Chapter 36
Cornelia
It’s incredible how something I remember being mind-numbingly dull can somehow be even more boring than I recall. But that’s exactly what going back to work was. On the bright side, I have a lot of gifts from my party waiting for me to open them as a reward.
The last four days I have spent with TJ. It was probably a mistake, but it’s the mistake I’ve most enjoyed making.
I knew I was having too much fun. I had a room full of gifts, many with diamonds, and I hadn’t opened a single one.
TJ headed home in the morning when I went to the office with Anthony, but he’s coming back to get me later to go get a massage.
I know. I know. I know. I shouldn’t do it, but I can’t help it.
It’s just so easy to fall back into that routine.
I don’t think I can ever move past what happened, but not having him in my life has been torture.
Maybe being just friends is better than being nothing at all.
We were friends once. We can be friends again, though we were never really friends; though he was my best friend.
As I start unwrapping the gifts, it becomes painfully clear I’m only looking for one. So much so, I tear through the wrappings, not even bothering to make a list of who gave me what for thank-you notes—something Anthony is absolutely going to admonish me about later.
When I get to the last gift and see it isn’t from TJ, a wave of disappointment hits me.
We weren’t on good terms before my party, but I still had hoped he’d send me something.
This would be the first birthday since I’ve known him that he hasn’t gotten me anything.
Even last Christmas, when things were worse between us, he sent a gift. And I sent him one.
I pick up some of the wrapping from the floor, trying to tidy the living room a little—which is a mess of gifts, bags, and wrapping paper—and to see if I can still remember who sent what.
But with two hundred gifts, I doubt I’ll be able to recall even half.
I quickly give up and begin actually looking at the gifts.
My attention is immediately drawn to a necklace that looks antique but isn’t.
It has a design resembling hieroglyphs, with a large emerald at the centre, likely around four carats, and it’s from a brand named Darius Jewels.
It had caught my eye earlier while I was opening the gifts, but since it didn’t come with a note from TJ, I put it aside and continued unwrapping.
I examine it closely and see an engraving on the back. It reads: “A jewel for the most beautiful jewel of all.”
Immediately, I know it’s from TJ. Jewel was the pet name he used to call me—more specifically, my jewel. But only sporadically, as I find it extremely cheeky. But he tended to engrave that phrase in a lot of the jewellery he gifted me.
Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the theory of TJ having an evil twin. How else could someone do the sweetest things yet still have hurt me the way he did?