Dev Bentham
Everyone deserves a second chance. Or do they? Sean and Martim fell in love at Harvard. Things broke apart when Martim fell into a downward spiral of addiction after his father died. Sean kicked him out but has regretted it ever since. He’s never gotten over losing Martim. But then, not many aspects of his life have lived up to his collegiate dreams.
When he’s sent to evaluate Martim’s family hotel for foreclosure, Sean is once again in the position to put Martim out on the street. In the time since they parted, Martim has pulled himself together, although both health and financial problems linger as a result of his years as an addict. Can the two men bridge the gap of distance and time to rekindle their relationship, or will they fall apart again under the burdens of guilt and disease?
Set in Lisbon, Portugal, this is the story of lovers reunited after more than a decade apart, and their second chance at romance.
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Epilogue
More from Dev Bentham
About the Author
By Dev Bentham
Visit Dreamspinner Press
Copyright
To beautiful Lisboa.
Acknowledgments
I WENT to Lisbon and all I brought back was this story. (Okay, I may have tucked a rooster or two into my suitcase.) I’m very grateful for the opportunity to visit Lisbon. We traipsed all over, fell in love with the place, and ate too much incredibly good food. I can’t feed you, but I hope the story conveys some of the charm of that lovely city.
I had a lot of fun writing this piece. And I got a lot of help. This book is much better than it was before Jordan Castillo Price offered her suggestions. And I’m grateful to Nicole Dowd and everyone else at Dreamspinner for their hard work and attention to detail. Thanks also to Catt Ford for the beautiful cover. I feel lucky to be surrounded by so much talent and support.
Chapter ONE
I STOOD in the doorway and stared at the bodies writhing beneath stark white sheets. I’d forgotten a file at home and had come back unexpectedly. The two men didn’t hear me at first, and I had time to wonder how long this had been going on and what kind of fucking STDs and other germs Aiden had been bringing home. And how much it would cost to make him go away. We’d been together six months. In the beginning there had been candlelight and champagne and plenty of sex, and I’d thought I loved him. But now, as I watched him, I realized he’d already faded into the severance package category—beautiful young men with perfect bodies, who weren’t right and never could be.
I should have turned around and left right then, before they saw me. But I stood for a moment too long, and Aiden glanced over his shoulder. Color drained from his face. For two beats he stared at me with his mouth open.
Then came a stream of predictable words, apologies, excuses. It hurt almost as much to hear how stupid he thought I was as it did to see his skin tinged red with excitement from another man’s touch. I raised my hand to make him stop talking.
The room fell silent. The other guy, a slender, handsome man with dark glistening skin, edged himself out of bed. He picked up a pair of blue briefs. As he slid them over his perfectly defined thigh muscles, I wondered if he worked at the same modeling agency as Aiden.
It didn’t matter.
I turned back to the man who had gone from my lover to my ex in a fraction of a second. “I’m going to Amsterdam tonight. I’ll be back by the weekend. Will that give you enough time to find a new place?”
“Look, Sean, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I’m weak. And look at him.” His eyes slid to the black man. He leaned toward me, and his voice dropped as he said, “We could share.”
Caught in the middle of our domestic ugliness, the poor guy was dressing quickly. His expression was shut down, like he’d rather be anywhere other than where he was right at that moment. I didn’t blame him. I felt the same. The last thing I wanted was to play out a big scene. The truth was that our affair had been over for weeks. I just hadn’t been paying enough attention to realize it.
I focused on my lover’s lover, the only relatively innocent person in the room. “Don’t be embarrassed. This isn’t your fault.”
“Fucking right it isn’t his fault,” Aiden snapped at me. “He’s not the one always taking off for Amsterdam or Hong Kong or some other fucking place, leaving me to entertain myself.”
“Which you seem very capable of doing.” I moved past him to the closet. I pulled out the suitcase I’d packed the night before. “I’ll get out of your way and let you get back to it.”
“Sean, wait.” He grabbed my arm. “Where will I go?”
I stared first at Aiden’s hand on my arm and then I met his gaze. I looked for it. I did. But the panic in his eyes had nothing to do with love. He stood there, naked. And to top it all off, I didn’t see any condoms around the bed or on his fucking cock.
I shook my head, disgusted. It really was time to offer the severance package. “Stay through the end of the month. I’ll find somewhere else to live in the meantime. And if you’re desperate, I’ll send over a check to cover first, last, and deposit on a new place.”
He relaxed, his hand dropping away from my arm. “Thanks Sean. You’re a real gentleman.”
I closed my eyes. I was thirty-six, relatively attractive, financially stable, healthy—with the exception of an occasional migraine—and alone. Again. It always hurt when my delusions got shattered. Until the next pretty man came along to make me want to believe. What would be next? An actor? A dancer? Whoever he was, he’d be delightful when I met him, but not when he left.
I knew that paying their rent for a few months after they left was a defense mechanism. And an atonement. I was always making up for Martim, the man I’d abandoned years before. The one that got away. Except that he haunted my dreams, and his face always filled my mind when it was time to let the pretty boys go. Martim, who had been the best thing that ever happened to me, perfect until it all went wrong and I’d kicked him out on a cold night with no place to go. If I could take that back, I would. But all I could do was to pay off a stream of new, young, bad boys, even when they didn’t deserve it. None of them were Martim. And never would be.
It wasn’t until I was out in the hallway that I realized I’d left the damned file. Fuck it. It wasn’t worth going back in there. I’d just have to do without.
I CALLED the office and had my assistant reschedule the meeting where I would have needed the fucking file. My official title is Chief Equity Strategist, which means I answer directly to our toxic CEO. In a normal company, I’d put my MBA to good use as my eager young analysts and I charted the company’s investment future. But at P&M, the analysists follow directives from the top and I’m mostly an enforcer. The clients I was supposed to strong-arm into paying up were behind on their payments. They’d be delighted to postpone until I got back from Amsterdam. My boss probably would have encouraged me to take out my personal frustrations on our borrowers. Instead, I stopped by the clinic to get tested to see what Aiden’s inability to stay faithful had given me. Miraculously, I came up clean. So I hit the gym, found the toughest trainer around, and suffered through two grueling hours of bench presses, leg lifts, and cardio. I didn’t want to think or feel or be inside my life in any way. Denial and escape—my two favorite friends.
I thought about Aiden back in the apartment with a view of the Chicago Loop. He’d wanted to redecorate, settle in. We wouldn
’t have that fight again. The place was an investment. The week before I’d been offered 10 percent more than I paid. In a few years, I’d flip it. If there was anything I’d learned in my years in this business, it was that real estate was all about numbers. Get sentimental about space, get screwed. Maybe I should start applying the same principle to people. Maybe I already had.
By the time I boarded the 4:00 p.m. flight from O’Hare to Amsterdam Schiphol, I had sore muscles and a hollowness in the center of my chest. I was more than ready to put an ocean between me and my melodrama. I settled into my first-class pod, swabbed the area down with an antiseptic wipe, accepted a glass of medium-grade red wine from the flight attendant, and popped a Valium. By the time I finished my wine and pushed the seat back flat, I was ready to sleep my way across the world. P&M Equity didn’t pay for first class to make me happy but because they wanted me rested and ready to hit the ground running, jet lag or boyfriend troubles notwithstanding. I’m sure that if my boss, Rex Davis, didn’t think it was in his financial interest to have me get some sleep on the flight, I’d find myself crated like a dog and stuffed into baggage for eight hours.
The Valium knocked me out for a few hours. When I woke, my watch said 10:00 p.m. I reset it to Central European Summer Time—5:00 a.m. Close enough to morning to stay awake. I maneuvered my seat into an upright position, signaled for coffee, and pulled files from my briefcase. We’d land at seven, and I was scheduled to meet with hotel management at noon. I needed to brush up on the numbers now so I could spend those first few hours checking out the situation on the ground.
Starting in the 1990s, private equity firms got serious about buying and selling real estate. At P&M, we used a lot of different techniques to monetize property. One was to lend failing businesses capital funds, give them an unusual repayment schedule that required more self-discipline than they could usually pull off, and foreclose when they couldn’t make the payments. After that we took over, reduced staff, cut corners, and sold to the highest bidder. About half the time, we were the last resort borrower that saved a business from going under. The other half of the time, that’s where I came in to evaluate the business and either shake them down for more money or start foreclosure proceedings. I’ve worked with all kinds of businesses, even spent time on a sheep farm one cold winter. But mostly I evaluated the viability of hotels and figured out how to squeeze out the money. Not a hearts-and-puppies kind of job, but it was all strictly legal. Being six two with linebacker shoulders made me a more intimidating paper pusher, but a paper pusher nonetheless. Sean Williams, corporate thug.
By the time the wheels hit the ground in Amsterdam, I had successfully shoved Chicago and what passed for my personal life deep into my subconscious. I had five hours to figure out if the luxury hotel we’d lent half a million dollars on was worth keeping on the books intact or foreclosing and flipping. Then back home by the end of the week to pick up where I left off in my sordid soap-opera life.
DRESSED IN jeans and a button-down, my bag slung over my shoulder, I rode the train from the airport into Amsterdam Central Station and walked from there. The sun was out, and the city sparkled. It took serious concentration to stay focused on my task. Over the past couple of years, despite a general EU recession, the Netherlands had seen record tourism growth. Yet the hotel we had invested in was losing money. I systematically went through my usual routine of chatting with employees at other hotels in the area, wandering anonymously through our hotel, and engaging in conversation with as many of the housekeeping staff as I could find. It all confirmed what I’d guessed on the plane. Business was good. But someone at the top was skimming profits. By eleven thirty I was ready to confront the management. I checked into my room, took a few minutes to swab any potentially germy surfaces with a wet wipe, and changed into a suit. Even though it was 4:30 a.m. Chicago time, I called Rex Davis. For all intents and purposes P&M equity is the CEO, Rex Davis. And since P&M averages almost 20 percent return on investment, no one challenges him. And Rex likes to be kept informed. As he says, working with him was like swimming with sharks—eat or be eaten.
At the noon meeting with the hotel management, I let the excuses roll on for as long as they needed to before laying out my accusations and Rex’s ultimatums. In the end, the owner agreed to our terms. He’d taken P&M’s money and then tried to cheat us out of the return. There was nothing wrong with the way the hotel was being managed, only the way income was being reported to us. Foreclosure was always an option, but in this case, giving them a second chance would make us more money. I got the owner to sign a personal loan at a steep rate of interest to cover what was owed from the past year, hired a local accounting firm to take over the books going forward, and then retired to my room thinking I’d send in my report and book the next flight home.
I e-mailed Rex my report and lay back on the bed to wait for his response. I read a study once that claimed the germiest thing in a hotel room is the remote. I haven’t watched TV in a hotel room since.
Within minutes my laptop chimed—Rex was demanding a video chat.
I sat up, carried my laptop to the table, ran my fingers through my hair, and answered.
Rex’s red face appeared on my screen. His face was pursed like he’d drunk sour milk. But that wasn’t unusual. Some of the junior associates speculated about his digestion. I figured it was just his temperament.
I checked my watch. It was late afternoon, but Rex liked to believe that whatever time zone he was in was the center of the universe.
I adjusted accordingly. “Good morning, sir.”
“You got the fucker to agree to pay? Good. He should be happy we’re not sending his ass to jail.”
“Yes, sir. I think he actually is quite happy about that.”
“Hmmph.” Rex pursed his lips even more.
I’d grown used to reading his face. There was something else he wanted to say. I waited.
It didn’t take long.
“That Portuguese hotel, the one you talked me into lending a shit pot of money.”
My stomach clenched. “The Sabido.”
“Yeah, that Martim guy and his whacko aunt.” He pronounced it to rhyme with Martin, not Marteem with the r rolled out like a sexy purr. I let it go. Rex wasn’t a guy who understood nuance. He continued. “They’re in default. I want you to talk to them.”
“I might not be the best person for that, sir.” I clutched the fabric of my pants, making sure to keep the movement out of range of the laptop camera. “I’m not the one who negotiated that deal.”
“Don’t be stupid.” He waved away my objection with an impatient flick of his hand. “You’re already over there. You know them. And you’re my hotel foreclosure guy.”
“But I don’t know the details, sir.” I was skating onto dangerous ice by contradicting him again, but the last thing I wanted was to pop down to Portugal for a visit with the Sabidos.
“I’ll have one of the girls get you the file.” He leaned forward, and a wisp of hair came loose from his comb-over. “Your friends are fucking me. They’re way behind on payment. It’s time to move them out.”
My mouth went dry. I hadn’t been worried about the Sabido Hotel. Rex had lent the hotel money and proposed his usual one payment a year repayment plan, designed to maximize the probability of default. It was one of his regular tactics for properties he wanted for himself. It frequently worked. People always meant to save for that big annual payment, but things would come up, and pretty soon the bill would come due and they wouldn’t have the cash. Miss more than one payment and the loan was two years behind. Easy foreclosure. But Martim should have known better. I had been sure he wouldn’t fall for Rex’s trick.
Rex went on. It just kept getting worse. “I want a thorough valuation of the hotel. We’ll flip it within six months. I’ve already got a buyer lined up. It’s a win-win, Williams. They get out of debt and we make a nice profit. Let me know when you make contact.” He hit a button, and my screen went black.
I
stared at the blank screen, wondering how I was going to get out of this. If I didn’t go, it would mean my job. Rex didn’t tolerate insubordination. On the other hand, if I did go? It had been more than ten years since I last saw Martim Sabido. Foreclosing on his family’s famous hotel wasn’t exactly the reunion of my dreams.
ONE THING was certain. I wouldn’t be taking the next flight home. I changed back into jeans and headed out for a walk. The sun shone on Amsterdam, city of coffee houses and canals and Anne Frank, with a melancholy late afternoon golden light that did nothing to improve my mood. I turned left, then left again, determined to lose myself in the warren of small streets and bridges.
The problem was that in my head, Martim was here too. What seemed like a lifetime ago, we spent a weekend together in Amsterdam. Winter break my first year in Harvard Business School. Martim was a brilliant undergraduate. We’d been dating for two months when he found a cheap flight and talked me into the spontaneous vacation. I was twenty-three years old, and it was my first trip to Europe. He was nineteen and already a world traveler. I was besotted.
Most of that whole adventure is pretty hazy to me now. We spent our time in cannabis coffee shops. But there was one morning I remembered clearly. We’d been wandering the streets all night and were coming down as the sun came up. My brain had a hollow, empty feeling, as if it had been scrubbed clean. Martim stopped at a bridge over one of the canals and pointed to the water, which reflected the early sunrise sky.
“Beautiful, isn’t it, querido?”
All these years later I still remembered the look in his eyes when he turned to me. They’d been bright with wonder and had softened the longer he gazed at me. No one ever looked at me like Martim had. Like I was precious. I’d loved looking into his eyes. Kind. Even in the bad times he had kind eyes.