Secretly Mine
Chapter 79: Gem Shopping

Chapter 79: Gem Shopping

After lunch, Christian took me to the gem mine in the mountains. It was located not too far from where we went horseback riding, and only a relatively short drive from the restaurant.

In the car, Christian’s hand never left my thigh.

"CEO Vittoria, don’t you know it’s against the code of conduct to feel up your employees," I said, lifting my brow.

He smirked, running his hand from my thigh up to my breasts. "You’re welcome to report me to HR."

I pretended to be appalled, "Oh, I will. I’ll make such a big deal out of it and sue you for all of your assets!"

Instead of being scared and begging for forgiveness, he leaned over even closer to me, "You can have it all. Take whatever you want, as long as it means I can have another night with you."

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t hide the growing smile on my lips. He always seemed to know exactly what to say to make my heart flutter.

"Well, since you’re so sincere, I suppose I could let it slide this once," I blushed.

-

When we finally arrived at the mine I was surprised to see how build up this place was. I was expecting to see a cave or deep hole in the ground, but instead we walked into a very large building that reminded me of a cathedral.

"This is one of the main economic resources on this island. They have put great care into developing this area," explained Christian. "Only certain people are allowed to be here."

His words were quickly made evident as we approached the front gates.

"Who are you? Are you authorized to be here?" a guard stepped over and asked.

Christian quickly pulled out an ID out of his wallet, "Yes, I have authorization, this is my ID."

The guard accepted the ID and went back to his post to verify it before allowing us in. It only took him a few minutes to verify Christian’s identity.

"Thank you for waiting, you may proceed," said the guard as he handed back Christian’s ID.

We walked inside, where I was even more surprised. Rows upon rows of gems were lined up inside secure glass cases. The biggest difference was that the smallest ones were the size of golf balls, and some were even larger than a watermelon.

"Pretty amazing, isn’t it?" smiled Christian. He led me over to the counter to take a closer look. "Not only is the sheer size unbelievable, but the quality of the stone is exceptional."

At the counter, a worker greeted us warmly, "Welcome to the Emporium. Is there anything in particular that you’re looking for today?"

Christian glanced over at me to answer, catching me slightly off guard, "Oh, um, yes!"

I quickly pictured some of Yulia’s designs, trying to envision what sort of gems would fit. Since the main stone of the collection would be a blue sapphire, I wanted to keep things simple.

"I would like to see any diamonds and black diamonds you have, please. Oh, and sapphires, too."

The worker nodded and motioned for me to follow him to a different glass case, further inside the building.

This case contained hundreds of different sapphires, all in different shapes and sizes. There were so many that I felt slightly overwhelmed and looked over to Christian.

"The sapphires that I told you about before were purchased here. Feel free to pick out anything that stands out to you. Even if they don’t get used in the season launch, I’m sure we’ll be able to use them elsewhere."

I nodded and began thinking to myself. If the launch goes successfully, the new trend will be sapphire jewelry. That would mean all of the jewelers will fight to obtain sapphires, so buying a few extra’s now could be seen as an investment.

Carefully, I inspected every sapphire in the case, looking for the ones that stood out to me the most. Although I wasn’t an expert in gemstones, they were all of exceptional quality, so any choice would work.

"In that case, I choose these five," I pointed to the ones I liked the most.

The worker gave me an astonished look before quickly resuming his normal expression. "These are wonderful choices, Miss. You have a keen eye for clarity."

He picked the five large sapphires that I pointed out and placed them on a padded tray. "Please follow me to the next display case."

The next display was a bit smaller than the ones with the sapphires and was filled with thousands of diamonds.

"All of the diamonds in the top row are FL (flawless), and the ones below are all above VS2 grade. You’ll see a few variations in color, too."

The diamonds were a lot smaller in size than the sapphires, and all of them sparkled brilliantly. These were a bit more difficult for me to pick out, so I focused on choosing the ones that were graded the best.

I specifically went for the smaller ones since the diamonds were meant as accent stones. "I’ll take fifty of these FL grade small ones, and ten of these slightly larger ones."

This time, the worker couldn’t hold back and looked at me with shock, "Forgive me, I must have misheard. Did you ask for fifty?"

I glanced over at Christian to make sure I didn’t go overboard. He smiled at me and turned to the worker, "You’re right. Let’s get one hundred, throw in a few of these large ones, they’re about five carats, right?"

The worker trembled slightly before nodding, "Yes, these over here are five carats and are the best grade with no imperfections."

"Perfect, I’ll take five," said Christian without blinking.

"Y..yes, of course, sir. One hundred of the smaller flawless, ten of the one carat, and five of the five carat," he reiterated and quickly got to work, counting all of the small diamonds.

This same process continued over at the next counter, where the more rare, black diamonds were. We ended up buying fifty black diamonds before walking over to the register to pay for everything.

"Your total for everything today will be six million, three hundred and fifty-eight thousand," the worker said in a progressively quieter voice.

Even I was slightly taken aback at the price and looked over at Christian. He didn’t seem phased one bit, and simply handed over his card as if he was buying a coffee.

"You really could have gotten more," he said, looking down at me.

My eyes widened, and I shook my head, "No, it’s okay. I’ve already purchased more than what we need. I’ll send pictures of everything to Yulia later, I’m sure she will be excited to see the high-quality gems."

After the transaction was finalized, we took the secure briefcase that was filled with our purchased gems and made our way back to the hotel.

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