However, as time passed, she slowly lowered her hands and glanced at the screen again, only to find that the news had moved on to another topic, no longer featuring him.
“What a handsome man! His wife must be so lucky,” a girl nearby remarked enviously.
Except, he didn’t have a wife.
“A man like him probably doesn’t care about his family at all. What’s the big deal?” The boy sitting beside the girl teased her.
A man’s attractiveness increases when he cares for others…
“You’re just jealous!” the girl snorted.
“I think you’re the one who’s jealous, especially of his wife!”
“Yeah, I admit it, do you?”
The young couple playfully bantered with each other.
Penelope was also jealous of the woman who could own him in the future.
Her face quickly filled with tears.
She wiped them away with her hand, took out her cell phone, and called Asher. She needed to inform him that she was leaving.
“Are you having a conflict with my uncle? Are you two fighting?” Asher sounded confused.
“He thinks I’m a habitual thief,” Penelope replied, her anger evident.
“What did you steal? His wallet?”
“I took a sweater. It’s your Uncle Phillip’s.”
“Why did you get my Uncle Phillip involved?”
Penelope stammered, “Phillip seems to be… the man who was with me that night…”
Asher was almost falling out of the bed.
“Are you okay?” Penelope curled her lips, feeling a little guilty.
“I’m… still alive. What’s going on? You need to tell me clearly!”
“I remember a black sweater from that night, it had a distinct style. Yesterday I…”
When she was about to explain further, she suddenly noticed a person standing before her. She looked up and found him there, holding a phone in one hand, casting a shadow that covered her like a hill, and he appeared breathless.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said, his chest rising and falling.
Penelope immediately hung up and stood up. “Why are you here?”
His forehead was slightly sweaty from his search, and he was worried about her. He had tried calling her while on the way but couldn’t get through. He was afraid she would leave and even more afraid she might be in trouble.
“You… come back with me.”
With his presence, he had already made his stance clear.
Penelope avoided his eyes and said, “If you have such a big misunderstanding about me, then I don’t think it’s suitable for us to live together again.”
She was not a habitual thief. Those mundane and even somewhat amusing stories were just the quirky episodes in her tragic life. She didn’t take pride in them, and she had no intention of walking down that path again.
“I’m not looking down on you. I’m just concerned that you might make the wrong choices, just like I worry about Asher making poor decisions,” he explained calmly, his eyes reflecting genuine concern.
“I’m not Asher. You don’t have the right to lecture me.”
Warren felt a pang in his heart. “You’re right, I don’t have that right…”
“You’re Asher’s uncle, not mine,” Penelope asserted, looking away.
“Once you two are married…”
“We won’t be getting married,” Penelope interrupted him.
“What did you say?” He looked at her with a strange expression.
Penelope replied, “There’s no rule that says getting pregnant means you have to get married, right?”
“But aren’t you two in love?” Warren couldn’t explain the faint hint of relief he felt, despite the guilt he harbored for Asher. It was like a smoldering fire, inclined to blaze.
“Anyway, we haven’t discussed it yet. Our relationship hasn’t reached that stage,” Penelope explained.
He wouldn’t pressure them into marrying for the sake of the child. Even if he didn’t particularly like Penelope, he wouldn’t do that.
“Okay, I respect your decision.”
Penelope nodded and said, “You can go back now.”
“You come back with me,” he insisted.
Penelope sat back in her chair and looked away. She said, “I feel hurt, and I don’t want to go back.”
“How can you feel relieved?” Warren squeezed the phone, his fists tightening.
“I don’t know.”
He took a deep breath, suppressing the rising bitterness in his heart. He said, “If you like the sweater so much, you can have it.”
Penelope felt ridiculous. Did he think she cared about that sweater? She didn’t, from the beginning to the end.
“I’ll give that sweater back to Phillip. You can have mine; I have exactly the same one.” He forced a smile that looked rather strained.
Penelope smiled faintly, but then she shivered and stood up.
Her face turned pale. “What did you say? You have exactly the same one?”
****
Penelope didn’t know how she got back. It felt like she had been following him the entire time, silently, like a wandering ghost.
“Exactly the same one, exactly the same one, exactly the same one…”
His words echoed in her mind on a continuous loop, like a broken record.
She appeared to be lost in thought, but in reality, her mind had come to a standstill.
Upon arriving back at their destination, Warren looked for his sweater, handed it to her, and said, “Take a look, is it the same?”
Penelope held the sweater, running her hand over the fabric. It felt exactly the same. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“So, this sweater… many people have it?” She looked up, her eyes clouded with uncertainty.
She didn’t want to jump to conclusions too quickly. The situation seemed more complicated than she had initially thought.
“It’s a limited edition, not many people have it.”
The phrase “not many” left room for the possibility that some people still had it.
Penelope realized how naive she had been, judging the baby’s father only based on a sweater. She chastised herself for her stupidity.
Doubts began to surface in Warren’s mind as he reconsidered his previous assumptions.
He had initially believed that she liked Phillip and had stolen his sweater. However, it now appeared that his conjecture was off the mark, and her secretive demeanor only deepened the mystery.
“What’s the secret behind this sweater?” Warren asked.