Sparkling Diamonds

I couldn't bare to stay with Benedict any longer after the little issue that we had with Bianca. It was annoyed, at most, that she had to ruin a perfectly fine celebration that the crew was throwing for the lead of the television show they were working on. Damn her.

I fled back to the apartment without Benedict, assuming that it would be a while before he returned home. Probably at Martin's house preparing for the night ahead, I would assume. Leaving me to man the fort until then. I sighed as I walked out of the private elevator into a chaotic mess of people as they prepared the apartment with the sweet smelling delicacies from france and italy.

I almost didn't want to get out of the elevator but I forced myself to, knowing that I would have to prepare myself at some point. I slipped through the people that moved about the apartment, making sure that I didn't bump into them as they set up various decorations that would not crowd the room like they did but enhance it.

I shut the door to the bedroom behind me, leaning against it and sighing. I was starting to feel the pressure of looking my best. Before I came home, I might like to add, I swung passed the hospital to get my cast taken off and replaced with a soft cast so that it wouldn't stand out against my clothing even though the sleeve would cover much of it.

Slowly but surely, I shuffled across to the wardrobe and dropped by things just inside of the door to it. I switched on the light and scrounged around the depths of the wardrobe to find the bag that contained the dress and the shoes. I pulled it out and walked back into the bedroom, switching off the light as I went.

I pulled out the dress from the bag and lay it out on the bed and set the shoes on the ground. I hurried back into the wardrobe to get some underwear that suited the dress the I found yesterday. When I returned to the bedroom, I felt the familiar buzz of my mobile phone to say that I had received a text message.

I flung myself on the bed and pulled out the mobile, seeing that it was from Bianca. Groaning, I really didn't want to read it at that moment. In fact, it was the l\sat thing that I wanted to read or even deal with.

Lying down on the bed and resting my mobile on my stomach, I waited a while before I received another text message. From Bianca, when I looked at the message. I rolled my eyes and opened the text messages that I had received.

It was an apology, something I kind of expected, and asking if she could attended Benedict's birthday that night. I replied with a single word in "no." Upon my reply, I cast my mobile aside and hoisted myself from the bed to hover back into the main room of the apartment.

I looked about, searching for the security guards that would be hired for that night, and found two bulking guys dressed in suits and a young woman dressed in a pants suit. I waved them over to the bedroom door, gaining strange looks from them as they approached.

"Hi," I said, extending my hands towards them. "I'm Benedict's partner, so there should be no alarm in why you should be seeing me here or how I managed to get in."

"Okay?" said the female e security guard.

"A note on the guest list," I said as I shook each of their hands while saying my name to each of them. "Don't let Bianca in. She's the last person that Benedict would want to see."

"Got it," said the woman again, obviously the most talkative of the group. "Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you," I said, closing the door in their faces.

"So that's whose he's dating?" I heard the female body guard say from the other side of the door. "Seriously, I could have done better."

"I'm not paying you to compare how much better you could do in my place!" I shouted, knowing they heard me from the scraping of feet on the other side of the door.

Putting it to the back of my mind, I dragged myself across the room to the bathroom and taking my underwear and mobile phone into the bathroom. I sat myself down on the seat of the toilet, setting my mobile on the bench in front of the mirror. I pulled off my clothing and slipped not he underwear that I had chosen for the dress.

I scrounged around for the simple make-up that I had always kept with me and searched for a deep blue and black that would line my eyes. After I powdered my face with a light foundation and darkened my eyes with a blue eyeshadow. I lined my eyes with black eyeliner and applied a think coat of mascara.

When I finally caught myself in the mirror again and almost fell off the toilet. I gripped onto the edge of the bench and squinted at myself in the mirror. I was almost unrecognisable and paired with the dress, I don't think anyone would even know who I was.

Glancing away, I put my make-up back where I found it and searched for some gold bracelets that I slipped around my wrists and painted my fingernails black. I found a pair of gold and blue earrings that I had forgotten I had and slipped them on.

I glanced at the time off my mobile phone to see that it was nearing seven pm. I then became aware of the smell of the food that was being distributed around the living room. It was stronger then I first thought it was when I walked into the apartment.

My stomach grumbled, hungry. I hadn't eaten since that morning and I had worked all the way through lunch break at work today so it was understandable that I was famished. I pushed on, though. I couldn't afford to take a break now that the guests would be arriving in two hours.

Turning off all the lights in the bathroom, I hurried into the bedroom and stared at the dress that I would be wearing that night. Picking it up, I felt the fabric between my fingers and thinking that I would never have deserved something as beautiful. I had to get out of that mindset, though. The days where my husband control every ounce of me were over. I was my own person now and there would be no way that Benedict would try and control me how James did.

Sitting myself down on the edge of the bed, I slipped on the dress and made sure that it hid as much of my soft cast as possible before I attempted to put on my shoes. I walked around in them, making sure that I could get used to them before the night began because I knew that I would be wearing them all night and there would be no excuses to take them off…especially with Eliza around.

Speaking of which, when I heard the door opening to the bedroom, I freaked out and hurried into the bathroom, trying not to fall over in the process. When I pocked my head out to see who it was, I saw Eliza walking into the bedroom.

"Hey," she said, shutting the door behind her as she walked further into the bedroom and I escaped from my hiding place in the bathroom.

To be honest, she looked stunning. Her black hair was curled around the fringes of her hair and tied into a pony tail that leaned to the side, around her left shoulder. She sported a white and purple dress that was tight around her body but flared out around her waist. She wore little jewellery to match.

"If Martin isn't blown away by what you're wearing, I think I might have to knock him over the head," I said. "Because you look fabulous."

"Thanks," she said self-consciously. "But I'm nothing compared to you."

"Lies," I said as I went to meet her in the centre of the room.

"Hey, have you heard from Bianca since what happened?" Eliza asked, her features concerned.

"Yeah," I sighed, not really wanting to talk about that right now, or ever.

"And?"

"She's not coming," I said. "Security's taking care of that."

"Ahh," she said. "Well, thats unfortunate."

"No, I think it was a blessing, in a way," I said, seeing a confused expression crossing Eliza's features and creasing her make-up slightly. "With what happened with Benedict and all when I turned down going out with him."

"That's understandable but it would have been good to have here her with us," Eliza reasoned.

"I guess…" I said, knowing how much Eliza would miss her friend but there was nothing we could really do about it.

There was another soft knock upon the door, drawing both Eliza and my own attentions to it. I started to hover back towards the bathroom, scared it might have been Benedict and there was no way that I wanted him to see me before the party started.

I was relieved to see that it was the female security guard that I spoke to earlier that stepped into the room and nodded to the both of us before she said, "The first of the guests have started to arrive, miss."

"Do we have an ETA on Mr. Cumberbatch and Mr. Freeman?" I asked her in which I was only replied with a curt shake of her head. "Thank you."

With that, the female security guard disappeared from the room. Eliza turned to me and said, "I can give Martin a call to see how far away they are, if you'd like?"

I nodded in thanks as I told Eliza that I would make my way out into the party and start greeting the guests, making sure that everything was okay while the birthday boy was making his way over. I left Eliza in the bedroom to make her call, saying that she would join me later.

Most of the faces that I saw were ones that I recognised from film and television, but ones that I had never met myself. My acquaintances were limited to those within the BBC, which were celebrity enough.

From amongst the people that started to pour from that poor small elevator, taking their first round of drinks from a small portable bar manned by two bartenders and bopping their heads to the music provided by a DJ, I spotted a close friend of Benedict's that I hadn't met yet, but always wanted to.

He was standing by the bar, leaning against it and waiting for his drink that the bartender was making. The good thing was that he was alone because the last thing that I would have wanted to do was interrupt a conversation he was having the first time I met him. I wasn't that well known…and only a production designer at that.

When I approached the bar to order myself a drink, however, he was the first one to recognise me and begin the conversation. I took this moment of pause before he began to take a quick look at him up close as I had only seen him in photos or in the films he had been in.

He was much taller then I would have expected, having at least another two inches on Benedict. His tight curls clung to his head like he had never grown out of them, making him looker younger then his actual age. His blue eyes sparkled brightly, catching one of the lights from above as he smiled at me.

Accepting his drink from the bartender and allowing me to place my order, I extended my hand out to him and said, "Di. At your service."

"Tom, at your service," Tom said as he took my hand and instead of shaking it, he turned it upwards and kissed the top of my hand.

I felt myself blushing as he dropped my hand and smiled into his drink. I said, "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Same with you," Tom said to me as I accepted my glass of champagne from the bartender. "I can't say that I have heard a lot about you but the reputation that you have with Benedict seems to precede you."

"As yours might, soon enough," Tom said. "The ride that the both of you have been upon has been quite interesting, has it not?"

"So you to have been talking, I see," I commented. "How sly. But yes, our journey since we first met has been…memorable."

A bubbly bright girl with blonde hair and in a pretty green dress appeared from behind Tom and rested her hand upon his shoulder, despite the height difference between them. About to interrupt our conversation, she finally noticed me and smiled.

"Nicole," she said, flashing a beautiful smile. "Diana?"

"Di," I corrected. "But yes, you are correct."

"Ah," she said. "My apologies. It's nice to finally meet you."

"Benedict been talking about me to you as well?" I groaned.

"No, I'm the one that organised this party of yours," she smiled. "I knew that Benedict had a girlfriend, but I wasn't sure in whom. When you introduced yourself to the security guards, they confirmed me of the suspicion I had."

"And she's overhead some of the conversations that I've been having with Benedict," Tom said over his glass.

"Yes, well, there's no denying that," Nicole laughed as she turned her attentions to her boyfriend. "Do you mind if I steal you for a second?"

"Of course," Tom said, draining the rest of his drink and setting down on the bar. He turned to me and gave me a slight nod. "Nice to meet you, Di."

I smiled at him, watching him disappear amongst the moderate crowd. As I watched him leave, however, I saw two guests entering the apartment. The guests that were within the room all became silent as they turned to the two men dressed handsomely in dark suits came into the room.

In chorus, they shouted a happy birthday to Benedict. He was almost ignorant of the good wishes as our eyes connected. He paused mid-step, eyes unable to remove themselves from my dress or my body. Blushing, hard, I turned away from him and sipped at my champagne.

Behind me, I could hear people wishing him well and shaking hands with him as he got closer to were I stood in the apartment. When he finally made it over to me, he slipped his long fingers around my waist and turned me towards him.

He smelled of a strong perfume that suited him well..something royal in his scent. He took my champagne glass out of my hand, draining the rest of the drink, and set it on the bar. With his spare hand, he was about to rest his hand upon my cheek but soon realised the make-up was wearing and dropped his other hand to around my waist, drawing me in further.

"You are as radiant as the sun, my beauty," Benedict said, his green eyes sparkling like emeralds as a smile played around the lips. I knew that he couldn't help smiling and it was contagious because I started to smile widely, also. "I could't think of a more beautiful person."

"You, of course," I retorted. "But I understand what you mean, my love."

"I will stay with you through think and thin," he said to me, planting a soft, sensual kiss upon my lips.

"You will be glad to know that I have found a home in you, Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch," I said, his name rolling off my lips. "And I hope you have found one in me."