Chapter 68
Cornelia
Lately, I’ve been going down memory lane.
After the conversation with TJ, when he asked, Do you think we’ll ever get back to what we once were? I knew what he was really asking. Between the lines, it was, Do you think we’ll ever get back together?
I’ve thought about it a lot. And it stirred up plenty of questions of my own.
Can I really move past what happened?
Could I ever fully forgive him?
Does doing it make me weak?
How much was I also responsible for breaking our relationship—maybe beyond repair—by throwing the ring, by saying and doing things I now regret? I had a right to be angry, but still… I drew blood just the same.
How much do I wish who you love was something you could choose? But also… maybe it’s better that I can’t. If you could choose, I don’t even know what my decision would be.
It would probably be him.
And that scares me.
All that has brought me here today, standing in front of this house on Wilton Crescent, Belgravia.
Our house. TJ’s and mine.
We never lived here, but we intended to once the renovations were finished.
One of my core memories is the day TJ told me he had bought it for us.
It was a little less than two years ago. He’d told me he’d pick me up at noon because he had a surprise to show me. When he arrived, he sent me a message to come outside, and I did.
I was expecting to see a new car parked out front—that’s what I assumed the surprise was. He’d been talking about replacing his car for a while. But when I stepped outside, his old Audi was there, and no new car was in sight.
I walked up to him. He was leaning against his car. I greeted him with a quick kiss. Then I glanced around. “Where’s the surprise? Is it here?”
He smiled, shaking his head. “No, we have to drive to get there.”
I frowned—I hate surprises.
“So, let’s get on with it then,” I said, reaching for the car door. The sooner I got in, the sooner we’d get to the surprise, and the sooner it would all be over.
But TJ stopped me, placing a hand on it.
“First things first,” he said, pulling a Hermès scarf from his jeans pocket.
My eyes widened as I knew what the scarf was for. “No, no, and no.” I shook my head.
His smile grew wider. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“For who?”
“No scarf, no surprise,” he declared.
I sighed. “Fine.” While I hate surprises, I would have hated even more not knowing what his surprise was—and he knew it.
He covered my eyes with the scarf and helped me climb into his car. We drove for about twenty minutes, and with every passing minute, my impatience grew.
Finally, he stopped.
“Don’t take the scarf off yet,” TJ said. “We have to walk a bit.”
“Do I have to walk with the scarf on?” I hadn’t even done it yet, and I was already hating the idea.
“Yes, but I’ll help you.” He got out of the car and made his way to my side to help me out.
We walked for what felt like around ten minutes, though it was less, and it felt like we were walking in circles. Later, I found out we actually were. TJ was enjoying having the control far too much, especially since I’m usually the one who has it. Every time he guided me, I felt him grinning.
I almost tripped and muttered, “TJ, I swear to God, if I fall and touch the dirty street, I’m going to kill you, and whatever surprise you have won’t be able to save you from it.”
He laughed. “That’s not going to happen, and we’re almost there. But just in case…” He scooped me up bridal style, cradling me in his arms. “I got you.”
TJ walked a little longer with me in his arms, and then I felt him climb a few stairs and hold me with one arm so he could open a door. He carefully set me down and guided me further inside. We stopped, and he said, “Now you can take off the scarf.”
I didn’t waste any time, and I did what I’d wanted to do since the moment he had put the scarf on me. I looked around, and even without the furniture, photos, or the lavender scent, I recognised the place. I had been there plenty of times before.
I looked at TJ, confused. “What are we doing at Mr and Mrs Chapman’s house?”
“It’s not their house anymore. It’s ours. I bought it for us.”
My jaw dropped. “What?”
“I know I probably should have talked to you about it first, but I wanted it to be a surprise,” TJ said.
“I want this to be our house. I want us to live together here. Of course, it needs some renovations—old people have been living here for a long time.” He glanced at me, looking worried that I might feel offended on Martha and John’s behalf.
I didn’t. “No offence to Martha and John, but they are old,” he added, and I nodded.
“I was also thinking we should put in a lift. It’s five floors, and if one of us ever breaks a leg—hopefully, it never happens—but if it does, it’d be a pain in the arse to climb all the stairs.
It would be practical,” he said in a rush, excited, walking around as I followed, trying to show me his vision.
“We could also demolish this wall,” he pointed at a wall I had always thought was wrongly built—it shortened the dining room and created a weird little hallway—“and a few others to make it feel more open. If you’re okay with that. If not, we can keep it as it is.”
I continued nodding as he went on. “It has five rooms. I know we haven’t talked about it much, but if we had kids, there’d be enough space.
Not that we need to have kids. I’m fine with whatever you decide.
If not, those rooms could be guest rooms, closets—anything we want.
” He was already picturing the life we could have here, and so was I.
He paused, finally noticing I hadn’t said anything for a while. “What do you think? If you don’t want this, it’s fine. Maybe… it’s too much.”
I began to cry—like full-blown crying.
TJ’s face dropped. “Please say something.”
I moved closer to him and kissed him. “I love you,” I said, my words choked with emotion. “They’re happy tears, not sad. I love you. I love the house. I love it all,” I whispered as he gently wiped a few tears from my cheeks.
This meant the world to me—more than I could ever put into words.
I had loved this house long before I ever met TJ. The first time I set foot inside, I was about five or six—I don’t remember exactly, but I know it was a few months before my parents’ divorce. I remember it clearly because that was when they were fighting a lot.
“You trapped me! I never wanted any of this!” my father yelled.
My mother yelled back, “You love me!”
“I did—before I found out what a monster you are!”
The usual. That day, their argument grew particularly loud.
I wanted to get out of the house, so I decided to go to Selfridges.
If there was one thing I knew from a very young age, it was my love for designer items and sparkling things, and Selfridges had plenty of both, plus toys.
When I got the idea, the au pair who was supposed to be watching me wasn’t there, so I went on my own.
In hindsight, I never would have made it there by myself.
Luckily, I ran into some friends of my paternal grandmother.
They recognised me and were horrified to see me walking alone on the streets of London.
They took me home, and I went willingly.
They seemed nice, and the woman promised me cookies.
I hadn’t been taught to avoid talking to strangers or going with them.
Now, I realise how foolish that was, and I should have been taught better.
But since I was always with an au pair, my parents probably thought it would never be an issue.
At their house, I learned their names—Martha and John Chapman.
They knew my grandmother because John was a lawyer, and his firm handled some of my grandfather’s personal matters.
I was mesmerised by their house. It was so unlike mine, Annabelle’s, or anyone else’s I knew.
It felt like an actual home, full of life.
It was a quarter of the size of mine, but I still loved it.
I had that cosy, inviting feel, like the houses you see in Christmas movies.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my house—it’s regal and grand, but sometimes also cold.
The photos in the Chapmans’ home were taken by them.
In my house, the photos were taken by a professional photographer, trying to make us seem like the perfect family, which we were not.
The furniture in my house was all chosen by an interior designer, but in Martha’s and John’s, the furniture was a little mismatched—you could feel it had been chosen by them.
While I ate cookies and looked around their house, they called my grandmother, who then called Anthony to pick me up. He arrived mortified and, needless to say, fired the au pair. And for the next few weeks, he never let me out of his sight.
After that day, I visited their house once every few months.
I loved it there and felt that we had become friends.
As I got older, I visited more often. When I graduated from Edelweiss, it became a routine to go to their house for tea and cookies on the third Wednesday of every month. Sometimes, TJ joined me.
The tradition lasted until two years ago, when they sold their house and moved to L.A. to be closer to their only daughter, who, after years of trying, finally got pregnant.
I never thought about buying the house myself. I didn’t realise I wanted it until it was sold. By then, it was too late, so I tried to push it out of my mind. It never occurred to me that TJ had bought it. But that’s the thing with TJ—he has always known me better than I know myself.
I haven’t been here since the day after I found TJ with my mother—the day before I ran to Paris. That day, when Anthony finally left me alone for a moment, thinking I fell asleep after he tried to console me and coax me into eating, I snuck out and came to the house.
I needed to take my anger out on something. I couldn’t take it out on TJ since I didn’t want to see him. So, I took it out on the house.