45 Final reveal

"Aren't you glad everything is over?" Queen asked as she leaned against the rail, with the evening view of sunset in front of her and the cruise's pool right behind her. The view was so majestic.

It was now 4pm and the cruise is scheduled to reach the shore by 5pm. The other guests are in their room packing or simply taking a rest before reaching the shore. It was fairly empty at the time.

"Yes." Quince said quietly. He too was leaning against the rail and looked at the view ahead.

They both had a glass of champagne in their hands and quietly sipped on it. It was finally time to celebrate. After a while they kept their glasses on the small side table and continued looking at the peaceful scene.

"How relaxing~ by the way..I won our bet." Queen said nonchalantly as she gazed at Quince with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"Is that so?" Quince looked right back at her, his expression looking quite strange. Queen simply couldn't place the name for that expression.

He looked slightly angry ,slightly frustrated but also....is that...admiration? He had a very weird smile on his face and his usual cute dimples weren't showing.

"Did you have fun playing me for a fool?" He asked as he stepped closer to her.

Queen immediately took a step back towards the pool after seeing his strange expression.

'Did he...'

"What are you talking about Master Quince?" Queen asked pretending to be innocent. She knew exactly what he was talking about.

Quince continued walking slowly towards her causing Queen to step back slowly. She wasn't afraid of him but the alarms in her head were ringing. It would be wise not to ignore them.

"So you are saying that if I go to Mr.Bernard's room right now and poke him, he wouldn't wake up immediately? Or that he won't breathe if I keep staring at him?" Quince asked with a dangerous glint in his eye. He continued stalking towards her, forcing her to inch backwards.

"You are confusing me Master Quince." Queen continued playing innocent.

"I thought it was suspicious from the very beginning. Everything that happened. You were manipulating me to run according to your plans. You led me to various places and gave me hints about everything." Quince muttered darkly.

"You were the one that told me about Airon. You took me to his room to wait for the culprit. You waited beneath the bed with me but you didn't have a tense atmosphere around you at all. You were simply too easy going and moved nonstop, very unlike someone that was in danger."

"You coincidentally had a powdered blue glow with you and you coincidentally switched off the lights at midnight for my birthday. So One would finally see the blue glow and run after the criminal. You kept questioning me as if checking my thoughts and knowledge."

"Ha..ha... You're thinking weird stuff Master Quince." Queen denied weakly at this point as she was forced to keep walking backwards.

"Oh was I? Then tell me. Why would Mr.Noah and Mr.Stuart swapped shoes? Assuming they didn't know about the blue powder, unless someone told them about it from the start to confuse me. How did the criminal with a violent subconscious run at the path where there would be no guests in his way? No damage was done to anyone." Quince asked as the aura around him got darker.

"There are no loose ends. Everything was solved cleanly and easily, with your help."

"We're lucky and I'm very smart?" Queen replied softly as she glanced over her shoulder and continued backing away.

"Were we? Or was it planned from the very beginning? All the information we got, every single detail." Quince pauses before pulling something out of his suit pocket. It was a bullet.

"Do you know what this is? This is a specialized bullet the military uses to train their soldiers, that's why even though the bullet grazed my arm, apart from hurting for a bit, there was not even a single drop of blood." Quince said as he glared at Queen's face.

"Now how would an engineer get his hand on a bullet like this unless he got it from someone with a lot of connections?" Quince asked, his expression turning sinister.

"Someone like my fiancée perhaps?" Quince said with a dark whisper. The aura that radiated from him was chilling Queen to the bone.

Queen arrived by the poolside and there was no other step possible for her to take. She faced him and finally said,"Alright, Alright! I did it. I planned everything."

As soon as she admitted those words, Quince aura immediately changed. It was now burning icily, and his eyes became expressionless.

Queen hurriedly continued, "But you can't blame me! It's your family tradition."

"Family tradition?" Quince uttered the words. "So my family members are in on this huh." He looked even angrier.

"I'm your fiancée. Your family tradition stated that the fiancée must test her future husband." Queen said squeakily.

"A test?" Quince asked, his voice low, freezing Queen on the spot.

It was true. Everything was planned by Queen from the very beginning except for the suicide prank. That was an out of the blue prank. She didn't even know how he looked like and planned to learn his identity in the ballroom.

At first she was only planning to test him by letting him find the fake culprit with the background story she created. She intended to chill at the cruise and leave him to his devices. Basically she was going to drive him crazy by subtly making things harder and laugh behind the scene.

When her mother told her that she had a fiancé, she immediately rejected the idea. She was going to say no regardless of anything.

However, her mom told her about their family tradition which was the groom's test.

The fiancée was allowed to test the groom's loyalty, character and love for her. It was usually done after a year of getting engaged. However, since Queen didn't want anything to do with her 'fiancé' she did it all before.

Being a prankster, she simply couldn't resist the chance she had. It was her hobby since her previous life as the evil prime minister to watch someone dance to her tune and get caught up in the traps she laid.

She got the cooperation from all his family members and engineering team before setting this up. Luckily, they were all decent actors and Mr.Noah had a passion for arts, so she was able to pull it off.

After everything was done, Queen was planning to fail him and break the engagement off.

However, after seeing him and knowing that he's her cat, she couldn't stop herself from getting involved. Thinking about him being all gloomy trying to figure everything out was unbearable for her.

"So did I pass?" Quince asked menacingly. He was looking angrier by the second.

Queen instantly saw this and immediately said,"Yes! Yes! With flying colors!" She assured him.

"Good, Miss Vancroft. Because that was strike 3." Quince said coldly.

Then he immediately wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. The next second, before Queen could gasp in surprise, his lips were on hers.