The birds chirp in the distance by the water as a lone man sits on a foggy bridge.
He talks about losing Diana unexpectedly, even when in his mind they were invincible.
Diana, a dark haired, beautiful woman sitting alone in a bus smiles and talks
about letting love go, and if it returns, it was yours to begin with, she continues
saying that she knew she was David’s… They met in high school, David was a senior
while Diana was a freshman. He would drive her and her friend to and from school.
He proposed to her on the pier at Paradise Cove when she was 19,
and even though her parents were against it, saying they didn’t know each other,
David told her that life should be about taking risks. They ended up eloping.
David graduated from architecture school and managed to get a job at a small firm while Diana
supported him as a real estate agent. He spent most of his time sketching his
dream house. She would lay in his lap and stare at him working.
They also had their little differences, like every couple does; like the fact that
he used to throw his dirty clothes in places other than the laundry hamper. They fought,
with her slapping him and then apologizing. But it always ended up with them making love,
that's how much they loved each other. They didn’t have much money, so sometimes
for fun they would go around town and David would show her architecture
of the buildings he liked, sometimes Diana would ask the question, “why are we at a car wash.”
Diana found a perfect land by the ocean in Santa Monica,
and they agreed to get a loan to build it. And then the recession hit. Diana didn’t make
a sale for months and David got laid off. What’s worse is that the bank asked for a demand note,
if they failed to keep up with payments the bank would seize their assets; their house.
David borrowed 5000 dollars from his father but it wasn’t nearly enough,
they needed 50,000 dollars. One night, he wakes Diana up, telling her he has
an idea. They go to the local casino, gambling in hopes to multiply the little money they have.
Diana walks around and comes across a shop for rich folks inside the casino,
she steals some of the chocolate that is there for the guests of the shop,
and finds a sophisticated looking man catching her in the act, but she simply smiles meekly.
A few moments later, she rakes through the expensive dresses and puts one against her body,
pulling down the straps of her white shirt to see how the dress would look around her shoulders.
The same man who caught her stealing chocolate comes up behind her, complimenting her and
advises her to buy it, but she has no money. After hearing this, he offers to buy it for her.
However, Diana rejects his offer and walks away after telling him that it is the dress that is on
sale, not her. He surprisingly smiles. Diana skips back to her husband,
who is fiercely betting on a game of dice, he kisses her passionately,
telling her he is already over 9000 dollars. Before his next move, he brings the dice up to
Diana’s lips and tells her to kiss them, they kiss after winning even more money. Diana sees
the man from the dress shop watching her and she averts her eyes, kissing
David again. The man seems to get increasingly interested, as per his mischievous smile.
Back at home, the happy couple counts their money and Diana rolls around in the bed full of cash.
Their total is a hefty 25,040 dollars, it is intriguing to him that they managed to make this
much just from 5000, and only within an hour. Diana calls David to bed and tells her she loves
him, she clarifies further saying she loves him even without the money.
They make passionate love among the heaps of dollars.
The next day, David and Diana go back to the casino to bet more. However,
it seems as if their luck has run out, they lose every bet they've made.
Unfortunately, they've run down to 4100 dollars. They toss a coin to decide if they should still go
for it; heads for quit and tails for continuing. David tosses and the coin lands on tails.
They bet all their money on red, but as the wheels turn, David bets back on forth on red and black,
finally settling on red. Much to their dismay, they lose all their
money as the dice lands on black. David caresses her hair as she sobs against his hand.
They quietly walk around the casino and find a crowd watching a more elite game of bets.
David asks who the man playing is and one of the audience tells him that's John Gage,
a rich billionaire. He is the same man who offered to buy Diana that dress.
John sees Diana and David and calls out to them, he asks if he can borrow Diana for good luck.
She is reluctant about it but the crowd and David convince her. Its not like the
broke couple has anything to lose now. He bets 100,000 dollars just like that,
which makes Diana smile nervously. He needs a 9 to win, but unfortunately he loses,
very coolly though. It is obvious from his face that he does not consider losses as losses.
John asks Diana if she likes card but finds out she is more interested in dice. So next,
John bets a million dollars on a game of dice, hoping Diana will find it interesting.
He has her be in charge of this game and simply asks her to roll the dice and get a 7.
But before she can roll, he tells her she is forgetting something, he means to tell her that
she should kiss the dice before playing. Diana throws the dice with all her strength
and the dice rolls to a 7! The crowd erupts with cheers, David who is watching laughs widely at his
wife’s luck and hugs the person next to him. John asks if he should quit now, to which
Diana says that she should and walks back to David. She hugs him as he compliments her.
John follows them and introduces himself to David, who introduces himself back. John
asks the couple if they are staying at the hotel but they are just about to leave.
Hearing this, John asks them to stay a fight, tells them he will get a room
for them because the least he can do. The room he gets the couple is luxurious to
say the least, with automatic curtains and a lot of space to move around.
As the loving couple is hugging, there is a knock on the door. Mr Gage has sent
up a present for Diana and invites them to his suite at night where he is hosting a party.
David opens the gift to find the dress Diana was looking at in the shop,
the dress costs 5000 dollars. David’s expressions are a little insecure as he notices
the growing interest of John Gage in his wife. At the party at night, the dressed up couple shyly
walks around before dancing together lovingly. John gazes at Diana from afar and as the
party progresses, he spends time with the couple, drinking and talking together.
Later on after the guests have left, David and John play a game of pool while Diana watches
from the sideline. John talks about David having something he cant have, which means love.
John calls that a bit of a cliche, and goes on to test it. He has David suppose that he would give
him a million dollars for one night with his wife. David and Diana stare at him dumbfounded.
The atmosphere is tense as both the couple reply to the hypothetical
offer with a “I’d tell you to go to hell.” John presses on, asking what if there was actual
money involved, and tells them to think it over. But the couple tells them they are sure and John
gives up, telling them they've proved their point, that real love cannot be bought.
Before leaving for a meeting, he asks Diana for a dance with David’s permission, but David does not
permit it, which John understands, as he says, he wouldn't want to part with her either.
Later that night, the couple tosses and turns, but doesn't seem to get sleepy. Diana talks about the
deal John proposed, at first it seems ludicrous to even talk about it, but she tells him she would do
it for him, for the money that would secure their future. After all, its just her body,
not her mind or her heart that shes giving. They contemplate it while talking about the people
they have slept with before they got married. Luckily, they are able to laugh about it. Diana
tells him that they wont have to say a single word about it for the rest of their lives.
The next morning, David calls his old friend and lawyer, called Jeremy,
and asks him to close a deal for him. He gives him the details of how John has offered him and his
wife a million dollars for one night with her. Jeremy drafts up an agreement for one night with
plausible clauses that protect the reliability of the deal. The agreement is very meticulous,
even stating the couple’s safety if John were to die during that night.
David, with all his insecurity bis his wife goodbye for the night, and as the men leave,
its only John and Diana in the room. Downstairs, Jeremy and David sit beside
a fountain at a fancy restaurant and Jeremy consoles his very quiet friend.
David, who cannot bear the thought of his wife with John runs up the hotel,
banging on the door of john’s suite. The housekeeper opens up, seems as if John and
Diana have evacuated from the room! The maid tells David they are up at the
helicopter and he rushes up, but he is too late, the helicopter has already taken flight.
Inside the helicopter, John takes Diana to his personal yacht. She
enters inside the luxurious room and gets into a beautiful dress and heels laid out for her.
She showers and continues wearing makeup. While her husband, David, sweaty and anxious walks
around the gambling house, lost and alone. Later that night, Diana walks around the yacht
to slow piano music. She sees John outside and goes up to him. He calls her to him and
buttons her dress properly. He wants to show her something,
and as he says this, he presses the button and the lights on the yacht turn off.
He romantically stares at her and attempts to tell her that if she was his, he would never
share her. She stops him from judging David. Diana tells him that she cannot be bought,
and spending the night together does not mean he has bought her. John has a mischievous glint in
his eyes as he offers to toss a coin to decide if they should really spend the night together,
or if he should turn the boat around and drop her back to her husband.
The coin lands, and he spends the night with her.
The next day, David sits inside the hotel room, continuously opening and closing the curtains.
Diana walks in after all night and they walk towards each other,
hugging and sighing with relief. He wipes her lipstick off vigorously
and they kiss, telling each other they love one another.
They return to their usual life, with Diana thinking that this
is the end of it, like a dream. At the office of the mortgage company,
the couple gets the news that their property has been seized by another party. David makes
a fuss at the office and storms out. David seems to be lost in his own thoughts,
even after going home. Diana calls him out to help her in the garden as David asks her
what a Gryphon is, a name he saw in her stuff, on a box of matches.
He confesses to Diana that he is not able to forget about what happened and maybe if they talk,
he would be able to. Diana tells him that Gryphon is a boat, and that John took her there.
But she does not want to talk about it any further and it annoys her when David presses on.
David sees Diana's bag laying around in their room and starts looking through it.
He smiles as he sees an old picture of them, but what he finds next is John
Gage’s card with his number on it. He goes to Diana, who just kept the
phone back in place. David questions her about who she was talking to,
and as she raises her voice, frustrated, he slaps the phone out of her hand.
She asks what is wrong with him and he shows her the card he found in her wallet.
She claims she did not put it there, but he jealously doubts her, stating
that she cannot stop thinking about him. In order to make something right, Diana finds out
the name of the man who bought their property. Turns out, it is John Gage who bought it!
Diana goes to meet with him angrily, and interrupts a dinner that he is
having. And flips over the table cloth. They take the conversation outside and Diana
asks to buy the property back. He refuses to and instead asks her to work for him. she tells him
she hates him and would never do it, but he thinks she doesn't actually despise him.
Diana comes home and gets some wine out. David asks her where she has been and she starts
off by telling him she met Gage. Before she can get another word in,
he throws the bottle of wine against the fridge. Seeing his jealousy, Diana tries storming out,
but David keeps wanting to know what happened on the boat.
He pesters her about it until she tells him that she did have pleasure with John, but he asks her
if it was the good kind. After forcing her for an answer she answers with a yes. He bangs on the
door with anger and then leaves her crying. David goes to his friend Jeremy’s house and
tells him about what happened. Diana calls Jeremy and asks him
to tell David that he can keep the money. A few weeks pass, and Diana gets the news that the
recession has ended. Her manager tells her there's a guy who wants to buy a house for 10 million
dollars, but after peeking out Diana recognizes the man to be no other than John Gage.
Her boss forces her to work on this case and after much persuasion, she agrees.
In the car, on the way to show John a house, he calls Diana a beautiful woman, but she
averts any sort of personal discussion. Inside the house, John asks why she hasn’t been
returning his calls. It is evident that he is not really interested in buying a house, he is more
interested in having a conversation with Diana. They go to the next house on the list. Turns out,
it is John’s house already. He asks her whats missing and she says the house needs life,
to which he smoothly tells her that the house needs her.
She says they cant go down this route, but he presses, telling her he needs
her. Obviously he is smitten by her. Some weeks pass as the scene shows David,
alone in a house, with things that remind him of his wife, like the shoes he used to keep on
the table that she used to get made at. While Diana took up a second job teaching a
citizen class in order to keep herself busy. Much to the class’s surprise,
John exits outside of a rich vehicle and asks if he can sit inside the classroom.
Diana asks if he would like to say something, and he flirtatiously, in front of the entire class
tells her that she is a beautiful and talented woman, and that he is crazy about her.
After the class, he takes her to show her something. Bringing her back home, he shows
her that he got dogs of every size for her. He plays music and asks Diana to dance,
but she refuses, saying she should go. He tells her a story of 30 years ago, in it
he was on the subway after watching a movie, and he describes a girl that he found to be the most
beautiful in this entire world. He explains the love he felt then, stealing glances at her.
He finishes off the story telling Diana that he went back to the subway for 2 weeks hoping
he would run into her, but he didn’t, and to this day he still thinks about her everyday.
He doesn't want that to happen again to him and asks for a dance again.
They waltz on the patio romantically and as they are saying goodbye, they share a kiss.
Back where he is living, David stares at the pictures of Diana that he has taken and
remembers all the memories of them together. But it appears he is still angry with her,
as he tears every picture he has of her. The story takes a turn. It seems Diana has
decided to be with John Gage instead. After some time, as it is raining,
John and her get out of their car, with Diana clad in expensive clothing. David comes to see them,
soaked in the rain and advise John to change his emblem from a gryphon to a cuckoo.
The logic behind it being that a cuckoo doesn't have a nest of its own so it
goes and takes others eggs, the symbol being that John stole Diana from him.
The drunk David falls in a heap on the floor after attempting to punch John.
Diana asks him to help her husband and he gets dropped off home by John’s driver.
The next day, as David wakes up, he sees the statue of the dream house that he and Diana
wanted. He gets a surge of motivation and applies for a job he is overqualified for,
but nevertheless he is ready to do it. He teaches an architecture class enthusiastically,
motivating the students with the example of a single brick.
Jeremy comes to see David after class, and informs him that Diana wants a divorce. If he doesn't deny
it, he will get everything; the land, the money. He asks him where she might be.
Diana and John are at a gathering for the auction of endangered species.
There is an auction for an animal, a hippopotamus starting at 10,000 and after pushing the price,
John Gage finally buys it for 50,000 dollars, but before it is confirmed, there is a voice
from the back of the gathering.