All of Zebulon’s earlier bravado vanished. He stood there, wringing his hands, a desperate and fearful look on his face as he struggled to find an explanation.
“Penelope… Penelope, I love you.”
“Disgusting.”
She turned to leave, but Zebulon scrambled after her, blocking her path.
“Penelope, I never wanted to hurt you, I just…”
“Get out of my way.”
She kicked him sharply in the knee. The heel of her shoe made it a painful blow. Zebulon cried out in pain, but as she tried to move past him again, he dropped to his knees before her.
“I love you. I only love you. But… but I wanted a child! You can’t have one, so what was I supposed to do? I had to borrow someone else’s womb.”
The shamelessness of his words was breathtaking. Penelope stared down at him, wondering if this was truly the man she had loved for six years.
She felt utterly humiliated.
“So, in the end, it’s all my fault? My fault that I saved your life in that car accident and damaged my uterus, leaving me unable to give you a child?”
“I wish you hadn’t saved me!”
“…”
“I would have rather been seriously injured, even if it took years to recover, as long as you were whole. Then we could have gotten married, and you could have given me children!”
“And what if you had died?”
“…”
Penelope let out a hollow laugh. “So you want to save your own skin, have a child, and keep me, is that it?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Zebulon asked, looking up at her as if he genuinely saw nothing wrong with his logic.
Penelope took a deep breath. “But Zebulon, what makes you think you deserve all that?”

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