“What am I looking at?” Daniel asked.

“You tell me,” Ben countered.

Adjusting the loupe in his eye, Daniel examined the rough gemstone in his fingers. He sighed. Ben was the baby of the family and even if she wouldn’t admit it Ben was Mom’s favorite. Daniel had to work in Uncle Thad’s jewelry shop afterschool and summers. Peter worked two jobs and went to college at night. But not Ben.

Ben was sensitive. Ben needed time to find himself. Ben drank himself out of a handful of colleges. After Daniel and Peter took up the reins of Fontaine & Sons when dad retired, they set Ben up with an allowance. Of course they couldn’t call it that so they stuck Ben in one of their synthetic diamond research labs with a generous budget to keep him out of their hair and mom off their backs.

At first every few months Ben would get a wild hair up his butt and complain that he wasn’t apart of the company’s decision-making. Focused on expanding into Home Shopping Network, Daniel, the CEO, didn’t have time to babysit. Peter, the CFO, pretended to share Ben’s concerns and threw money at Ben until he went away.

When Ben reached out to Daniel with news of a big surprise, Daniel let it go straight to voicemail. This morning, mom was waiting in his office went he got in. Daniel didn’t even finish his coffee before he was back on the road to Ben’s lab.

David examined the rough gemstone closely. Born and bred in the diamond trade, Daniel could have assessed this rock in his sleep. For show he studied it for a long time.

“Okay, Benny, I’ll play along. It’s a K diamond. Once cut I’ll be a nice one carat pale yellow stone. What’s the big whoop?”

“It’s synthetic, big brother, that’s all.”

Daniel scoffed. The insufferable smirk on Ben’s face made him drop his eye piece. Daniel fumbled for the loupe and scrutinized the gem. Then he examined it again beneath the microscope. Flabbergasted, Daniel turned to his brother.

“Yeah synthetic diamonds indistinguishable from the real thing and a tenth of the price to produce as regular synthetics. I’m working on creating large nearly colorless samples, too,” Ben said. “It’s been rough. I can make these small ones just fine.”

Ben poured a glittering handful of uncut half carats into his brother’s surprised fingers. Next Ben poured out sparklingpink diamonds and then added another handful of blue diamonds big as quails’ eggs.

“Peter stopped returning my calls but I figured this discovery earns me a seat at the board table,” Ben said.

With handfuls of stones that will change his entire industry, Daniel listened to Ben’s big plans.