The Cursed King

"Loriel, you've got a little something on your face," Elise said suddenly. She faked a concerned expression on her beautiful face.

"Huh?" Loriel looked up from decorating his own cake with frosting. "I don't have anything on my face."

He was holding on to his pastry bag filled with blue frosting when Elise came up to him and she was holding one of her own frosting-filled pastry bags. She was a lot quicker in finishing the decoration since she wasn't distracted.

Elise smiled and raised her pastry bag and dotted his cheek with a drop of frosting.

Loriel blinked at the sudden action. His old Elise was meek, feminine, cute... and the current one was playful, happy, and stubborn. Why did she change so much? Loriel was wondering to himself.

He loved the current Elise, just as much as he loved the old one. He just thought she became more interesting by the day and he kept finding out another side of his wife.

Loriel chuckled and took a dollop of frosting from his cake and placed some on Elise's nose. She looked so inviting and appetizing to eat, but he knew that he couldn't say that aloud.

"Hey!" Elise backed up with a slight squeal.

Elise noticed that the usually happy and friendly Loriel was deep in his thoughts. He seemed a bit upset. She wanted to see him smile and so she took initiative to tease him. Her own actions prompted him to smile a little, and even for Loriel to give her some frosting as well.

The two of them eventually chuckled together.

They were acting like silly kids and it was a surprise that Chef Lucy hadn't scolded them for wasting ingredients like this. Not that Loriel cared about the man, he could have filled the entire bakery with frosting if he wanted to.

"We should finish decorating these cakes." Loriel said with a gentle smile. His heart was filled with warmth to the brim.

Elise nodded and whispered to him. "We really should, I'm excited to get home."

"Me too." Loriel wholeheartedly wanted to leave this place and hopefully never return.

He glanced at Lucius who seemed to be so focused on designing the white rose cake that he only left Loriel and Elise to do some of their own cake decoration.

If the object of Lucius' affections were Elise... surely the man would have paid more attention to Elise, right?

The thought of that made Loriel feel a little better. Although he wasn't completely convinced that it wasn't Elise and that maybe the chef was just a perfectionist.

"Chef Lucy truly loves baking and is so passionate about it, that I'm surprised that he wants to give someone a present. That person must be really special since Chef Lucy is giving so much effort to it," Elise said.

"It's impressive, isn't it?" Loriel asked. He glanced at her face and tried to gauge Elise's reaction.

Even if it wasn't Lucius who liked Elise, if it was the other way around then he couldn't do a thing about it.

Luckily, the look of admiration on Elise's face seemed to be more of genuine pride at being Lucy's student and not harboring any lingering affections.

Surely, if Elise wanted it to be Chef Lucy, then she could have approached the man for the same fake-boyfriend request too, couldn't she?

Loriel felt immensely proud that it was him, and not the Chef that got the role of being Elise's fake boyfriend. He was preparing himself to turn their fake relationship into a real one.

Loriel planned to confess his love to Elise this holiday.

***

It was finally Christmas day and it was going to be the day where Loriel would confess his love and adoration to Elise. He couldn't forget the time when Elise asked him if he loved her and he evaded the question.

Loriel thought it was a bad time back then.  Elise recently lost her father, she was weakened from the emotional events and was at a bad point in time. 

Loriel was afraid at that time that she might have only accepted his love back then because she was desperate for someone to love her and was distraught at the loss of her father.

Elise might have not genuinely wanted his affections that time.

Now that some time has passed since then, he thought that this Christmas was the perfect time for him to confess. 

Loriel spent the past few days acquiring expensive and rare ingredients from across the world to cook her the most perfect dishes for Christmas. 

With these ingredients, he was going to cook a sumptuous Christmas dinner to make Elise enjoy her first Christmas spent with him.

Although Daniel York died this year and Elise felt that there was no one around her anymore, Elise needed to know that Loriel was there for her and it was not because he was a kind man.

Loriel wasn't like this to any other people.  He was only doing it because it was her.

She was the love of his life. Everything he did, he did it for her out of love.

Loriel was going to confess his true feelings for her. After thinking about it for a long time, he decided to confess his love for Elise and make her his. He would not disclose their past relationship until Elise was ready. 

This was finally the day. Ever since he saw her outside his favorite cafe, all Loriel ever wanted to do was declare his love to her and show how much he truly felt sorry for being a terrible husband.

That would have to happen next time.

For now, Loriel was going to confess and hope that they enter into a relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend.

This was something that didn't exist back in their days, but now he was going to cherish it.

Loriel made his way into the kitchen, his heart was beating faster than he ever had before. He could already envision the Christmas dinner he was going to cook later and the smile on Elise's face. She always enjoyed his cooking but this time he would make the dinner even more special.

He would make it the most romantic dinner and when the time was right, the atmosphere was perfect, he would confess his love.

The former king was so excited!