Chapter 170

“Say something! I can’t read your mind!”
Still nothing.
“Theodore!”
He finally stopped at the door, turning to face her. Through a haze of smoke, his expression was colder than stone, his eyes sharp enough to cut.
“Perhaps we should reconsider our partnership. You may not be the most suitable candidate after all.”
Penelope frowned. What did that mean? He wasn’t going to marry her? He was ending things?
“You already know about Zebulon and me
“I have no need to know. Not before, and certainly not now.”
With that, he turned and left, a chilling aura trailing in his wake.
His words froze Penelope in place. The slam of the door jolted her back to reality, her heart pounding in her chest.
A moment later, a banging sound came from outside.
“Penelope! Who was that man who just left?”
“Come out here and explain yourself!”
“How dare you cheat on me!”
“You whore!”
Zebulon’s enraged screams echoed through the house, reaching her clearly in the second-floor bedroom.
But she couldn’t deal with him now. She stared at her phone, debating whether to call Theodore. Maybe he had misunderstood her relationship with Zebulon.
She didn’t love him anymore. They were over. Tonight was just part of her plan for revenge against him and the Sullivan family. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the.net
But… was that what Theodore was really angry about? Was she just flattering herself? Maybe he just found it all too messy and didn’t want the drama. After all, there was nothing particularly special about her. He could choose anyone… Penelope didn’t sleep that night. Just as dawn was breaking and she was drifting into a hazy slumber, her phone rang, jolting her awake.
It was Michael.
“I didn’t dare call Theodore. Is he… okay now?”
“I guess so,” she mumbled.
“He went to work?”
“Yeah.”
Michael let out a huge sigh of relief. “You have no idea how furious he was. He smashed a bottle of wine on the table. The drugs were already hitting him hard when he left. I, uh, I offered to get him an escortea clean one, I promised but he said he was a married man. He said his body wasn’t his own anymore. It belonged to his wife.”
Penelope tuned out the rest of what Michael was saying.
After a sleepless night, she had resolved to let things be. If Theodore wanted to end their arrangement, cancel the wedding, or get a divorce, be made to
so be it: She wouldn’
feet small.

But Michael’s words changed everything.
She couldn’t bear the thought of losing a man like that, of ending their partnership and going their separate ways.
If she couldn’t bear to lose him, she would have to win him back.
With her mind made up, Penelope took a long nap to recharge. Then she got up, dressed to kill, and headed out.
She opened her front door to find a human turd sitting on her doorstep. Zebulon
was slumped over, head in his hands, looking utterly defeated.
She ignored him, locked the door, and started to walk away.
He shot up and grabbed her arm. “I wasn’t seeing things last night, was I? A man came out of your house. Who was he?”
Penelope tried to shake him off, but her resistance only enraged him. He shoved her violently against the door and his hands closed aroundther throat.
“Penelope, how dare you betray me!”
The sudden lack of air made her vision swim. She stared into his eyes and saw,
for the first time, a genuine glimmer of murderous rage.