Chapter 31 Is This a Diamond?
She felt a wave of warmth knowing that the man, barely having any money after paying his mortgage, still remembered to buy her a gift.
A tender feeling flooded Paige's heart. The Sacklers placed Paige in foster care far from her birth parents, where she was originally given good care by her adoptive parents. However, after they had their own kids, they quickly stopped focusing on her.
The care and affection Paige grew up with was heartbreakingly scarce.
When she returned home, Raymond was waiting for her in the living room, a velvet gift box resting on the coffee table beside him. Judging by the size of the box, whatever lay inside was bound to be no trinket.
Observing her entrance, Raymond caught her eye and held out the box, "You know, I haven't given you a single present since we got married."
Paige received it with a mix of surprise and curiosity, thinking that the box alone must have cost a pretty penny, "This must have set you back, huh?"
"Just take a look inside," Raymond urged.
Inside the box was a jewelry set, so beautiful that it made her eyes bulge, "Are these... diamonds?"
Catching the light, the set shimmered with a brilliant sparkle.
Raymond seemed slightly uneasy, scratching his nose as he admitted, "They sure look the part, don't they?"
Her head tilted in confusion, Paige echoed, "Look the part?"
Avoiding her gaze, he confesses softly, "They're not real diamonds, but they're quite convincing."
Paige's fingers traced the cool metal; it did feel high quality. Even if not genuine diamonds, it was certainly not cheap.
Raymond was an ordinary guy, working a regular 9-to-5, juggling a mortgage and the spare change in his pocket. But he had still gone out of his way to buy her this beautiful jewelry.
Paige felt a rush of contentment, "I love it. But even if they're not real, they must have cost you a fortune, right? How did you..."
Before she could finish, Raymond chimed in, "The bonus came through."
Relieved, Paige nodded, "Oh, okay. In all honesty, we don't need luxuries. I can't exactly wear something this fancy while working as a maid. It would just be wasteful."
Raymond had planned on coming clean about his true identity with Paige. Yet, her words sparked something within him, a sense that this simple life they led wasn't half bad. For now, he preferred not to shatter the peace or change the way things were between them.
Raymond's mind was abuzz with thoughts. He planned to wait until he and Paige had fostered a deeper connection before revealing his true identity. It seemed like the more appropriate approach.
However, he felt moved to get her a set of jewelry from his safe deposit box as he was walking past the bank today.
Raymond said, "Even if you don't wear it often, there will come a time when you can. Keep it for now."
Paige nodded, closing the jewelry box. After all, it was the first gift she had ever received from Raymond.
Realizing it was getting late, Paige didn't inspect the jewelry closely. She quickly put it away and set about making dinner for Raymond.
Raymond watched Paige, who hadn't noticed anything unusual, and made her way straight to the kitchen. He wheeled himself over to the kitchen doorway.
A regular husband would probably help share the household chores, right? After all, she juggled two jobs and still took care of his meals and daily needs. It wasn't easy for her.
For the first time, Raymond found himself at the kitchen entrance, asking Paige, “Can I help with anything?”
Paige, who was always efficient and seldom needed help, hesitated. But since Raymond had offered, she handed him a box of green beans and suggested, "Maybe you can help by snapping these."
Holding the beans Paige passed to him, Raymond asked, somewhat puzzled, “How do you snap them?”
"You've never done this before?" asked Paige.
Shaking his head, he replied, “No.” And truth be told, such humble ingredients were a rarity at his own dining table.
Unsure of how to proceed with the beans, Raymond was genuinely at a loss.
Paige, watching him, began to doubt for the first time that someone, even with Raymond’s disability, could lack such basic life skills.
She casually picked up a green bean, snapped it into pieces, and offhandedly inquired, “Did you live alone before?”
Raymond, ever so perceptive and vigilant, knew right away that Paige was being inquisitive..
Attempting to sidestep her curiosity, he responded, “At home, someone else cooked. There was also a cafeteria at work, so…”
Paige nodded, “Oh, I see. No worries. It's fine if you don't know how; I’ve got it covered.”
Never in his wildest dreams did Raymond imagine that life would find him, wheelchair-bound, snapping green beans.
Hugging a basket on her lap filled with untouched green beans still in their box and the neatly picked ones alongside, Paige couldn't help but chuckle when she saw how Raymond insisted on having each bean cut to almost the exact same length. After she finished chopping the meat and turned around, she was met with the sight of the meticulously uniform green beans arranged in Raymond's basket, and laughter escaped her before she could hold it back.
Although she had assumed that Raymond would have completed picking all the beans by now, it turned out that he had not even made it halfway through.
"Mr. Carnegie," Paige laughed, "how do you manage to get every single bean to be the exact same length?"
Raymond just smiled, "I didn't actually measure them, but they sort of looked even to me."
Indeed, they did, but Paige still found the scene utterly amusing.
"You know, you don't have to make it that complicated," she said, her laughter subsiding. "It's just about snapping the beans into pieces casually, so they’re easier to cook with."
With that, Paige bent down and joined Raymond in picking the beans. They were so focused on the task at hand that neither noticed how close their heads had come together, an inadvertent closeness, stirrings of something... ambiguous.
As they were close to finishing, Paige was about to look up when she inadvertently bumped into Raymond's chin. He hissed in pain just as she clutched her forehead.
"I am so sorry, that was totally unintentional," she blurted out.
Raymond just laughed it off, "Even if it were on purpose, it would be fine."
His response made Paige so embarrassed she wished she could just disappear.
The thought crossed Raymond's mind that standing here in the doorway of the kitchen helping Paige with the simple chores and engaging in casual conversation actually felt quite comforting.
"I really didn't mean to do that, but I'll be more careful next time," Paige said with a light smile before turning away to wash the veggies.
Raymond didn't leave his spot at the doorway; it seemed he wanted to continue their chat.
After sneaking a furtive look at Raymond and noting his cheerful demeanor, Paige made the decision to pose a question that had been bothering her for a while.
"Your leg... was it a birth condition, or did something happen later on?"
