The Villainess Doesn't Want To Fall In Love

Chapter VII: The Cursed Prince Part 3

After their long talk, she left Seventh to tour them around the castle. She was wearing a serious expression as she trailed the corridor to the office of the prince. She knocked three times and when she entered the four-cornered room, she saw him being focused on his seat, facing the thick piles of paperwork.

The room is filled with silence that he broke as soon as he met her gaze. Her eyes began to shed tears.

"Do you like it?" he asked as if he already knew the reason why she went to him. "I'm sorry if I didn't inform you, I wanted to surprise you."

"Why would you do that? I mean...I'm grateful but..." She looked away as if she was trying to find the right words to say around the room. "I don't understand. I thought you wanted me to suffer."

"But you don't look like you suffered at all," Prince Darius chuckled. "You handled all the chores perfectly."

"Stop making fun of me!"

"I told you you're cute when you're mad. Please don't make me pull any pranks again just to see that cute face of yours—"

"Is it fun, huh?" Her tone went cold. It's obvious to her facial expression that she didn't come here just to play games with him. "I don't really get why you're acting like this all of a sudden. Is what you're showing an act of kindness or were you just fabricating lies to make me believe to an illusion?"

"You're really viewing things on the negative side, huh?" Prince Darius, who was at his limit also, heaved a sigh and rested his hurting back in his seat. "If my kindness annoys you that much then what are the other things that I should do just to get your attention?"

She was taken aback by what he said. She froze to her feet when he sat straight while still not cutting his sight directly to her. She's already having difficulty breathing with his sharp gaze, what more if he closes the distance between them and holds her freezing hands?

"It seems like you're still not fully aware of the situation that you were in, let me clarify it to you again. You're my fiancé now and we're getting married someday."

"We both know that it's only an act. I will only play my role as a hostage, I'm not gonna marry you." She tightened her grip on her dress. "I'm not marrying someone whom I don't love. And I'm not gonna fall in love."

"Fine, you won." He sounded like a soldier raising a white flag. "I'll retreat for now. But if ever, if only you'd feel something butterflies in your stomach and your heart thumping loudly every time you see me. Don't hesitate to confess, I'll marry you right away."

Right at this moment, just by looking at his face, there emerged a loud bang in her chest and something jiggly in her stomach that she couldn't explain.

I must be hungry, she said to herself and tried to erase the thought in her head.

"Anyway, you don't have to worry about anything. They're your most trusted servants, I believe they were properly briefed and they won't do something recklessly that could end their life," Prince Darius replied directly. "If that's what you're overthinking about, stop it. Why don't you relax and—" He couldn't finish his words when she suddenly kneeled to the floor and bowed like a lowly peasant. Just like what she'd normally do whenever he'd do something heroic in her life. Whatever his reason was, she wanted to thank him from the bottom of her heart for sending her friends here because if he didn't, she'd die sooner.

"Thank you very much. I promise I will be more useful here than you could think of." She pressed her lips together and suppressed herself from crying. She meant it. She's fine with being alone but living without her friends in this gloomy place had been so difficult for her. She felt like dying.