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Chloe never took a picture of Vincent and Mackie together because he always refused for some reason. So this was a chance for Chloe to secretly immortalize the moment of Mackie spending a fun time with a father figure, even if Vernon wasn't her biological father.

She fished her phone out of her bag. She halted her step, standing still as she aimed the camera at them, waiting for the right moment when they smiled together.

And…

Blitz! Snap!

"Oh damn—" Chloe panicked. She forgot to turn off the auto flash. Now it wasn't a secret picture anymore.

"Huh?"

"Wah?!"

Vernon and Mackie looked over their shoulders at the same time. The flash from Chloe's camera caught them off guard;

"What did you do, Chloe?" Vernon asked.

"Um, Mommy, that surprises me so much!"

"Ah, I—" Chloe sighed defeatedly. She really wanted to treasure this moment for herself. So she'd always be reminded that Mackie had a moment of happiness with a father figure. "I took a pic of you two," she admitted.

"Really? May I see?" Vernon turned around and opened his palm, waiting for Chloe to hand her phone.

Chloe put her phone on her chest, scared that Vernon might delete the precious picture she treasured.

But Vernon smiled at her and muttered, "Don't worry."

Chloe hesitated for a few more seconds before she handed the phone. Vernon checked the picture, and in that picture, he saw Mackie and him looking at each other with wide smiles.

'We really do look like a father and daughter,' Vernon thought. 'Would be nice if I could be her actual father.'

Vernon glanced down at Mackie, who asked, "Uncle! Uncle, let me see!"

'Well, I guess if we did get married in the end, I wouldn't mind being her father. I'd be happy in fact,' Vernon thought. 'I've always wanted to have a daughter as my firstborn.'

He never thought that he'd think of himself as a family man. In fact, he had never thought about marriage before.

Because all he wanted to do was to ruin Vincent and Chloe's life, and after that, he'd just sleep from one woman to another to numb his pain for the rest of his life.

Now that he was living with Chloe and Mackie, he started to grow that feeling of wanting to settle down.

To have a family of himself because he never had one all his life.

The Gray family was not his family. They were merely the people who birthed him, but he never felt any kind of bond with them.

The only person he had a connection with was Chloe, and that also shattered when Chloe talked shit about him in front of his late father.

'I'd love to have a family of my own, with Chloe, Mackie, and our next children later….'

Vernon started fantasizing for a moment, imagining the ideal life of a man with his family. He would be called Daddy or Papa, and Chloe would call him Husband or Honey.

Shit, that felt so fucking good in his head.

"Uncle, Uncle!"

"Huh?" Vernon snapped out of his daze when Mackie kept on calling him. "What?"

"Let me see, I want to see if I'm smiling or not in the photo!" Mackie demanded.

Vernon grinned and shook his head, "Can't do, this picture is only viewable by your Mommy and I."

"Whaaa, that's unfair!" Mackie pouted. "I also want to see my picture."

"Your picture?" Vernon fished his phone out of his pocket and took a quick snap of Mackie pouting while looking up at him. He chuckled and showed the picture to Mackie, "There's your picture. Happy now?"

"Whaa! No! Mackie wants to smile in every picture! Like… cheeze smileee!" Mackie demonstrated by smiling as wide as she could, showing her rows of white teeth with one baby tooth missing at the corner. "Delete that one, Uncle. Take another photo of me!"

"Fine, say cheese!"

"Cheezeeee!"

Snap!

Vernon showed the new picture he had taken, and Mackie cheered quickly, "I love that one, Uncle! I'm smiling wide there!"

"Heheh, I'll keep both anyway."

"Nooo!"

Chloe stood silently as she watched the two bickerings. Her heart was filled with warmth that she might actually cry right now.

After he finished bickering with Mackie, Vernon looked back at Chloe and smiled, "It's a good pic, you should send it to me later."

"I—I will!" Chloe took her phone back and wiped the corner of her eyes so she wouldn't cry at this. She knew it was so small and unimportant for many to have a man bickering freely with their child.

But Chloe was the only one who raised and cared for Mackie, and she couldn't even bicker with her because she felt awkward.

She was hiding a lot of things from her daughter. Whenever her daughter asked this and that about her father, Chloe could only stay silent or try to make up a quick lie that didn't really make sense if one thought about it for a second.

"Well, let's go inside. You two must be hungry," Vernon said. He carefully grabbed Chloe's left wrist and grabbed Mackie's wrist with his other hand. He led them both inside the restaurant.

The restaurant owner and a few waiters were already waiting inside, they opened the door for them, and the owner greeted them, "Good evening, Mr. Phoenix Gray and-" the owner scanned Chloe and Mackie and almost couldn't hold his smile. "-Two gorgeous ladies. I've been expecting you. Please follow me to your seat."

Vernon peered suspiciously at Carlos, the owner of the restaurant. They were friends in university and stayed in contact even after Carlos moved first to New York before Vernon followed a year later.

Vernon always used this restaurant whenever he dated a new woman, and that meant he visited this place a lot. Carlos basically knew his dating history at this point.

And he definitely didn't want Carlos to bring that up in front of Chloe and Mackie. He wanted to put up a good image in front of them.