The Fake Gemstones

The next day at Lumina Jewelry.

Vivienne sat behind her sleek new desk, aggressively flipping through the company’s recent design files. Page after page revealed nothing but uninspired, derivative sketches that mocked the standard her mother had once set. Finding nothing of value in the glossy pages, she tossed the heavy folders across the polished wood of her desk. They hit the surface with a loud thud, scattering loose papers over the edge in profound frustration.

"Where’s all the creativity?" Vivienne demanded, her voice cutting sharply through the quiet office. "From what I see, they don’t even know the definition of the word 'design'. Are all the jewelry collections that Lumina spends a fortune to manufacture just there to make up the numbers?"

A timid clerk stepped forward from the cluster of hovering staff, clutching a tablet to her chest. She shifted her weight sheepishly. "Miss Veda, Director Kensington explicitly ordered the entire design team to strictly follow Lumina’s original, outdated design concepts."

Vivienne leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. A bitter scoff escaped her lips in sheer disbelief. "What original concept? Show me the genius behind this mandate." She gestured sharply to the scattered, messy files on her desk. "These are inconspicuous rubbish. If you show them to anyone in the fashion and jewelry industry, they will laugh you out of the room."

The clerk shrank back, unable to meet her intense gaze.

"Director Kensington is truly capable, huh?" Vivienne continued, her tone dripping with cold sarcasm. "She fired all the elites in the design department right after taking office. Now, when Lumina can’t even make any of its own quality products, she just sells the leftovers from other companies. She can’t even lose money like a pro."

Utterly disgusted by the rotting state of her mother's legacy, Vivienne pushed her chair back. The wheels screeched against the floorboards as she forcefully stood up. She pointed toward the hallway. "Take me directly to the raw material warehouse."

"Okay," the nervous clerk whispered, nodding hurriedly as she turned to lead the way.

They marched down the corridor toward the elevators. Vivienne kept her gaze focused forward, her mind racing with plans to overhaul the disastrous pipeline. As she neared the polished steel doors, a tall figure stepped into her path. She almost crashed right into Gideon’s solid chest.

Annoyed by his constant presence in her territory, she averted her eyes. She attempted to ignore him and walk straight past, but his deep voice rang out, stopping her in her tracks.

"Wouldn’t you greet someone when you see them?" he asked smoothly.

Vivienne paused. She reminded herself of the immense wealth he possessed. He was a man who could casually afford to drop astronomical sums, and he wielded terrifying influence over this company's survival. Forcing a painfully tight, fake smile onto her face, she turned on her heel to face him. "Yes. It’s nice to see you, Mr. Rothwell."

"Where are you going, Miss Kensington?"

The name caught her off guard. She stared at him, momentarily dumbfounded. He had dug into her background. He knew exactly who she was and her intimate connection to this place.

Gideon took a deliberate step closer, his shadow falling over her. "Where are you going?"

Unfazed by his imposing demeanor, Vivienne let her fake smile morph into a sharp smirk. "Why ask? Should I ask for your explicit permission every time I head over to the raw material warehouse, Mr. Rothwell?"

Gideon’s expression remained cool and unreadable, though a spark of interest flared in his dark eyes. "Great. I want to know what you expect to discover when you get down there." He silently decided to shadow her, falling into step beside her as the elevator doors chimed open.

Vivienne bit the inside of her cheek, irritated by his controlling nature, but she kept her mouth shut.

Pushing open the heavy doors of the sprawling raw material warehouse, Vivienne bypassed the stacked crates and marched straight to the high-security shelves. The female clerk scrambled to turn on the overhead lights, revealing rows of uncut rough diamonds resting on velvet trays. A heavy-duty cutting machine sat bolted to a central worktable, surrounded by specialized metal tools.

Vivienne grabbed a large, uncut piece of ore. She carried it directly to the table and secured it in the machine.

"Miss Veda, what are you doing?" the clerk asked, her voice pitching into a panicked, alarmed squeak. "There is a strict protocol for handling the raw—"

Vivienne ignored her and flipped the power switch. The screech of metal sliced through the quiet room as she expertly guided the rough diamond into the whirring blade. Within seconds, the stone split wide open. She powered down the machine, picked up the halves, and scrutinized the flawed, dull interior of the freshly cut stone.

"Wow. Lumina has even picked up the falsification of gemstones now?" Vivienne remarked loudly, her voice echoing in the cavernous space. She turned to the trembling clerk. "Who is directly in charge of this warehouse?"

"It’s... it’s Director Barnaby," the clerk replied nervously.

"Ask Director Barnaby to come see me immediately," Vivienne ordered.

From the shadows near the entrance, Gideon stepped forward. Wordlessly, he reached out and took the cut stone from Vivienne’s hand. He pressed the exposed edge against the custom ring on his index finger and forcefully ran it across the metal. The abrasive action left a shallow, undeniable scratch on the surface of the supposed diamond. A real diamond would never scratch like that.

Vivienne crossed her arms and smirked up at him, her eyes flashing with challenge. "Mr. Rothwell, this is your girlfriend’s company, after all. Aren’t you going to do something about the adulteration of its gemstones?"

Gideon stared back at her, his gaze intense. "Isn’t this also the company that your mother founded? Making a huge fuss out of this won’t do you any good too. Just resolve it privately," he advised.

Vivienne fell silent, though anger boiled beneath her calm exterior. Resolve it privately? The current market price for genuine rough diamonds was astronomical. Semi-adulterated stones cost a mere fraction of that amount. She was entirely convinced that Camilla, driven by greed and incompetence, had knowingly purchased the cheap fakes to cut costs and pocket the massive difference. If Camilla was doing this to her mother's legacy, Vivienne refused to sit back and watch.

"If it really is Camilla who approved this..." Vivienne started, her tone dangerous.

"She doesn’t know anything about jewelry," Gideon countered swiftly, quick to deploy his protection over Camilla. "It’s completely excusable for her to be deceived by suppliers." He leveled a stern warning look at Vivienne. "Don’t come up with a malicious conclusion so casually if you haven’t genuinely gotten to the bottom of the issue."

Their crackling, tense standoff was suddenly interrupted when frantic footsteps echoed in the corridor. The clerk rushed back in, dragging a plump, breathless man behind her.

"Director Barnaby is here," the clerk announced.

Barnaby swaggered in with an initially confident demeanor, ready to scold whoever was messing with his inventory. But the exact moment his eyes locked onto Gideon’s towering figure, his confidence shattered into a million pieces. The color drained from his face, leaving him a pale, sweating mess.

"Mr. Rothwell..." Barnaby stuttered, beads of sweat breaking out across his forehead. "Why are you here?"

Gideon took a slow, menacing step toward him. "What happened to these adulterated rough diamonds?"

Barnaby swallowed hard. Panic seized his features. He wiped his brow, his eyes darting frantically around the room as he desperately searched for an excuse. He knew Camilla had ordered the purchase. If he threw her under the bus, Gideon would destroy him anyway since Camilla was his lover.

"This... I wasn't the original person responsible for this batch of ores," Barnaby stammered, desperately trying to shift the blame. "Director Navarro, who recently resigned, made the purchase. I didn’t know these rough stones were fake."

Vivienne stepped right into Barnaby's personal space. Her eyes narrowed into lethal slits. "You’re lying."

Barnaby flinched backward.

"Lumina had never seen any adulterated rough stones when Felix Navarro was in office," Vivienne asserted sternly, her voice echoing off the concrete walls. "He worked for Lumina for fifteen years, so wouldn’t he have been fired long ago if he had made such a dumb mistake?"

Barnaby stammered helplessly, caught completely off guard by this new designer's intimate knowledge of the company's internal history. "I... I really don't know about that."

Vivienne pinned him with a cold, unforgiving glare. "From my point of view, are you trying to stand in as the fall guy for someone else?" she asked pointedly.

Gideon gave her a prolonged, sideways glance in silence, highly impressed by her sharp corporate instincts.

At that exact, highly charged moment, high heels clicked against the floor outside. Camilla appeared outside the warehouse door, taking in the chaotic scene.