CEO’s Regret After I Divorced (Serena and Ryan) novel Chapter 309

Chapter 309: Chapter 309 After Business Hours

Serena’s POV

Dinner with Ryan had the Bellagio’s top floor restaurant all to ourselves. The Strip stretched out below us like a glittering carpet of light, but honestly? I couldn’t care less about the view outside when the view across my table was Ryan sipping his scotch, the amber liquid catching the light just like his intense eyes.

"So," he placed his glass down with deliberate slowness, "those three inefficiencies you mentioned?"

I smiled, taking a sip of my champagne before answering. "First, your customer flow pattern creates a bottleneck by the main diamond display. People naturally gravitate there, but the layout forces them to double back rather than continuing through the store."

Ryan’s eyebrows raised slightly, interest sparking in his expression.

"Second, your sales staff rotates too frequently between departments. I watched three different associates struggling to answer specific questions because they’d been moved from watches to gemstones just last week."

"And the third?" His voice had dropped lower, more intimate somehow.

"Your inventory system doesn’t integrate customer preference data with your design pipeline. You’re sitting on a goldmine of information about what your highest-value clients actually want, but not feeding it back to creation."

Ryan leaned back in his chair, studying me with newfound appreciation. "Most people see a luxury store and just notice the shiny objects."

"I notice systems," I shrugged. "Always have."

"That’s why your designs work so beautifully," he replied. "They’re not just pretty. They’re functional."

Our food arrived—Kobe beef for him, truffle risotto for me—and Ryan smoothly transitioned into business professor mode. He explained his approach to vertical integration, how controlling every aspect from sourcing raw materials to final sale gave Blackwood its edge.

"The margins in luxury aren’t actually in the product itself," he explained, cutting into his perfectly seared steak. "They’re in the story, the exclusivity, the experience. That’s why I’m obsessive about store layout and lighting. A million-dollar necklace in poor lighting might as well be costume jewelry."

I leaned forward, genuinely fascinated. "How do you balance innovation with tradition? Luxury brands often get stuck in their heritage."

"That’s the billion-dollar question," Ryan nodded appreciatively. "You need enough consistency that clients trust you, but enough evolution that you don’t become irrelevant. The trick is to innovate within tight parameters."

For the next hour, he walked me through financial models, market segmentation strategies, and competitive analysis techniques. I soaked it all up like a sponge, realizing how much I’d been running on pure instinct with Dreamland Studio.

"You know," Ryan said after explaining a particularly complex hedging strategy for precious metal purchasing, "most women would be bored to tears by now."

"I’m not most women," I replied, tracing the rim of my wine glass.

"No," his eyes darkened slightly. "You’re definitely not."

The waiter cleared our plates and Ryan declined the dessert menu with a wave of his hand. "Work portion of the evening is officially concluded," he announced, his voice dropping to that dangerous register that made my stomach flutter.

"Is that so?" I asked, trying to sound casual while my heartbeat picked up speed. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Mmmm," Ryan nodded, reaching across the table to trace his thumb across my lower lip. "The rest of the night is strictly personal."

I swallowed hard. "And what did you have in mind?"

"I’ve been thinking about getting you out of that dress since the moment you put it on," he said matter-of-factly, his eyes never leaving mine.

The temperature in the room seemed to spike twenty degrees. "That’s... direct."

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