I received a letter like that every 6 months like clockwork for years. Brian always found me wherever I went and I felt like I would never be able to get away from him, but I vowed to just try to continue on with my life. I did the best I could, but every now and then, when my world was still, I thought I could feel him watching me.
Chapter Three – Meeting Him
We were really busy that day at the hotel so I was more than ready to go home by the time my shift was over. As I was gathering my things, my manager came over to me and asked me the question that would change my life forever.
“Elena, I know you’re scheduled to have Saturday night off, and this is not in your job description, but we are short one person for the Blu Annual Gala that night. Do you think you can fill in?”
The Blu Annual Gala was the be all and end all of social events in Miami. The who’s who of Miami, red carpet celebrity crowd and A-list entertainers were always in attendance. I had heard that the Gala raised at least a million dollars each year for after school programs for at-risk youth.
A server? There had to have been a ton of other people she could have asked before she asked me, I mean, I was a manager! I did not sign up for this job to be a server, but I wanted to look like a team player so I agreed to help out.
“Sure Ms. Parker, I can fill in. What time should I be here?”
“Oh, thank you Elena, I need everyone to be here by 5:30 so that we can go over who is going to cover which tables. Mr. Blu will be here and we want to make sure that everything is flawless for him because, as we know, he can be a real stickler for perfection. Stop by the office and Stephanie will have your uniform for the evening.”
“Uniform? It’s not the same one I wear every day?”
“No dear, the galas are very special occasions and we have nicer uniforms for everyone to wear. Mr. Blu likes pretty things so the uniforms are bit more…dressy shall we say? You’ll see when you pick yours up.”
Sebastian Blu along with his brothers, Spencer and Shane were heirs to the Blu Sierra Hotel chain fortune. At 32, 30 and 27 years old respectively, they were three of the youngest billionaires in the world. You know how there's that saying “their reputation precedes them”? Well, in this case, their reputation really did precede them because everyone knew who the Blu brothers were. They were rich, tall, gorgeous, and loved beautiful women. “Playboy” was the word that many people used to describe each one of them. Whenever they were mentioned in a story in the media they were always linked to the latest, hottest, most gorgeous model. They all definitely seemed to have a type and it was the same exact type, or at least it appeared that way.
I had never seen them in person but gossip columnists always described them as “Greek gods” or “breathtakingly gorgeous” or something silly like that. I could only imagine how inflated their egos must be because of who they were, how rich they were, and the incredible life they were able to lead. Men like that were the ones to stay away from because they loved women too much. I’m sure their eyes wandered to the next pretty thing on a daily basis. It didn’t really matter to me, I just wanted to make a good impression on Mr. Blu if I saw him at the gala and hopefully that would help me get that promotion.
Each Blu brother was in charge of a different hotel and I had read that Sebastian Blu had made the Blu Sierra Miami the six star hotel that it was. Whenever the hotel was mentioned in the paper, a reference was always made to how hard he worked to make the hotel what it was and how dedicated he was to ensuring the guests had a perfect stay. From what I had read about him, he seemed to be somewhat of a workaholic. It was his idea to have a six star hotel and at first his father disagreed, but he insisted. Spencer Blu ran Blu Sierra New York City, and Shane Blu was being groomed to run Blu Sierra Chicago.
Blu Sierra had nearly 400 hotels worldwide and they were different than the others in that they had a variety of hotels from boutique hotels to the Blu Sierra in Miami which was the premier six star hotel for the chain. I had read many articles about the Blu family, and I had also seen a training video that featured their rise to fortune with Blu Sierra hotels.
Their great grandfather Sheldon Blu originally wanted to be a banker but his interest turned to hotels when he noticed that a local 12 room motel could not handle the demand for the area. He built his first hotel in San Francisco, California and quickly learned that rooms were never empty for more than one hour so he realized that he had stumbled upon a potential goldmine of a business. He went on to build several hotels all over the country and when he brought his son, Seymour, into the business years later they expanded all over the world.
Sebastian, Spencer and Shane’s father, Stanford, Seymour’s son, was known for his ruthless business practices and his affinity for flashy cars and pretty women. He was often seen tooling around South Beach with his third wife in the latest luxury car. The rumor around town was that he cheated on wife number one with wife number two who was 15 years younger than him. She was a contestant in a beauty pageant, he was a guest judge and apparently as soon as he laid eyes on her he behaved like a dog in heat, openly disrespecting his wife. I heard that he dumped his wife of 20 years, and the mother of his three boys, three days after meeting the beauty queen. He married her soon after that and they were married for almost five years until he met a 26 year old model who was in town shooting a spread for Maxim magazine. He dumped the second wife for his third wife and he had been married to her for nearly five years. At nearly 31, Mr. Blu’s third wife was younger than his oldest son Sebastian who was 32.
The third Mrs. Blu liked to frequent the spa at the hotel so I had seen her a few times and she was absolutely stunning. Rumors were always flying around that she had the hots for Sebastian and she was just using the elder Mr. Blu for his money. I didn’t have an opinion one way or the other because I had never seen her with either of them, but I will say that the woman definitely had a ravenous appetite for the finer things. Her assistant was always loaded down with at least five or six shopping bags from designer boutiques when she stopped by the spa.
She didn’t seem to be all that friendly because she never spoke to anyone when she came to the hotel. If she needed anything her assistant was the person who spoke for her and I found that to be so incredibly rude, but it wasn’t my job to judge. As long as she was happy with the service she received that’s all that mattered to me. I noticed that her assistant was just as pretty as she was so the rumor about the Blu men liking beautiful women around them seemed to be true.