Kissing Hellfire: Marry Me, Evil Lord
Chapter 86: Up on the Balcony

Chapter 86: Up on the Balcony

"You know I play violin?" Lauren looked at Alec suspiciously.

It was her mother who taught her back in her childhood, but after Lady Mildred died, she only played by herself and on very rare occasions. She was sure none of the people in Evardin knew it. Even Ethan or Vivian never saw her play, nor she told them she could.

"I’m your husband. It’s only right for me to know your hobbies," He raised a sarcastic brow.

Her eyes squinted. She doubted if he got that detail from the background check he did on her.

"It was just a simple guess. Don’t think too much about it," he said but she wasn’t convinced.

Looking at her skeptical expression, he glanced at his wine and grazed his thumb on the glass.

"Well... I found a book on our room’s shelf with a little sketch of a young girl playing violin who I believe is you."

"What book?"

Her mother loved drawing and she was often the subject of her drawings. She hid her works in a private space she had in her old room, but that little sketch in the book, she thought she lost it a long time ago. She must have forgotten that she inserted it in one of her books.

"The old one with a lilac cover. It’s a children’s book." Alec thought that it must be sketched by her mother, but he didn’t mention it as it might be a sensitive topic for Lauren.

"I stopped playing a long time ago," she said with a straight face.

"Liar." His voice held certainty as if he was sure she was lying.

"You lost in our little game, Lauren. You agreed on our terms, going back on your word is not a good attitude."

She sighed. She didn’t expect him to ask her to play violin for him. She was shocked when he told her to strip and give her a lewd show, but it was more likely for him to ask her to do wicked things than something wholesome.

Lauren walked to the desk where the violin was. The last time she played was two months ago when she woke up from her nightmares. It was her way of calming herself every time she was visited by nightmares. She usually played in the middle of the night on her bed, or on her room’s balcony where the darkness was her only witness.

She stood in front of Alec who was staring at her intensively. She never played for anyone else aside from her mother and now that she was about to play for another person for the first time, there was an unsettling feeling in her gut.

"Play any song you want," he said before she could ask.

Standing straight, she relaxed her shoulders and held the violin against her collarbone. She supported the bow with her left hand and leveled her chin to the strings.

She breathed and took one glance at her expectant before closing her eyes.

She then started to play a song with a mellow melody.

Alec’s tongue grazed his bottom lip and stopped drinking. His full attention was on the woman playing a song in front of him.

The familiar melody reminded him of a distant memory. The truth was, he lied. He saw the sketch inserted in one of her books, but it was not the reason why he knew that she could play violin.

Five years ago, just after he came back from a battle he won against vampire rebels at the border, he was invited by the King to the castle. He joined the royal family for dinner but Lauren wasn’t present. He didn’t take much interest in the King’s family so he didn’t even notice her absence.

The King asked him to stay after dinner so they could talk, which was the time when he offered to him the position of defense ministry’s chief. King Martin let him read some papers and asked for his opinion about some court affairs which prolonged his stay in the castle.

It was already late when he was dismissed by the King. Walking down the main hall, a few steps away from the door, he caught a faint melody coming from somewhere around the castle.

He never heard of such a melody before. Instead of going straight outside, he turned to the other direction heading to the garden.

Standing in the shadows, he looked up at the balcony in one of the rooms in the west wing.

There she saw the fifteen-year-old Lauren standing on the balcony with her white nightdress. Her eyes were closed as she played the violin gracefully. Her long auburn hair was dancing against the soft breeze and the moonlight was adoring her angelic face.

It was the first time he noticed the third princess’ existence. During celebrations in the castle, it was Eloise and Cassandra he always saw beside the King and Queen, but never Lauren, the princess who was tagged as the black sheep of the royal family because she was the King’s daughter to a lowly concubine.

He watched her until she was done and when he realized he was snooping on a little girl like a damn creepy stalker, he removed himself from the garden without being noticed.

In the next years, he became busy with the defense ministry and council works, so he rarely attended celebrations in the castle. On a few occasions that he did, he never crossed paths with Lauren even when they were present in the same hall.

He was always surrounded by ministers and councilmen while the third princess who rose to fame at the age of nineteen for being rebellious was surrounded by her peers, dancing and smiling with different boys her age.

For some reason, he always caught a glimpse of her during those times. Perhaps what held his attention was her deep blue eyes that reminded him of the ocean at its most beautiful shade, or perhaps it was her bright smile that never failed to dazzle the men around her.

Seeing her as a useless brat who kept on fooling around to draw attention to her, he wanted to do nothing with her. The women he bedded in the past were easy to dispose, but a princess who was often written in gossip papers would only bring him a problem.

He was supposed to do nothing with her.

But how did he end up here?