It didn't take Emmanuelle long to realize that parking in the city sucked and, as such, her precious car hadn't seen the light of day since she parked it in the garage a week ago. If she couldn't walk to where she had to go, then it was the taxi for her. Emmanuelle was, at this particular moment, making her way down Madison Avenue in search of her new school. Her first class started in fifteen minutes and she was lost. Emmanuelle stopped in front of Emporio Armani and tried to gather her bearings as she searched through her tote for her phone, hoping the GPS software would be more help than the online directions she'd printed out. She was waiting for the results of her search when someone bumped into her.
"Excuse me," a masculine voice called out to her and she glanced up to see a deeply tanned guy somewhere around her age, give or take a few years, with the lightest pair of sky blue eyes.
"No problem," she replied and moved out the way.
He was about to move but then stopped. "Are you waiting for someone?"
"No," Emmanuelle replied negatively with a light shake of her head. "I'm actually trying to find GIA."
"I can help you. My cousin works there," he replied. "I'm Ashton, by the way. And you are?"
"Emmanuelle and it's nice to meet you Ashton," she answered, thankful he was showing her the way.
"So where are you from?" Ashton questioned her as the pair walked down the crowded street.
"Now how do you know I'm not from New York?" she questioned with an easy smile.
Ashton glanced at her, clearly amused, before explaining his assumption. "Well here you are in your Gucci sneakers and matching purse, True Religion jeans with diamonds in your ear, and a uh-" he paused and moved his attention from her closely fitting tank to get a better look at the watch covering her left wrist, "a Dior watch. Something tells me that a native New Yorker with all those high end labels would know their way around Madison Avenue."
Emmanuelle laughed and nodded her head. "You got me. I'm from Miami."
"So what brings you to the Big Apple?" he questioned.
"School. I'm actually attending GIA," she explained.
"Really?" he asked as they stopped at the corner, waiting for the light the change so they could cross. "What do you plan to do with a certificate from GIA?"
"Actually I'd be getting a diploma," she corrected before shrugging and saying, "and my ultimate goal is to design and sell my own jewelry."
Ashton nodded as the two crossed the street and he cleared his throat before saying, "Well here you are."
Emmanuelle looked up and saw the flags lining the street. "Thanks, I've been wandering around for the last twenty minutes trying to find this place."
"No problem," Ashton replied and watched her walk in the building before heading back down the street. He had to drop his purchases off at his loft in SoHo before heading to his go-see. He would have liked to have more time to get to know Emmanuelle but he figured, he knew when she went to school; he could always accidentally (on purpose) run into her one evening and spark up a conversation.
"So how was your first day?" Manuello asked Emmanuelle later on that night.
"It was good. Very informative," Emmanuelle replied.
"Informative?" Manuello questioned before saying, "What happened and am I going to be angry?"
"You shouldn't be," Emmanuelle put out there before biting her lip and letting him in on the information she'd found out about. "I found out that most of the classes I'm going to need aren't really available in New York so I'm going to be flying back and forth, quite frequently."
"Back and forth where?" Manuello questioned.
"Between here and California," she replied and closed her eyes and waited for her father to flip.
"NO! That's absolutely out of the question!" he bellowed just like she knew he would.
"I don't see why you're overreacting like this," she started, her unhappiness clear in her tone. "I'm doing this for my career and it's not as if I'm going to LA. The California branch of GIA is in Carlsbad."
"How long are you going to be there?" he questioned.
Emmanuelle shrugged, "It really all depends on what class I'm taking at the time. Like right now I'm enrolled for the JMA 145L, 315L, the 320L, the 325L, and the 330L. Now the only class, out of all of those, that's in New York is the 145 lab."
"So the rest of those are in California?" he asked in disbelief. "How did you not know any of this beforehand?"
"Well the website said that it was distanced learning and on campus. I thought CB stood for campus based, not Carlsbad," Emmanuelle explained.
"How long are you going to be in Carlsbad?"
"I fly out the day after tomorrow and I should be there for a little over two weeks," Emmanuelle explained.
"That's it?" he asked, his disbelief clear in his tone.
"Yeah, the classes are very concentrated and until I start my comprehensive labs the longest a class will be for me is ten days."
Manuello was quiet on the other end of the line before speaking, "Here's the game plan. You call and make your hotel reservations and then call Merit Jets and schedule a flight plan."
"I was just planning on getting a flight out of Kennedy-"
"I don't trust commercial flights," Manuello interrupted in a tone that said that was the end of that subject.
"Fine daddy," Emmanuelle gave in not trying to go there with her father.
"So what have you been up to other than school? No boys, I hope," he started.
"No boys daddy," Emmanuelle said honestly with a devious smirk. Indeed, she hadn't been seeing any boys and hadn't planned on it. At this point in the game she was looking for men.
Sasha was working on re-sizing an intricately designed 14 karat gold band before looking over at the girl working at the station next to hers. She'd been sharing classes with the woman for the last week and a half and she'd been nice enough. During one of their lunch breaks, they began talking, trying to get to know one another. Under normal circumstances the two probably would not have been all buddy-buddy but being two of maybe five minorities in the classes they shared, a sense of camaraderie developed between the two women. Sasha put her ring to the side so that the heated metal could cool off before turning her attention to Emmanuelle who was appraising the small gold circlet to make sure that none of the detailing had been morphed when she'd reshaped the metal.
"So I'm going back to LA tonight," Sasha spoke lowly, catching Emmanuelle's attention.
"Okay," Emmanuelle replied in a questioning tone as she placed her ring to the side.
"And I was thinking you should come up with me," Sasha spoke. "A couple of my girlfriends and I were thinking about hitting a club or two and you should come with us."
The suggestion was appealing and she would have the next two nights free but she'd told her father she wasn't going to LA. It wasn't as if she was a child and couldn't make her own choices, it was just that her father would find out and she didn't want to have to explain how she ended up a hundred plus miles from where she had said she'd be. Most people would think hey, you're three thousand plus miles away from your father...he'll never know but Emmanuelle knew different. Her father always knew where she was and It was hard enough convincing the man to let her move out of state without security. If he felt he couldn't trust her, any semblance of independence she'd believed herself to have would be snatched away as soon as he could assign her detail.
"I don't know," Emmanuelle replied as she went over the pros and cons of her decision.
"There's only so much beach a girl can handle," Sasha threw in.
Emmanuelle couldn't help but silently agree. She was a Miami girl through and through and so, of course, she loved the beach but living ocean side for so long took away the attraction most tourists felt when seeing a well kept beach. She'd laid around on her evenings off and got a bit of a tan but there was a limit to the amount of sun bathing she would allow herself to do. Skin cancer wasn't something she looked forward to.
"I would but I doubt I'd actually get into any club in LA. I'm only 18," Emmanuelle threw in, trying her best to keep her word.
"That's not a problem," Sasha waved off. "One, you don't look your age and two, you have me. My girl Tonya has a hook up at Crimson so we'll definitely get in."
Emmanuelle thought about it before saying fuck it and agreeing. The two exchanged numbers before grabbing their re-sized rings and handing it to their instructor. With that done, the two left GIA with a plan to get up later for the drive to LA.