148 Chapter 148

"P—Please… don't fire me. I… I really need the job. I need to feed Mackie…." Chloe said with a shaking voice. "Y—You can hit me if… if you're angry about last night…."

Vernon was astounded when he saw Chloe begging him with such a shaky voice. He never realized how much fear his sister-in-law had until he stared at her eyes and observed carefully.

? Chloe's eyes were unfocused. She tried to avert her gaze so she wouldn't have to meet Vernon's eyes.

But she remembered that she had to continue staring at him, or he'd cut her salary— or even worse, fire her.

Thus, Chloe mustered all her courage to stare at Vernon's scary hawk-like eyes, despite the fear growing in her heart.

However, as she kept staring, her mental fortitude slowly crumbled, and her eyes welled in tears. After all, Vincent would bully her if she dared to stand up and glare at him. So it made her scared to look anyone in the eyes— especially when she was talking with a man- that she'd get hurt in the process.

…

'She… looks scared…' Vernon thought. 'Am I that terrifying? Why would she get scared of me?'

Vernon knew that he was not the most patient nor kindhearted man on earth. But he never hit her, and he would never hit her no matter how angry he was.

When he was really angry, though, he preferred to break inanimate objects, destroyed a whole house if he could— but he'd never…

'I would never hit her…' Vernon said in his heart as he was dazed, staring at his sister-in-law's teary eyes unblinkingly.

…

Chloe panicked when she didn't get any reaction from Vernon. She thought Vernon was so disgusted by her tears and angry by what had happened last night, that was why he didn't even want to talk to her.

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Her already pale face got even paler as she was consumed by fear and a drop of tear streamed down from the edge of her eye to her cheek.

Her red lips-- that had been slightly chapped because of their wild kiss last night were trembling as she murmured, "S—Sorry, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…."

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Vernon's breath stiffened. His eyes widened when he saw the tears, and his instinct told him to comfort her, tell her he was not mad at her, and tell her that he wasn't all that terrifying.

Because he felt like crumbling completely when he saw her cry…

One of his hands instinctively went up to reach Chloe's cheeks, but he stopped right before his hand touched the edge of her eyes and swiftly separated himself by pushing Chloe away from him.

Chloe fell to the floor as she had lost her strength, "Ah!"

Chloe looked up towards Vernon and saw the man had turned around, only showing his muscular back. She didn't know what kind of expression Vernon made right now. But, she noticed Vernon's hands were shaking for an unknown reason.

Chloe was still panicking, thinking that Vernon was too angry to face her, so she apologized again, "S—Sorry, I—"

"Don't say sorry," Vernon interrupted. "I'm not mad at you."

"Ah— I—I thought—"

"Just cook for lunch. I will wash my face first," Vernon said, and he walked to his bedroom, leaving Chloe alone, still trying to process what happened just now.

'He's not angry with me? Not even a disgust? How so?' Chloe pondered. She never knew what was in Vernon's mind.

But she was relieved that he wasn't mad at her despite what happened last night. She tried to get up after a while and resumed what she usually does, cooking and taking care of Vernon and her daughter.

Vernon closed the door carefully and leaned on the door for a while, trying to make sense of what he was about to do just now.

He didn't expect himself to act upon his instinct, but when he saw her crying, he felt that his world crumbled right in front of him.

In fact, he didn't even know why he would feel this way when he saw those tears.

"Vernon, it's not your first time seeing a woman cry. They did that a lot," Vernon told himself, yet he could not dispel the doubt in his heart. "But, this is not a random woman who cries… it's her."

He couldn't deny that the incident last night gave him a new perspective that made him unable to hate his sister-in-law like the way he used it.

And he just couldn't accept it.

Though, no matter how much he tried to deny it, Vernon could not escape the fact that his heart felt so much pain when he saw her crying.

Vernon gritted his teeth as he put his palm on top of his heart. He tried to endure the pain in his chest and grasped his chest. He dug his nails into his palm until it started bleeding, trying to shift the pain somewhere else as he realized that seeing her cry was too much stimulation for him.

It was so excruciating that his gaze started to blur when he saw the tears. As if… he wanted to destroy the whole world just to make sure that he'd find something or someone who made Chloe cry and eliminate that thing.

Vernon shook his head, trying to wake himself from this excruciating pain, "Don't be an idiot, Vernon Phoenix Gray. Why are you so weak? Just because of a tear, you feel like you want to rip the whole world apart? What has gotten into you?"

"She is one of the main reasons you return to New York for revenge," Vernon told himself. "Now you've been swayed by her charm. It doesn't matter whether you've been in love with her for so long or not. She is still the one who doesn't want you!"

When he was still trying to toughen himself, his eyes noticed something on the floor, black lingerie of his sister-in-law, proof of what they had done last night.

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