For some reason, the atmosphere in the room immediately turned cold when Danrique sat down.
Suddenly, the joyful laughter had vanished as the children became tense, and Francesca appeared to be
somewhat uneasy.
To remedy the awkwardness, Charlotte quickly lifted her glass. “It’s not every day that we get to have
dinner together like this, so I’d like to propose a toast!”
Zachary then lifted his glass as well to join in. Naturally, he had a non-alcoholic beverage in it.
After Francesca and the children, too, lifted their glasses and cups, they turned to look at Danrique, who
had no choice but to follow suit.
“This is just wonderful! How I wish we could gather like this more often! Cheers, guys!” exclaimed
Charlotte.
“Cheers!”
After clinking their glasses and cups, everybody gladly took a sip of their drink, except for Danrique, who
nobody wanted to clink their drinkware with.
Zachary was about to start eating when he noticed how disappointed Danrique seemed, so he hurriedly
extended his glass to the man.
At first, Danrique was a little reluctant, but he eventually responded in kind anyway.
The two then quietly took a sip of their drink.
“Okay. Let the feast begin!” announced Charlotte excitedly.
Zachary started chatting with the children while they ate. “So what did you guys play just now? The
swing? The slide?”
“The swing!” answered Alpha with her hand raised. “Jamie pushed me so high up that I could touch the
sky! It was really fun!”
“I played the slide, but I was a little scared because you weren’t there to catch me,” uttered Beta in her
childish voice.
“I’ll catch you next time, okay?” responded Zachary gently before suggesting, “Or you can always have
your daddy catch you.”
The man then glanced at Danrique, who had already lifted his head to look at Beta.
In response, the child meekly shook her head. “No, I don’t want Daddy to catch me.”
Surprised, Zachary raised an eyebrow curiously. “Why not? Your father is even taller than I am. I’m sure
he’s more than capable of catching you, Beta.”
“I’m scared.” Beta quickly curled up in her mother’s arms after glancing at Danrique’s hands.
“What’s the matter? Did Daddy do something?” questioned Francesca.
“Daddy told us a ghost story just now. It was terrifying!” chimed in Alpha.
“He even stretched out his hands to scare us,” Suddenly, Beta’s eyes began to tear up.
“I swear that story was horrifying! Even Robbie, Jamie, and Ellie were scared,” added Gamma
indignantly.
After hearing all that, Zachary was stunned and did not know how to respond. Did Danrique really tell the
kids a ghost story?
“Alpha, Beta, Gamma, I’m sure your father was just fooling around. He wasn’t really trying to scare you,”
explained Charlotte, trying to smooth things out.
“Yeah. He’s probably just messing with you guys,” chimed in Zachary since he would rather not have
Francesca fighting with her husband right then and there.
“So what story was it anyway?” Francesca questioned Danrique with an eyebrow raised.
Swirling his wine, Danrique answered without looking at his wife, “What do you think? I only ever know
one story.”
“You mean the one about the victim of a car accident losing his hands?” Suddenly, Francesca laughed
out loud. “What’s so scary about it? It was a ridiculous story!”
Puzzled by Francesca’s unusual response, Zachary and Charlotte exchanged looks. “So you’ve heard of
it?”
“Heard of it? I’m the one who told him that story! He was terrified too the first time he heard it,” replied
Francesca before continuing to laugh.
Zachary and Charlotte had no idea what else to say next. However, they were convinced that Francesca
and Danrique were made for each other. And here we thought she was going to go berserk on Danrique
for what the man did. It turned out that she was the one to blame.
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