The Crown's Seduction-Chapter 374: Quick Kiss

Laura sighed as she drank her wine, her opinions on things slowly making her feel down again as she let out yet another sigh after that. Everything was just unknown to them these days, and it sucked knowing that she could’ve done something about it.

"Hey, everything will be alright," Fritz suddenly said aloud. "It doesn’t look like it, but I’m sure things will turn around soon enough."

"Why did you suddenly say that?" she asked with a raised brow, ignoring the fact that she felt some semblance of reassurance from his words. "I haven’t said anything."

"But the fact that you even acknowledged them means that you were feeling down," Fritz cleverly stated. "Well, that, and you looked hammered, Laura. It’s obvious you were feeling down."

"Heh... So I’m that far gone tonight, huh," she weakly chuckled to herself. "Fine. I’m a bit down, but not anymore, alright?"

"I’ll take your word for it then," he scoffed. "I’m just trying to help."

"I know..." she sighed. "It’s just... everything that’s happening is highly suspicious. Things happened so fast and all of them don’t make sense at all. I feel like my head is about to burst already just making sense out of it."

"Obviously."

"Maybe I should see Lord Luis and inquire about some matters that are really confusing to me," Laura snorted. She was honestly not convinced that their King Nikolai was dead even though their Queen Mineah seemed like she already accepted that as a fact.

"What? Have you been seeing Luis? Often than me? Since when did you two become so close?!" Fritz suddenly questioned in a row, making Laura frown at him. She didn’t expect this kind of reaction from him but nevertheless, she liked it.

"Aren’t you exaggerating with your questions as if you already forgot to breathe?" she scoffed with a wide smile.

"Just answer me," Fritz demanded with a pout as he opened his fan and started cooling himself. She didn’t like that fan of his after hearing the history of the fan.

Ignoring her own annoyance because of Fritz’s treasure and loved fan, Laura shrugged as she explained, "Lord Luis often comes to me since he’s in charge while Taro is away and it’s only natural to see me whenever he has some inquiries to the Ministry of Justice related to some of their royal inspections and investigations in the shadow."

She simply didn’t want Fritz to misunderstand things but then she wondered if it was fine to tell Fritz what Luis told her...

"What’s with that look... Wait, it looks like there’s more to it. Is Luis stalking you?!" Fritz accused and Laura couldn’t help herself as she chuckled. In the end, she decided to tell Fritz more details to see how he would react.

"No, it’s not like that but Lord Luis expressed himself to me in an awkward way like saying, he finds me interesting and he wanted to know me more so he asked me out," Laura opened up as she stared closely at Fritz’s reaction. She knew that Fritz and Luis had a misunderstanding before and the two just recently solved that misunderstanding after so many years.

Fritz became silent and Laura could only sigh deeply her disappointment as she poured herself again with wine. Meanwhile, Fritz broke the deafening silence by opening another topic.

Laura felt herself becoming more and more drunk the longer their conversation went. Despite this, she poured herself another glass of wine as she watched Fritz take another swig of his bottle. It wasn’t much, but she felt a bit of camaraderie at their shared action.

"Everything reeks of foul play," Fritz groaned after he put his bottle down again. "This plague, the king’s death, even Raul’s current case feels like it’s all being told over a badly-written script. Too artificial..."

"Right? And Queen Mineah’s being too passive about everything on top of that," Laura complained back right after she took another gulp of wine. "Normally, she would’ve been hands on with everything that was happening. Instead, she’s delegating work to us, not even bothering with giving us further instructions after everything’s said and done."

"Huh, so the queen’s also being passive then," Fritz hummed in thought. "That is kind of suspicious."

"Still, we can’t really do much about it even if we pointed it out," she sighed, her vision starting to dim as she swayed in her seat. "There was just... I don’t know... Maybe we’ll have answers soon enough..."

Against her better judgment, it was then that Laura’s head finally hit the desk, her vision blacking out as she lost consciousness.

***

"Of course, you pass out now..."

Fritz sighed as he stared at the unconscious Laura. While he knew that she had been drinking well before he arrived, he at least thought that he’d get an hour out of her before they both inevitably passed out from exhaustion. Unfortunately, his estimates were wrong, and now he had to carry her to the nearest bed again like last time.

"The things I do for you..."

Shrugging, he put down his bottle before moving to carry Laura in his arms. Carrying her away from her desk, he settled with putting her down in what was supposed to be the emergency bedroom in her office.

"You really just decided to live here," he scoffed as he moved to place her down on the bed. "You should be thankful that-"

"Thank you..."

Fritz blinked at the sudden interruption. And to add even more to it, Laura then gave him a quick kiss right before he managed to lay her on the bed.

"What the hell..."

He stared at Laura, and unfortunately, she was already passed out before he could begin to question her about her actions. She laid there unmoving, a faint smile on her lips as she slept.

Letting out a sigh, Fritz turned around and left without another word. There were things to be said about what happened, but now wasn’t the time to say them. He’ll just have to wait till the next time they meet.