The Cursed King

Loriel was excited about this day. He couldn\'t wait to confess his love to Elise. After spending so much time with her and lived together for almost three months, he was finally ready.

Loriel was sure that this time around, he could woo his wife because now he was a changed man. He was more sensitive, understanding, and loving. He couldn\'t wait to make Elise see how he was a much better man than he was before.

Loriel started preparing breakfast. He couldn\'t help but hum as he head to the kitchen. It was a song that his wife often sang in the past and he loved hearing her humming or singing it whenever she was in a good mood.

Breakfast today was sumptuous and made with love. Even though both Loriel and Elise didn\'t celebrate Christmas, they enjoyed the holiday happily.

They ate while talking about Elise\'s baking progress and other trivial things. It was such a good start for the holiday.

In the last few days before today, Loriel had picked her up from work and also stayed with her during the baking lessons with Chef Lucy. 

Since Elise had introduced Loriel to her coworkers as her boyfriend, Loriel felt the need to always show up in front of the office building, to ensure they would know that he was really the boyfriend.

It was done as an indirect way to tell her male coworkers that Elise was really taken and they shouldn\'t dream or think that they had a chance with her. Loriel intentionally came to pick up Elise in his best suit and he even used his driverless and fancy car to take him to the Sanderman office building.

Even people who didn\'t understand cars could guess that the car he rode must be so expensive from how fancy it looked. Loriel was not one to flaunt his wealth, but special for this case, he didn\'t hesitate to look wealthy and charming.

All his effort seemed to work, because Elise\'s colleagues had stopped talking about Marc Sanderman and Elise. They actually thought Loriel was a better catch.

As for the baking class, Loriel insisted that he wanted to join Elise and learned baking himself after he attended her last class.

His excuse was he suddenly found the beauty in baking and would want to add a new life skills where he could make his own food, including bread and pastries. In actuality, Loriel was jealous of Lucius.

The chef got to spend so much time with Elise, teaching her how to bake? This was unacceptable!

If the chef was a woman or if he was an ugly or old man, Loriel wouldn\'t feel upset. But the fact was Lucius was a very attractive man. Loriel had also checked his sexuality and found out Lucius was straight.

If Lucius decided to pursue Elise, Loriel would find a worthy competitor since Lucius seemed like a nice and handsome man. He could cook, bake and he also looked sexy as hell wearing his apron.

No. If Loriel learned anything from his centuries of roaming the earth and met countless humans, he knew that he shouldn\'t look  down on his competitor. He must not take anything for granted. 

That\'s why, he tagged along with Elise to her baking class. The woman didn\'t think too much about it, but Loriel could tell that Lucius understood what was going on. The chef was not dumb.

In three days that he attended the baking class, Loriel learned to make two pastries and he was quite happy about it.

Meanwhile, Elise was busy thinking about gifts to give Loriel. The man had been so kind to her and helped her during the toughest times of her life. She wanted to show him how much she appreciated him.

Since she knew that people usually exchanged gifts for Christmas, Elise was thinking of getting Loriel something special. Now was her only chance to get him his present.

Elise thought of baking him something with her own hands, but she could have probably gotten him something else too. She had the gift card to Bloomingrose and she was sure that she could buy him something he\'d like.

However, Loriel was already a wealthy man. He said last week that his wealth manager had come with some very good news on his investment. Loriel no longer had problems with cash. He was a wealthy man again.

So… what could she gift a man who had everything?

For someone like Loriel, Elise thought that getting him a present where he knew it was something that she made would be more impactful than something she bought from the store.

Finally, she made up her mind to stick with the cake. She would pour her heart into making a cake that could make Loriel feel her gratitude to him.

Last night, Elise sent a message to Lucius and the man was willing to let her use his kitchen in the bakery to create a Christmas cake. 

He even let Elise use the ingredients available in the kitchen for her project. Elise promised to replace them but Lucius just laughed it off and told her not to worry about it.

"Thank you for breakfast,"  Elise said to Loriel after she finished eating her meal. "I will take a shower and get ready."

Loriel nodded with a smile. Well.. today was Christmas day. He wanted to confess his love to Elise. So, he, too, should get ready and look his best. He must not risk getting rejected.

"I will shower too. See you later,"  he said.

Elise went to her room and got ready. Loriel did the same. 

*** 

Elise wore a nice blue dress and a grey overcoat to protect her from the cold. December in New York was quite cold. Even though she could easily warm up herself with her power, she didn\'t want to look out of place among other people.

Once she was prepared, she stepped out of her room and went to the living room. However, she was not ready for what she just witnessed as soon as she stepped inside the living room.