Chapter Nineteen

It was Friday in the afternoon already, Evan had just gotten back to his room after having a healthy and abundant pleasant lunch with the Martís.

They usually ate a lot of the meals. He was surprised none of them dealt with overweight issues, but he guessed they had their ways to stay in shape. Lord Stefano and his sons for example had working out sessions every Friday in the evening, before eating dinner.

Lady Caterina on her side had them on Sundays, but she preferred jogging or doing yoga routines.

Belle also enjoyed going jogging, and she had mentioned that she practiced ballet every once in a while. That probably meant that she was quite likely very nimble and flexible, and must have had a steady and strong balance.

Everyone in the Martí family looked fit and flawless enough for being featured in a fashion magazine. While Evan looked overly slender and physically weak… He even had a bit of trouble when lifting Belle up to kiss her.

Ugh, kissing Belle… He didn't want to think of it ever again, even when he was slowly getting used to the idea he'd have to kiss her on a daily basis from now on, for the rest of his life.

But, apart from being living together with a family more perfect than the very Ingalls, weekdays at the Martí Manor were plainly dull and extremely boring.

Sure, everyone had their ways to spend their free time. As nobles, they didn't have to deal with the responsibilities of the royals or of the working class.

Lord Stefano's schedule included reading books of any genre by any author or academic research papers. When he wasn't doing that, he was sculpting in wood or out of the manor on a fishing field trip with his closest colleagues. Or also playing golf with them, too.

Lady Caterina also enjoyed reading the same things as her husband. When she was out of the manor, she was probably at the beauty salon doing her nails or receiving premium facial treatments while gossiping with her noble lady friends. She also liked to knit and crochet, and most of her creations were donated to charity.

She was also into baking, and something Evan found really nice of her, was that on Wednesdays she'd bake enough bread, bagels, sourdough cookies, and other baked goods for an army in the afternoon after having lunch; and by the evening, she'd deliver all of it with Gabrielle to the local shelters so that the poorer people would have something to eat for at least a couple of days more.

Speaking of Belle, she was really into music, just like Evan himself, and that was something he liked a lot about her. More than once he had heard her playing the piano, pieces of Schubert of Satie most of all, they seemed to be Belle's personal favorites.

Or when she was not playing the piano, she was singing lyrical compositions; she was a quite skilled soprano who was able to sing greatly with or without musical company. Among other singers, Belle liked to cover Maria Callas, Montserrat Caballé and Nina Dorda, sometimes Edith Piaf; but Evan could perceive she didn't feel confident enough out of her lyrical voice, which was a true pity because he'd have loved to hear her covering popular artists' songs someday.

Regarding David and Pablo, Evan barely knew anything about them or what they enjoyed doing.

He knew David was completely smitten and enamored with his girlfriend, Lady Danielle of House Cádiz, so he often went on dates with her on random weekdays in the evening. They liked posing for the paparazzi a lot, thus gaining the title of "the Toucan pair" since the Cádiz family's manor was also found in Île des Toucans.

David also had other noble friends with whom he went swimming or playing tennis or paddle on Saturdays, he seemed to like snobbish sports. And due to his father's Sundays game nights, he was also a quite skilled mixologist. He learned the art of mixing drinks quite fast, and he was really good at it, according to his father. David seemed to be a quite competitive guy, he didn't accept any other thing than perfection.

About Pablo, he still knew nothing. He barely used to see him in the manor at any other moment than breakfast, lunch, or dinner time. That boy was still an enigma.

With all of this said, and taking on board that it had been only a week since his arrival to Avevia, Evan hadn't found any hobby in particular yet that would take up enough time of his day. So he dedicated most of his time to compose some pieces for cello.

But only composing them, since he was still too shy to play his own compositions in front of his soon-to-be wife and future in-laws.

And he was doing this at that moment. Evan was found lying face-down on the bed while scribbling the best musical notes he could make up for a composition he was planning on playing at Michel's birthday party next Tuesday.

Suddenly, his phone's buzzing interrupted his fluent stream of inspiration.

He took a look at who it was and he frowned: it has his mother.

Although feeling a bit hesitant about it, he decided to pick the call up finally.

"Mum?" He asked on the other side of the phone, still sounding a bit annoyed.

"Honey! How are you?!" Mary Jane asked, sounding apparently excited to talk to her son again after a long week.

But Evan knew his mother, and he knew she wasn't up to something good, she was not excited to talk to him again at all.

"Mum, what time is it there? I'm eleven hours ahead of you, and it's three in the evening here." Evan blurted out, feeling his head going red and hot in anger, a bit more of time and more bugging and he'd be puffing steam out of his ears and nosetrils.

"Evan! Sweetie, it's four in the morning here, the auditions I had to judge for today got canceled, and your dad asked for a day off at his job just so we could talk to you. Aren't you feeling happy that your parents canceled their working day just to talk with you for a while?"

And there she was again, Mary Jane Clarke being the old green-eyed blondie hag she usually was again. Trying to make Evan feel guilty about her and his father's missed working day.

He had already given up on her and his father, their levels of toxicity were wholly overwhelming, up to the point where they basically sold their own son for a good amount of money.

They didn't care about Evan a single bit, the only beings they cared about were themselves.

Evan was surprised they hadn't divorced yet —if you put two selfish people together, and apply a bit of logic on it, a relationship of any type between them wouldn't work, let alone a marriage.

"I'm sorry, mum, I'm still annoyed because you didn't attend the video call the other day. Why are you calling this early, though?" He asked, turning on his side and leading his free hand to his brow bridge, pinching it to ease the tension on the area.

"Can you turn your laptop on? Your father and I would like to make it up to you for the other day." She replied, her voice suddenly turning calmer and sweeter, as if she were actually feeling sorry about what happened that last Monday evening.

Evan frowned deeply in bewilderment. Were his parents actually sorry?

This couldn't be possible at all... They must have definitely been trying to put on some kind of weird ruse again and use him as a guinea pig or bait for their shady intents…

Still, he decided to heed his mother's request and eyed the room, looking for his laptop. He found it sitting on one of the sides of the desk, connected to a socket, Evan had left recharging its battery overnight.

"One moment, please." He pronounced.

He sat up and moved from the bed up to the desk, then, he disconnected the laptop's plug and proceeded to turn it on. While he was waiting for the system to start, he picked up his phone again to warn his mother that he was about to log in for the video call.

"Okay, you can hang up, mum. I started the laptop, I'll be able to log in the chat room in five minutes or so." He explained to her with gentleness.

His mother simply muttered a brief and concise "okay" before hanging up on her side.

He sat down in front of the laptop again and opened the browser, typing the name of the online meetings platform and clicking on the correct link after the browser showed all of the results. He then typed his username and password and logged in the site.

Then, he looked for his parents' respective chat room on his register of frequent chat rooms visited and selected it. A system notification popped up asking him if he desired to download the executable application for the window of the chat to open. He pressed yes.

It took a couple of seconds until the window opened, and it asked for the password of the private chat room to be typed. Evan then proceeded to type it.

"DerbyClarkesfortheInfinity510" Was the private meeting room's password.

Finally, the video call started.

His parents were waiting there for him already, they had their usual fake smiles on their faces and were dressed in casual yet expensive clothing.

Mary Jane had her strawberry blonde hair tied up into a low wavy bun and was wearing her reading glasses with the usual awful real white pearls strap. Her lips were painted red with a matte lipstick, and her outfit consisted of a simple orange blouse and an untied kimono with a design of the Great Wave of Hokusai printed on it.

Patrick was sporting a simple yet posh Polo shirt and was also wearing his rectangular reading glasses. His hair, still of a light shade of carrot red, was combed evenly on both ways, except for his short bangs, which simply fell sloppily in front of his forehead.

The room around them was richly illuminated by a diamonds chandelier. They were in the office room and it seemed like it was really dark outside.

They did actually want to call and see him, after all…

Evan felt a bit bad with himself for treating his mother so rudely just a couple of minutes ago... It was so late in England and they still wanted to see him...

"Hello, honey!" Mary Jane greeted him with her British accent. The same accent Evan had, actually.

"Hello, mum. Hello, dad." Evan replied with a hesitant voice.

"How have you been, son?" Patrick asked, still confused about which direction to look at.

"I've been doing fine, I guess…" He responded, sounding reluctant.

Mary Jane frowned in disapproval.

"Evan, be more respectful to your father, we didn't raise you to be a bad-mannered young man." She scolded him.

"What do you want me to say? You've downplayed my dreams and goals as if they were nothing, so you could get me married to a complete stranger just because you wanted her family's money." Was his response, he raised his voice to express how upset he was feeling at the moment.

Both Mary Jane and Patrick looked shocked about what their son had just said. Haven't they even realized it yet…?

"Son, I really am so-

"Evan, there you go again. Why are you always so selfish? Don't you care about your parents even a single bit? What did I do wrong? Your father and I are going through a severe financial crisis. Can't you stop thinking about yourself only for once and lend us a hand?" Mary Jane complained, raising her voice tone just like her son did.

"Mary, please, I think Evan is right here." Patrick tried to give his opinion, too.

The ambiance got certainly dense.

"I thought he'd like the idea of marrying a beautiful noble lady from a faraway country and help us with it as well. But maybe we didn't take in consideration what he actually wanted, right?" He finally looked directly at the screen now, staring at his son and waiting for an answer on his behalf.

"Yes, you're correct, dad. I didn't want to do this. I…"

He sighed, trying to calm himself down a bit.

"I really wanted to be a concertist, I wanted to become a renowned cellist. Now I'm bound to be the husband of a noble lady that isn't even the heir to her family's wealth. I don't do anything everyday, all day long. I'm going mental. Please, just…" He began sounding desperate and pleading.

As if he were a little boy again...

"Can't you cancel the wedding? Gabrielle has told me you two and Lord and Lady Martí had scheduled our wedding by the end of the spring. Can't you find a way to revert it and get me back in Derby?" He asked, almost imploring as his voice cracked and his eyes got slowly damp.

Patrick shook his head and pursed his lips bitterly, indicating with these gestures that, unfortunately, there was no way back.

Evan let out a heavy sigh and grasped his hair harshly, wishing so badly to tear all of it off in the fiercest of ways due to the unbearable frustration.

"I'm sorry, Evan, but the decision was made. We've promised Lord and Lady Martí that you would marry their daughter and so it will be. We need you to be a good son and lend us a hand to get out of this messy situation."

Patrick sketched an awkward smile, feeling certainly embarrassed and guilty about what they had done to their own son.

"I'm pretty sure you'll learn to love Lady Gabrielle, she did sound like a great girl, after all. And I promise you that we'll find a way to make your dreams come true. It'll be a team effort, but you need to put your part on it as well, okay?" Patrick tried to do as best as he could at attempting to reassure his son.

Evan didn't even bother on sighing or complaining this time. He simply looked away to avoid staring at his parents.

He felt utterly betrayed and used by them, by his own parents. He could say they were even exploiting him.

Even when he always expected some shady intentions from them, this was the ultimate ruse with no doubt.

"Well, sweetie, it's nearly five in the morning here, why don't you send us some virtual hugs and wish us sweet dreams?" Mary Jane said, making use of that obviously fake sweet voice of hers.

"Goodnight." Evan blurted out dryly.

"We love you, darling." His mother added, trying her best to sound nice and caring.

Evan simply nodded reluctantly and left the video call all of a sudden, without even warning them he'd quit the call.

He let out another frustrated sigh. What were his parents going to think if they ever discovered he was gay? Would they be disappointed? Would they not mind it at all? They would definitely be shocked and wholly disappointed, they would never approve of it…

Evan heard some knocking on his door all of a sudden. He wondered if Belle was on the other side.

Feeling curious, he stood up from his place behind the laptop and walked up to the door to check who was calling him right then.

When he opened, he found Lord Stefano on the other side, smiling warmly at him with his sporting outfit on.

"Good evening, Evan." He pronounced.

"Good evening, Sir." Evan replied. "May I ask what brings you here?" He inquired, curiosity in his voice was perceived.

Lord Stefano chuckled a bit.

"Well, I was just wondering if you'd like to work out a bit with David, Pablo and I." The Lord answered. "And, by the way, I have some correspondence for you." He announced at last.

Lord Stefano handed a letter to Evan: the envelope had a rough texture and a seal of the Royal Family. He smiled at this, it was Michel's birthday party invitation.

"Why don't you open it, son?" Lord Stefano asked, smirking. He knew just like Evan that it was the Prince's invitation letter to his birthday party.

Evan smiled slightly and nodded. He carefully removed the seal and opened the envelope, then, he took the card out of it with his fingers.

He cleared out his throat and proceeded to read it:

"Dear Sir Evan Clarke,

We are sending you this letter on behalf of Prince Michel of Avevia. His Highness would fancy you to come over to the Royal Palace this Tuesday, on April the 27th, to celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday. You are allowed to bring up to two (2) other guests to accompany you.We hope you won't miss out on the event.

Best regards,

Sir Francis Lambert, Royal Counsellor"

Evan's face got lit up when he finished reading, he smiled a wide grin, completely joyous. Lord Stefano also smiled at this, Evan's glee seemed to be contagious in a certain way.

"This is great." Evan said, snorting in disbelief. "Sir, am I allowed to bring Gabrielle and Adelyn to the palace with me?" He inquired, feeling rather enthused.

"Of course you are allowed to, son. When you and Belle get married, you won't need to ask for my permission to take her out with you anymore, anyway. So get growing more used to the idea of it, Evan." Lord Stefano chuckled as he patted Evan's shoulder a bit.

Evan's cheeks turned vibrantly reddish.

Yes, what Lord Stefano had just said was true, but still… He was still reacious to the idea of having Belle as his wife, even more than just that, it would be almost as if she were something of his property… That was something he'd never get used to, in all honesty.

"So, Evan? Would you like to join us for a working out session?" Lord Stefano asked once more, making use of a warm, informal voice.

"Sure. I don't want to sound rude, but, the meals' portions here are quite generous, and I might have gained a few pounds this week even if I have a fast metabolism, so some workout will do really good to me right now." Evan answered.

Lord Stefano let out some coarse, funny guffaws as he scratched his thick, grayish beard.

"You are right, Evan. But you need to eat well in order to stay healthy." He sketched a side smirk. "Now, follow me, the gym room is over this way."