Located on Rodeo Drive, this store generated two point three million dollars in revenue every single month. It was where A-list celebrities shopped for red carpet events, where old Hollywood money families had been customers for years, where engagement rings worth more than most people’s houses were just another Tuesday sale. Diana had designed every detail of this store herself. The lighting had been positioned to make every diamond sparkle perfectly.
Running this flagship location was Patricia Wittmann. Patricia was thirty-eight years old with perfectly styled hair and a wardrobe that screamed old money. She had grown up in Connecticut in one of those families where wealth wasn’t new or flashy. It was just a fact of life, like having blue eyes or brown hair.
Patricia had seen her new job as more than just managing a store. In her mind, she had been elevating the brand. She had been bringing a level of sophistication and exclusivity that she felt the company needed. Patricia had genuinely believed that not every customer was right for Luminous Designs, and she had taken it upon herself to decide who was worthy of the full Luminous experience.
Working under Patricia had been twenty-six-year-old Kevin Torres, the assistant manager, who was everything Patricia wasn’t. Then there had been Ashley Chen, the twenty-three-year-old sales associate who represented everything beautiful about Diana’s vision for her company. And finally, there had been Marcus Johnson, the forty-five-year-old security guard who had needed this job more than anyone else in the store.
On this particular morning, Diana had decided to make one of her surprise visits to the Beverly Hills store. She had climbed into her Honda Civic, the same car that always got strange looks when she parked it in front of luxury stores, and had driven through the streets of Beverly Hills toward the store that represented everything she had worked for.
When Diana had walked through the front door of her Beverly Hills flagship store, the first thing she had noticed wasn’t the gleaming displays or the soft classical music. It had been that one of the display cases was slightly crooked, but Diana hadn’t said anything about it. This had been supposed to be an unannounced visit to observe how her store operated when the CEO wasn’t expected.
She had straightened her navy blazer, touched her grandmother’s bracelet for luck, and walked deeper into the store she had designed from the ground up. Diana had headed straight for the centerpiece of the entire store, the Aurora collection. This hadn’t been just any jewelry display. This had been Diana’s personal masterpiece, a two million dollar collection of rare diamonds that represented the absolute pinnacle of her company’s craftsmanship.
The Aurora necklace had been priced at three hundred fifty thousand dollars, and Diana had considered it one of the most beautiful pieces she had ever seen. As Diana had approached the Aurora display, Patricia had noticed her and walked over with what appeared to be a friendly smile. But if you had looked closely, you could have seen that Patricia’s smile hadn’t quite reached her eyes.