The Platinum Triangle

by T V Hartwell

  “I think the performance was supposed to be a surprise until somebody leaked it. Maybe it was meant to be our wedding gift. But if Beyoncé does show up, that will be a pretty amazing coup. I certainly won’t be complaining.”

  “I won’t be either,” Amanda said with a sigh. “It’s just the principle of it. It would be nice to have a say in something as big as who will be performing at my own wedding. Is that so unreasonable to expect?”

  “No. I hear you. I get your point and I totally agree. I guess Camilla’s just excited for you and wants you to have the best.”

  “That’s the problem. Camilla always thinks she knows what is best. What’s best for me, what’s best for my sister, what’s best for everyone,” Amanda said frustrated.

  “Don’t be upset,” Jake said, putting his arm around Amanda. “Maybe she’s just trying too hard. You know? Maybe being involved in the wedding might be her way of making up for lost time. Like her way of showing you how much she loves and cares for you.”

  “Right. You don’t know my mother. She loved me and Alex so much that she sent us off to boarding school so that she could be a traveling socialite, going off to fancy parties in New York and hanging out with the royals in London without having to worry about raising kids. She’s just trying to impress her friends with my wedding. That’s all. If it wasn’t for Nana…” Amanda stopped herself before succumbing to an emotion filled, angry rant.

  Amanda and her younger sister had been sent to Cate School, a boarding school near Santa Barbara as young teens. While they attended elementary and middle school in LA, Camilla wanted them to have the same boarding school experience she’d had growing up on the East Coast. However, Amanda resented the imposition and would have preferred attending a local prep school along with her friends. After Amanda was sent to Cate, Camilla and Rick began traveling frequently, spending more time at their other homes in New York and Paris. Alex, who is two years Amanda’s junior, spent much of her time with her grandparents at Clouds until she too was sent to Cate.

  Jake put his right arm around her waist and pulled Amanda into him, massaging the back of her neck with his left hand. He kissed her forehead. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I guess I’m just in a griping mood right now. I told myself I wasn’t going to do this today. That I wasn’t going to let my mother get under my skin, and here I am getting all worked up and emotional.”

  “What is it with you and me and our overbearing mothers?” Jake said, trying to bring levity to the conversation.

  “I know, right?” Amanda said with irony. “I think having controlling mothers is partially what drew us together. Seriously, I really do. Why can’t they get it? That the more they push, the more likely we’re going to do the opposite of what they want. Your mother tried to set you up with other girls and you stayed with me instead. My mom wanted us to have the wedding in France and I chose to have it here, and I specifically chose to have it right here at Clouds just to piss her off because she didn’t want Nana involved. But it’s Nana’s house, so Nana’s involved. Deal with it, Camilla.”

  Jake laughed out loud. “I love it when you get all pissy. So hilarious.”

  Amanda laughed at herself too. “Oh, you like me pissy? Is that what you want? You want me bitchy, big boy?” Amanda said playfully, getting up in Jake’s face and grabbing his collar.

  “Yeah, I do. It’s very sexy on you,” he said in a low, seductive tone as he held her chin to kiss her lips before they continued to walk past the Olympic-size pool toward the pool house.

  “You know, our outfits are matching more than I realized,” Amanda said with a giggle.

  “I know, but I wear these shorts all the time. I just put them on without even thinking about it. It was pretty funny watching your face after your mom’s comment though.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes.

  “Come on, she was just teasing us.”

  “Oh no, she was just looking for a way to make fun of me like she always does.”

  Jake grabbed Amanda around the waist from behind and began to tickle her and lightly nibble her ear and neck as they approached the pool house. Amanda could feel that Jake was aroused when he hugged and kissed her moments before. Knowing how much he relished a quickie, they attempted to sneak inside to satisfy his thirst and her growing desire to please.

  “It’s locked,” Amanda said, turning the door handle. Jake tried too but indeed the door was locked.

  “I can go back up to the house to grab a key,” Jake said without thinking about the impracticality of doing so. In that moment, he just wanted Amanda’s sex and was trying to be resourceful.

  “No, it’s not worth the trouble,” Amanda said as she grabbed Jake by the hand and led him to the side of the pool house, which was hidden from view by tall hedges.

  She and Jake began to kiss passionately as soon as they were out of sight.

  Jake pressed her back against the wall as they continued kissing and caressing until his hands slid down her body, inching up her dress. As he rubbed his hands higher under her dress, caressing her thighs to reach for her panties, he suddenly stopped and looked at Amanda a bit surprised.

  “I came prepared,” Amanda said with a sultry smile. She wasn’t wearing panties.

  Jake smiled back. “You know I like it when you’re a naughty girl,” he said before resuming kissing Amanda while his fingers continued their journey toward the inner reaches of her exposed sex.

  Burning with desire, Amanda began to unbuckle Jake’s belt and unzip his shorts before he stopped to do the rest, pulling his shorts and briefs down to his ankles to reveal his very erect cock pointing straight up at attention. Amanda stroked it with her hand before pulling Jake toward her and pressing her mouth insistently to his. Jake slid his tongue into Amanda’s mouth for her to suckle as he lifted her left leg and plunged his rod inside of her soaking wet sex, thrusting in a slow, gentle, circular motion. Amanda’s head fell back as she moaned with satisfaction and delight at the sensual feel of her man’s rock hard cock stirring inside of her. Amanda slowly ran her hands down Jake’s back and held on firmly to his round, muscular butt to maximize the sensation of his slow, rhythmic penetration. Jake’s sexual therapy was exactly what the doctor ordered as the stress she felt just moments before was quickly replaced with feelings of pleasure and sweet release.

  Chapter 4 Trust Fund Baby

  Jake and Amanda returned to the main house to find Evangeline in her study looking through her mail. They had only been gone for about twenty minutes but it seemed longer.

  “There you two are. Camilla left a few moments ago. She had another appointment.”

  “Well, Jake and I should get going too,” Amanda said.

  “Okay, dear. Did you two have a nice stroll?”

  “The gardens are as beautiful as ever, Nana. Ferdinand does such a nice job keeping everything so pristine.”

  “He takes great pride in his work as a gardener. He treats this property as if it were his own. I’m very lucky to have him.”

  “His tender loving care definitely shows.”

  “I am so pleased that you two decided to marry here. We have never had a wedding at Clouds in all of my forty plus years of living here. You know your parents were married in New York and Camilla’s family handled most everything, and of course, my dear Billy never made it to his wedding day,” she said in a sorrowful tone in reference to her younger son and the uncle Amanda never met, who tragically died in a skiing accident when he was only twenty-four. “I always hoped that you or Alex would marry here.”

  “This is very special for me too, Nana. You and Grandpa created so many happy memories for us here. The least I can do is to make your dream come true by getting married in your home.”

  “I only wish your grandfather was still here to witness you getting married. He would have been so proud to see his beautiful brown-eyed angel in her wedding gown. He loved you so,” Evangeline said as she reached out to hug Amanda.

  “I kn
ow,” Amanda said, choking up as she placed her nana’s hand to her face before kissing it and saying goodbye.

  ***

  The Climents traced their roots all the way back to Alphonso Climent, a Spanish nobleman from the Basque Country who became a lieutenant to the governor of Mexico when it was still under Spanish rule. Alphonso was one of the original “Californios,” wealthy Spaniards and Mexicans who were among the first to receive large land grants when California was a territory of Spain in the early 1800s. In the intervening years and decades since the original land grant, much of the land the Climents owned had been sold, subdivided, and developed into the many small cities and suburban areas that today make up Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. However, the Climents still owned a considerable amount of property well into the 20th century when Amanda’s grandfather, Alfred Climent, and his father before him owned and operated large swaths of industrial real estate in Southern California. With Los Angeles being one of the biggest manufacturing and shipping centers in the United States, that meant that money from land and warehouse leases rolled in, and by the time of Alfred’s passing in 2001, the Climent family fortune was worth an estimated $900 million.

  After selling off much of their remaining real estate holdings, Amanda’s father Richard “Rick” Climent, shifted gears and built on that fortune enormously as a hedge fund and private equity investor through Climent Partners, a firm he started mostly to manage the family’s own money. By 2010, the Climent family fortune had ballooned to an estimated $15 billion as a result of a series of shrewd and risky investment decisions that paid off, making Rick a darling of Wall Street and one of the top earning investment managers in the country, according to Bloomberg’s annual ranking.

  This all boded well for Amanda. Before he died, her grandfather established modest trust funds for her and her sister, Alexandra. But as a result of their father’s tutelage and success as an investment manager, the size of those trust funds had grown exponentially. By the time she was allowed to begin receiving distributions from her fund at the age of twenty-one, it was worth $30 million, and by the time she was set to take control of her trust fund on her thirtieth birthday, its value was projected to be double that amount. Of course, when her parents die Amanda would inherit billions, but her beloved grandfather set her up well. This is one of the reasons why Amanda felt a special sense of loyalty and devotion to her nana. Amanda viewed her nana as more of a mothering figure in her life than her actual mother, Camilla, which is why she wanted to honor her nana’s wishes about getting married at her home despite Camilla’s preference that the wedding ceremony be held elsewhere.

  Despite being born into such great wealth, Amanda was determined to be different from other trust funds kids she knew, and she set out to establish a career and to make a name for herself on her own terms following college.

  After she graduated from Stanford in 2006, Amanda headed to New York to work with noted fashion designer Alana Dupree, the mother of Amanda’s best friend, Lucy Simon. Alongside Lucy, Amanda mostly worked in marketing and brand management with a front row seat learning the ins and outs of the fashion world. With the benefits of being besties with the designer’s daughter, Amanda and Lucy worked together mostly on the more glamorous aspects of the job like assisting with photo shoots for magazines and catalogs, runway show production for New York Fashion Week, and product placement and display in stores.

  Amanda stayed in New York for three years while Jake remained at Stanford to attend law school. During this time they mostly got to see each other when they were both in LA during holiday breaks and over the summer. Although they tried to see each other as much as possible on other occasions in between, the challenge of maintaining a long-distance relationship began to take its toll, as they both were being increasingly pursued by other people who assumed they were single and unattached. Near the end of the second year of living on different coasts, Jake suggested and Amanda agreed, albeit reluctantly, to a compromise of sorts: they would see other people while maintaining more of a casual, open relationship. Jake’s mother, Jamie, breathed a sigh of relief. She had been pushing hard to get him to break up with Amanda completely and to explore his options especially since Amanda had moved away. Jamie was particularly delighted when the young lovers appeared to end their relationship completely. Although they were still in touch, outwardly their romance seemed to be a thing of the past.

  Chapter 5 Reclaimed Love

  Not long after she and Jake agreed to see other people, Amanda began dating a hot, young, Hollywood producer who was in New York to work on a major film. Photos of them began popping up online and in a variety of celebrity-watching publications; photogenic, young, fabulously wealthy Amanda suddenly found herself the darling of the tabloids.

  Meanwhile, three thousand miles away, Jake became increasingly jealous but stubbornly determined that she’d be the one to come running back to him. As a result, he allowed Amanda to slip away from him without a fight. She mistook his hurt and petty silence for indifference and gave herself over to her new hotshot beau who became bicoastal, commuting between LA and New York, to accommodate their budding relationship.

  However, even though they were no longer officially a couple during this period, Jake and Amanda’s attraction to one another remained unabated, and they secretly hooked up on three separate occasions while both were home visiting LA. The third time they saw each other was over Memorial Day Weekend 2009. Jake was just weeks away from graduating law school. Amanda was supposed to spend that weekend in Hawaii with her new beau, Adam, but Jake pressed her to change her plans and meet him in LA instead. At first, Amanda refused and played hard to get, but Jake begged her over the phone and insisted that he needed to see her. He missed Amanda and wanted her back.

  Amanda was hurt when Jake suggested a year before that they take a break from one another and see other people. However, she still loved him and believed they belonged together and were meant to be, so she gave in and agreed to meet Jake in LA. Amanda subsequently told Adam that she had a family obligation to tend to, so they ended up going to Hawaii together the weekend before.

  When Jake and Amanda rendezvoused at her family’s luxurious beach house in Malibu, he wasted no time reclaiming his girl. That first night together as they sat on the deck near the fire pit with the steady sound of ocean waves crashing against the shore just yards away, Jake finally told Amanda what she had hoped to hear.

  “I know that I’ve acted like I didn’t care that you were seeing this other guy these past few months, but the truth is that it’s killing me. I can’t handle the thought of it any longer. The idea of him touching you and holding you has been eating me up inside the whole time. I let my pride get in the way in not telling you how it really made me feel, but it hurts, Mandi. I love you, okay?” Jake said as his eyes filled with tears. He turned away momentarily to collect himself and put his fingers to his eyelids to keep the teardrops from falling.

  Amanda placed her hands to her mouth, filled with emotion as she stared at Jake in silence.

  “You mean everything to me,” Jake continued. “I tried to bury my head in my studies and in Law Review stuff to keep my mind off of you and him together, but it’s been too hard to do. The last time I saw you I wanted to tell you this, but I held back thinking you’d come back to me. It seemed as though we had reconnected and that our feelings for one another were still so strong, but you walked away again and went back to him.”

  “What did you expect me to do, Jake?” Amanda said emotionally. “You seemed so distant and unaffected. Like you didn’t care that I was with someone else. As if it didn’t bother you. And then you told me you had been dating a girl on Law Review with you.”

  Jake looked down with a sense of shame and regret. “That was all just a front to protect myself and to hide my true feelings.”

  “So were you really seeing someone?”

  “Not the way you think or that I led on. It was never anything serious.” He paused for a few
moments before he continued, “Honestly, I’ve been holding out for you all along. Baby, I’m so sorry for being such a dick and not being more truthful and open with you. Suggesting we see other people was a big mistake. I screwed up. Listened to the wrong people.”

  Yeah, like your mother, Amanda wanted to say but didn’t.

  “You’re all I want,” Jake continued. “I can’t imagine my life with anyone but you. I want you back. I need you in my life.”

  Tears of happiness rolled down Amanda’s face. “You’re all I want too, Jake.”

  “Come here,” Jake finally said as he stretched out his arms inviting Amanda to sit on his lap so that he could hold her. She snuggled herself against him as he wrapped her tightly in his embrace.

  “You know, there’s something I’ve never told you.”

  “What?”

  “When we first met junior year in that game theory class?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I swore something to you in my head that I’ve kept to myself all this time.”

  “What? What is it?” she asked, eager to know.

  “On that day, I swore that I would marry you.”

  Amanda looked at Jake stunned and not knowing what to say. Is this a proposal? she thought.

  “I want you to be my wife, Amanda. I know I’m jumping the gun here a little, but I want you to know that now. I can’t wait to tell you that any longer because I don’t want you going back to that other guy. I’ll make this right and do everything the way it should be done on bended knee, but please take me back and come home. Move back to LA. I’ll be home too after I graduate next month and I want you here with me. Let’s start working on the future we used to talk about building together; as a couple.”

  Overjoyed, Jake and Amanda melted into each other’s embrace, reunited. They made love right there outside on the chaise lounge near the fire, in the dark of night, bathed in the glow of a full moon. Amanda straddled her man and took control of him once again. Tears streamed down her face as she bounced and pressed herself down on his sex vigorously while Jake moaned in submission and pleasure, begging her to keep up her assault. She was determined to keep him under her spell forever. Her first true love would be her forever love after all.