“Great.”
I swung my legs out of the car and let him help me stand up. The dress was tight at my waist and then grazed along my legs to my ankles, but just as I had expected, the slit was long enough to nearly reach my waist when I sat down. I adjusted it carefully, feeling incredibly self-conscious and aware of the eyes that might be on me now. I stepped onto the red carpet that led down between rows of plush velvet ropes and took a step toward the building. As if someone had been watching, the door opened and a man stepped out. I didn’t want to look like I was staring at him, but I needed to get a better view of his face. The lights outside the building hadn’t been completely turned on yet, though I knew that soon they would be as this area filled with crowds of hopefuls wanting to get inside the exclusive, hallowed walls of The Diamond Mine.
The man took a step toward me and I nearly sobbed with relief at seeing that it was not Anthony, the man who had dealt with me while I was building the marketing campaign for this nightclub. He came closer and I saw that this man was slightly older than Anthony and darker in coloring than Anthony’s hazel eyes and light brown hair.
“Good evening,” he said. “I’m Damien. Welcome to The Diamond Mine.”
“Thank you,” I said, accepting the quick, friendly embrace that Damien offered.
“This is truly my labor of love. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.”
He crooked his elbow and I took it to allow him to escort me up the red carpet to the door.
“Do you own this place?” I asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s only been open a few months, but it has already been extremely successful.”
Yeah, because I created the advertising campaign for it.
I thought back to my interactions with Anthony and realized that he had never actually said that he owned The Diamond Mine. I had just assumed that he was and never mentioned it to give him the chance to correct me. Anthony had only showed me pictures of the club as I built the campaign and it felt strange to be actually walking through those images now. I had to admit as Damien guided me through the first large room that the pictures didn’t do the actual club justice. Though he had put effort into capturing the theme and showing me the exquisite custom details that had been installed in the multiroom space, he hadn’t been able to show me just how much they had made the club resemble the network of chambers and corridors of a diamond mine. The walls were textured to look like rough carved stone and illuminated faceted glass embedded within them created the appearance of gems while casting mysterious ambient light throughout the space. I was genuinely in awe as we walked through it and felt even more proud that the campaign that I had created was bringing success to this extremely worthy venue.
Damien gave me a tour of the club, including the bar that appeared to be carved entirely out of raw diamonds, and then guided me toward a particular wall. He reached up and pressed his fingertips into the center of a blue gem in the stone. After a few seconds, the gem glowed brighter and the wall popped forward slightly. Damien tucked his fingertips into a seam that had appeared along one side and tugged, opening the section of wall to reveal a hidden room behind. Damien stepped out of the way to allow me to enter first and then followed me, guiding the wall back into place behind us. A large table was positioned in the center of the room, tall candlesticks along the middle spreading light along the table and into the area immediately around it. I saw two place settings on the table and Damien escorted me to one of them. He pulled my chair out for me and I sat down, allowing him to help me pull closer to the table before he walked over to the setting across from me and sat.
“You look truly stunning tonight,” he told me. “That dress is fortunate to have you to wear it.”
I looked down briefly, feeling flattered heat come to my cheeks.
“Thank you,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
Two men suddenly appeared, stepping out of a door that I hadn’t even noticed, and carried cut crystal glasses over to us. Their movements were synchronized as they placed the glasses to our sides and filled them with wine.
“I’ve planned dinner for us,” Damien said as he lifted his glass in a slight toast to me. “I hope that you enjoy it.”
“I’m sure that I will,” I said, returning the gesture.
I brought the glass to my lips and sipped it, savoring the complex wine as it swirled through my mouth and down my throat. The door opened again and the men returned, this time carrying plates. I watched as the waiter serving me set an elaborately plated salad on the gold charger in front of me and then a smaller plate with a roll and butter to one side.
Over the next few hours we made our way through more than a dozen courses. I was more impressed with each sultry, masterful dish that came out, but Damien seemed utterly casual, as though this was something that he did regularly. The budget for his marketing had already given me a hint that he was exorbitantly wealthy, but now that I knew he was the sole owner of the club and had built it purely out of a dream that he’d had for many years, I was certain that he had even more money than I had originally believed. As he talked about the club, carefully skirting around personal details about his life to make sure that he adhered to the anonymity his contract demanded, I tried to imagine why Fawn would have selected him for one of my dates. He was sexy, certainly, and had a confidence that made him even more attractive, but there had to be a specific reason why she thought that he would be right for me. It occurred to me that she might have chosen him because of his money, creating for me the fantasy of a man who held the world in his hands and could literally do anything that he wanted. I pondered that as I finished the small gilded dish of crème brulee that finished our decadent meal.
Does his money make him a fantasy for me?
“That was delicious,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad that you enjoyed it. Now if you’d like to follow me, I have something else planned for our evening.”
He was walking toward me and I waited until he pulled out my chair and reached his hand to me to help me stand. I rested my fingertips to his palm and allowed him to help me to my feet. I had to admit that I was reveling in this kind of treatment. I enjoyed the attention and the sense of opulence that surrounded us, and looked forward to what he had planned next.
Damien continued to hold my hand as we walked through another hidden panel in the wall and made our way through lantern-lined halls.
“These are our elite lounges,” he explained to me as we passed by a few ornate doors set back in the walls. “They are for our most discerning guests who are interested in a more personalized experience.”
“So, the most exclusive of the exclusive.”
“Exactly.”
He led me toward a door at the end of the hall and typed a code into a keypad concealed behind another of the gems. The door lock clicked and he held the door open for me. I stepped through it and found myself outside, not quite able to believe what I was seeing. A helicopter sat several yards ahead of me, the blades already spinning. Damien stepped out of the building and rested his hand on my lower back, gesturing for me to go ahead. The sound of the blades was too loud for me to say anything to him, so I gathered the end of my skirt up away from my ankles and ran toward the helicopter. We ducked inside and Damien closed the door, dulling the sound.
“I thought that you might like to see the lights of the city from a different vantage point,” he said.