"Sarah, it's Diana Mitchell. Emergency board meeting. Now." Patricia had caught the name Diana Mitchell.
And something had tugged at the back of her memory. She had heard that name before, but where? In her panic and rage, she hadn't been able to quite place it. But across the store, Ashley Chen had gone white as a sheet.
She had been frantically scrolling through something on her phone, her eyes getting wider and wider with each second that passed. Suddenly, she had gasped so loudly that several customers had turned to look at her. Kevin Torres had been watching Diana carefully throughout this entire confrontation, and something about her bearing, her confidence, her knowledge of jewelry had been nagging at him. When he had heard the name Diana Mitchell and had seen Ashley's reaction, the pieces had finally clicked into place.
The color had drained from his face as he had realized exactly who they were dealing with.
Diana had continued her phone conversation, her voice carrying clearly through the now silent store. "Yes, I'm at the Beverly Hills location. We have a serious problem." The way she had said Beverly Hills location, not the Beverly Hills store or a store in Beverly Hills, but the Beverly Hills location, had implied ownership, had implied authority, had implied that she had the right to call emergency board meetings about what happened in that store.
Patricia had still been standing there, mouth open, trying to process what she was hearing. The name Diana Mitchell had been circling around in her brain like a word on the tip of her tongue that she couldn't quite remember. "I need you to conference with the entire board," Diana had continued into her phone. "Yes, all of them. This can't wait until Monday."
Other customers had been recording everything on their phones by then. The Blackstones had moved closer, clearly fascinated by the drama unfolding in front of them. Ashley had been showing Kevin something on her phone, and Kevin's face had kept getting paler and paler.
"There's been a serious violation of company policy," Diana had said into her phone, her eyes never leaving Patricia's face. "Discrimination, harassment, complete abandonment of our core values." Each word had hit Patricia like a physical blow.
Company policy, core values. Who had this woman been and why had she been talking like she had authority over store policies? "I'll hold while you get everyone on the line," Diana had said, then had lowered her phone and looked directly at Patricia.
The store had been so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. Customers, employees, everyone had been frozen, waiting to see what would happen next. Even the classical music had seemed to have stopped, though that might have just been because everyone had been holding their breath. Diana had stood there with her phone in her hand, looking at Patricia with an expression that had been part disappointment, part rage, and part something else.
Something that had looked almost like sadness. The sadness of someone who had built something beautiful, only to watch it be destroyed by the very people she had trusted to protect it. Patricia had finally found her voice, though it had come out as barely a whisper. "Who? Who are you calling?"
Diana's smile had been sharp as a blade. "I told you, my board of directors, the people who make decisions about stores like this one, the people who decide who stays and who goes."
And that's when Patricia Wittmann had finally realized that she had made the biggest mistake of her life. The name Diana Mitchell hadn't just been familiar. It had been the name on every company memo, every policy document, every paycheck she had received for the past 8 months. Diana Mitchell hadn't been just some customer who had wandered into the store.
Diana Mitchell had been the founder, the CEO, the woman who had built Luminous Designs from nothing, and who had owned every single store in the company. The woman Patricia had discriminated against, dismissed, and tried to have removed from the store hadn't been just any customer. She had been the customer, the one customer in the world who had the power to end Patricia's career with a single phone call. And Patricia had just given her every reason to do exactly that.
"Oh my God," Ashley gasped, her voice rising with each word as the reality of the situation had hit her like a freight train. Kevin Torres had looked at Ashley's phone screen and had seen the company newsletter photo that every Luminous Designs employee received monthly. There had been Diana Mitchell smiling from the front page under the headline CEO spotlight building dreams one store at a time. Kevin's face had gone from pale to absolutely white as he had realized they were all witnessing the destruction of Patricia's career in real time.
"Patricia, stop. Just stop talking," Kevin had said urgently, trying to save his boss from digging herself deeper into a hole she'd never climb out of. But Patricia had still been completely oblivious to the disaster unfolding around her. She had looked around at her employees shocked faces, at the customers recording everything, at the chaos she had created and had demanded, "What are you all looking at?"
That's when Diana had ended her phone call. She had slipped her phone back into her purse with the calm precision of someone who had just set the wheels of justice in motion. When she had looked up at Patricia, her expression had been serene, almost peaceful, the kind of calm that came right before a storm. "Patricia," Diana had said, her voice carrying the authority of someone used to being heard.
"What do you know about Luminous Designs' founding principles?" Patricia had been annoyed by the question. Here she had been trying to handle what she had seen as a disruptive customer. And now this woman had been quizzing her about company policy.
Diana had reached into her purse with deliberate slowness, like a gunslinger drawing a weapon in an old western movie. She had pulled out a business card and held it between two fingers, letting Patricia get a good look at it. "Diana Mitchell," she had read aloud. "Founder and Chief Executive Officer."
The sound that had come from Patricia's throat hadn't been quite a gasp and hadn't been quite a scream. It had been the sound of someone's entire world crashing down around them in the span of 3 seconds. The business card might as well have been a death ticket for her career. Patricia had stared at the card, her hands shaking so violently she could barely focus on the words, "This isn't... You can't be."
Diana's voice had been calm, but underneath the calm had been a steel edge that could cut through diamond. "Can't be what, Patricia?"
Can't be successful. Can't be wealthy. Can't own the store you just claimed was yours.
The full weight of what Patricia had done had finally been sinking in. She had discriminated against her own CEO. She had tried to have the founder of the company removed from her own store. She had violated every principle that Diana had built the company on, and she had done it right in front of cameras and witnesses.