1 The Encounter

Hi peeps! I'm reposting this story from my Wattpad account (@xBookLover02) I hope you guys like it. I've been a fan of Shawn Mendes for five years now, and I love the guy. The Shawn Mendes in this book doesn't act like the Shawn Mendes we know at all. I hope you enjoy it! Xx

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Elizabeth's POV

When the plane starts to land in Amsterdam, I look away before I get dizzy or nauseous, whatever comes first. As we land, a little girl starts to scream. Can't she just shut up?

I leave the plane as fast as I can, leaving all the irritating people behind.

My suitcase is on the escalator-thing, I don't know what it's called, but that's what my father always calls it. I grab my two suitcases and head out of the airport to find a cab that will bring me to The Hague.

'I could've just picked you up.' my friend says. 'You're going to pay a shit load of money on that cab.'

'Nah, I'm good. Thanks.' I say when the cab takes off.

The cab stops at the door of the building where I live. The doorman greets me and takes my suitcases from me as I find my way to the elevator. I open the door of my apartment and thank the doorman for carrying my suitcases. He always does that when I return from a trip, no matter how many times I told him I could carry them myself.

As soon as I enter the hallway I smell the delicious food my father is cooking.

'Oh my god, dad! I missed you so much.' I scream when I run into the kitchen.

'No you didn't.' He says calmly with his thick Scottish accent.

'Yes, I did.' I shriek.

'You can't really miss someone who's been in your life forever and is certainly not leaving anytime soon.'

'I went to the Bahamas for a month, so yes, I've missed you, even if you're not leaving.' I say letting go of my dad's shoulders.

'Whatever.' He says as he turns to the stove.

I give him a kiss on his cheek before I leave the kitchen so I can shove my full suitcase in my closet. I don't bother unpacking it, I will deal with that mess later, it's not like I'm going to need those clothes anytime soon.

When I'm done shoving my suitcase in the closet, I take a look around my room. It looks different, really different. My bed is still in the same place, next to the wall, but my bedside table has been pushed against the wall. The mirrors on my closet are full of dust, and I realize that I really need to clean them... soon.

'Dinner is ready!' My dad screams from the kitchen as if the whole building needs to hear him.

He has two plates in his hands and sets it on the coffee table in the living room. He taps on the space next to him where he wants me to sit down. He grabs the remote and turns the television on.

I guess the dinner table in the living room is just for show.

My dad made his amazing Risotto with mushrooms and cheese, my favourite. He turns on Netflix and chooses the series that we always watch together.

'This is the last episode.' He says.

'Then I don't want to watch it.' I respond.

'Fine. I still don't get why, to be honest.' He says with a ridiculous face.

'I don't want it to end. You know I never watch the ending of things, films, series, anime, it doesn't matter. I don't want it to end, so I don't watch the ending. It's as simple as that.'

'Yes, you also did that as a child and it's ridiculous. The last ten minutes of the movie, you just walk off. Lucifer still thinks it's stupid, so does Adriana.'

'Lucifer is stupid, so is Adriana. She is the definition of stupid. And by the way, I still don't get why you and mum named Lucifer that.' I say.

'We liked it, I don't really know why.' He stops to think for a minute, 'Doesn't really matter, but you could be a little nicer to your siblings.' He says finally.

'Yeah, sure dad. Anyway, can you please stay the night?' I ask with puppy eyes.

'For fuck sake Liz, you're twenty-two! And Sheila asked me to come home tonight because she knew you were going to ask me this.'

'Well, I don't really care what Sheila asked you! She can come over, and we'll call it a slumber party.' I say with the biggest smile ever.

My father stares at me blankly.

'Come on, you're my dad and I've missed you. Please stay? The guest room is always ready.' I say, pointing at the hallway.

'If you have a wee bit more respect for Sheila, I will stay the night.' He gives in.

I apologize for the disrespect toward my new mum and hug him tightly before I walk to the kitchen to do the dishes.

Honestly, I do like Sheila and I love her for the way she treats my dad, but I also miss my dad very much. He spends most of his free time with her, and yes that sometimes makes me jealous.

'Oh and one thing.' My dad screams from the living room.

'Yes, dad?'

'Tomorrow you'll be cooking your own dinner.'

'I'll just order takeout.' I whisper.

'No takeout!' He screams again.

If my neighbours don't start complaining soon about my dad screaming every time he comes over, I might start thinking they're all deaf.

-

The next morning my alarm goes off at six o'clock. I hope it didn't wake my dad. But when I walk to the kitchen on my toes, I see him sitting at the kitchen island with a mug of coffee in his hand reading the paper.

'Morning.' He says loudly, without looking up from the paper.

'Hey.' I respond as I open a can of Red Bull.

'Your habits are so absurd.' He says as he watches me drink my energy drink.

'Why is that?' I am sincerely interested in his response.

'Everything normal people do, you do it differently.'

My dad is like a funny grumpy man, and I love him for it. He is also very sweet if he wants to be, but he can be a little difficult sometimes. One of the things I both hate and love is his strong opinion, which is so frustrating sometimes, but I'm secretly thankful for. He kind of needs to have a strong opinion for his profession too, or else I don't think he would be where he is today.

I'm the only one of his children that followed in his footsteps. Well, a little. My dad is a public prosecutor and I'm a criminal law attorney. I dragged my whole family to The Hague, only so I wasn't alone in the tiny city. My dad loves it here, even though he's still not ready to admit it. My brother Lucifer also loves it, but my little sister Adriana hates it. I don't know why, but she just does.

I'm ready to leave for work when my father calls me again.

'I just want to tell you that I love you and that I love the fact you don't wear dresses or skirts to your office.'

'Thank you? I love you too. I may be joining you, Luci and Sheila for dinner tonight.'

'You will not do such a thing!' He yells after me as I leave my apartment as fast as I can.

The walk from my building to my work is not long at all, and as I walk I look at the reflection of the window to see if my outfit really looks as good as it did in my bedroom. I stop and turn to the window of the large building to close the button of my jacket, but that only makes it look worse. I open it again and look at my suit one last time before I continue walking.

'Good morning, miss McCullen.' The doorman greets me politely.

'Morning, Max.' I respond.

I take the elevator to the fourteenth floor and as soon as I step out of the elevator my colleague starts walking next to me, hitting me with too much information this early in the morning.

'Shawn Mendes is in the meeting room and he needs a good lawyer to get him out of his mess, and I want you to do it. He's Canadian and you're Scottish.' Bakker says. 'He's in meeting room sixteen-B.'

'I don't know why me being Scottish has anything to do with it?' Bakker stares at me blankly.

I roll my eyes.

'Anyhow...' I continue, 'What did he do?'

'I don't know. He's a suspect in a murder case.' He responds with worry on his face.

I walk to my office and dump my bag on the bureau before searching for my notebook and a pen. When I find it, I practically run to the meeting room. I try to remember who Shawn Mendes is, I heard his name before, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

'Good morning Mr. Mendes. I'm Elizabeth McCullen, but you can call me Liz or Miss McCullen, whatever you want.' I look at the man standing next to Shawn. 'And you are?' I ask.

'I'm his father, Manuel Mendes, nice to meet you.' He says politely when he shakes my hand.

Manuel Mendes also greets Bakker before taking a seat next to his son.

Shawn Mendes doesn't bother taking my hand nor Bakkers hand, so without saying anything I take a seat across the table and Bakker does the same, facing Shawn Mendes and his father.

'For me to do my job I need you to tell me exactly what happened, leave out no details.' I say holding my pen close to the paper in front of me.

'Where are you from?' Shawn Mendes asks.

'That isn't relevant at the moment.' I respond.

'Well, I don't trust someone who doesn't want to tell me where she's from.'

Bakker opens his mouth to say something.

'That's a bit racist isn't it?' He says with his Dutch accent.

'Let's go, father.' Shawn says as he stands up.

'I'm from Scotland, Edinburgh.' I say quickly.

I know how important this case is, and I also know I'm going to make a shit load of money when I close it. I also don't want to piss off my boss by losing him as a client.

Shawn sits down slowly and looks at me with a big smile. It's kind of creepy.

I turn to Bakker, and he looks at me with an awkward smile.

'I'm sorry.' Shawn breaks the silence. 'I can't separate the Irish and Scottish accent.'

'That's fine.' I smile a little just to be polite, not because I find it amusing. 'But tell me, what happened?'

'How old are you?' Shawn asks again, ignoring my questions completely.

For fuck sake.

'I'm twenty-two.' I respond.

'You're quite young to be an attorney don't you think?'

'Yes, but I got my degree, and I'm good at my job.' I say.

He looks at me as if I'm an animal in the zoo. It creeps me out.

As soon as Bakker sees me cringe he looks at Shawn's father.

'Maybe you can tell us what happened?'

'I don't know what happened. He refuses to talk about it. He made me pay his bail and told me he needed the best lawyer in the Netherlands, so here we are.'

It looks like Shawn's father is the only one who is raised properly, it makes me wonder where they went wrong with Shawn. I look at Shawn Mendes and he cocks his head to the side a little as if he's interested in what I'm going to say next. Which I know he isn't. It feels like he's mocking me, and I don't like it. I think about my plan and decide to play his game after a few minutes of silence.

'I don't know if I want to be your attorney if I don't know where you're from.' I say boldly.

Bakker looks at me, shock spread all across his face. I know what he's thinking: "If she ruins this case I'm going to kill her." And if he doesn't think that, it's in any case something similar.

'Nice.' Shawn says. 'Toronto, Canada.'

'How old are you?' I ask again.

'Twenty-two. Like you.' A smile appears on his face again. 'That rimes.'

Manuel looks at him with an angry look. He pushes at Shawn's shoulder a little to get his attention. When he whispers something in his ear, Shawn looks annoyed.

'When is your birthday?' He asks again.

I really hoped that he was going to say something interesting, but he continues to play his dumb game.

'Twenty-fifth of December. Yours?'

'The eighth of August.' He moves a little and rests his elbows on the table. 'I'm older.' He winks at me.

I don't know why this man is acting like a fucking child, but it's really pissing me off. I turn to Bakker and whisper something in his ear.

'Excuse us. We need to discuss something, we'll be back in five minutes.' He says.

I stand up and walk to my office while Bakker follows me quickly.

'What the fuck!' I almost scream.

'Hey! Watch it!' He says as he smiles fakely at a colleague passing my office.

'What is wrong with that man child?!' I whisper.

'Well, I don't fucking know.'

'I'm this close...' I show him the space between my fingers, 'at dropping his childish ass.'

'No, you're not doing that. We're going inside, and we're going to listen to every damn thing he has to say, even if it takes all day.'

Without saying anything to Bakker I open the door of my office. I walk to the meeting room and put on a fake smile. When I sit down Shawn stands up.

'I think that was enough for today.' He says, pulling the hoodie onto his head.

His hair is visible at the front of his face, as the hoodie only covers the back of his head. His hair falls onto his forehead and he brushes it back with his hand.

He's kind of handsome if he's not busy being such a dick. He digs his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looks at me with a smile. Suddenly I notice the tattoo on the back of his hand. It's a bird, an ugly bird, it looks like it's designed by a child.

'Are you available tomorrow?' He asks.

'Yes. Is four o'clock okay?'

'Sure.'

Without saying anything else he walks around the table towards the door, his father follows him silently and gives me a friendly nod as he leaves the room.

As soon as they think they're out of earshot I hear Manuel scold Shawn for the way he acted. I rest my head on my hands as I let out a frustrated sigh, when I look at the empty page in front of me I get angry. He just wasted my time for his stupid game and I didn't even gain anything from it.

'You are a lot of fun.' Shawns voice fills the room.

'You're a dick.' I respond before thinking.

'And you're honest.' He laughs.

'I'll see you tomorrow.' He says before leaving again.

He infuriates me, and I want to choke some sense into him. When I'm sure he's gone this time, I stand up and walk to my office again.

The rest of the day I speak with clients, colleagues, go to court a couple of times and try to do as much research as I can on all the cases Bakker hands me.

When I finally leave the office at half-past six in the evening, it's dark and freezing outside. I walk home as fast as I can and try calling my dad when I'm kicking off my shoes at the front door. He doesn't pick up. I call again. After two times he still doesn't pick up and I decide to call the next best person.

Lucifer.

Within two rings he picks up.

'Hello.' He says with a cheery voice.

'Hey, Luci.'

'Whatcha doin'?' He asks.

'Figuring out where to order take out.' I'm still pissed about work, but I've decided to ease into it before randomly yelling at Luci about my day.

'Dad said you can't order takeout. But, if you do, there is this Dutch app called Thuisbezorgd and it's a lot cheaper than Uber Eats.'

'I'll check it out, text me the name. I'm sure you pronounced it wrong.' I laugh and I suddenly feel better.

'How was your day?'

'It was total shit!' I yell.

'I regret asking.' He whispers over the phone.

'Too late, you're going to hear it.' I take a deep breath.

'There is this shit client at my work, and he's the biggest dick I've ever met!' I scream. 'He has this fucking attitude as if he's the king of the world, and on top of that, he wasted forty-five minutes of my precious time with his stupid fucking questions!'

'What did he ask?'

'Where I'm from, how old I am and when my birthday is. He came to us for an attorney, but he didn't even tell us why he needs us.'

'That doesn't sound too bad. I wish someone asked me when my birthday was...'

'This isn't about you Lucifer! He's a dick, and all he did was play games.'

'That sucks. Why don't you just drop his case?' He asks.

'Because he's famous or something. Bakker told me he's important.'

'What's his name?'

'Shawn Mendes.'

'Oh my god! Liz. He's that guy that became a millionaire by creating an app for his father's company!' Lucifer screams in my ear.

'How do you know?'

'Adriana is addicted to him.' He says as if I'm supposed to know what he's talking about.

'What's special about this app? Everyone makes apps these days.' I ask while I open my computer.

'There's something in the code that makes it special. I don't know what it is, but it's worth some money.' Luci explains.

'It doesn't really sound that special.'

'No, it really doesn't. But when his father sold the code that Shawn created he got one billion dollars. Most of it went to Shawn of course, and now he doesn't have to work ever again. And that, my little sister, makes it very special.'

'That's impressing. Maybe he's not as stupid as I thought he was.'

'He is not stupid. I'm sure of that.'

Thank you for reading!

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