"I thought my answer was clear from the start" James said as he looked at Evelina calmly, without giving away any expression but Antonio knew what he was doing, though he was a bit angry at him, he also somewhere in his heart wanted to see Evelina agitated, which never happened till now.
"You are not...interested" Evelina asked in a disheartened tone, her voice wavering slightly to the end of her sentence.
"The time I joined the investigation team, I was already determined to stick by your side through thick and thin, your offer just made things even more easier for me to follow my resolution" James said in a calm and steady voice, he had a small smirk on his face.
Everyone looked at him in utter disbelief at how easily he tricked all of them into believing that he was not on board with them.
Evelina was simply speechless at how she was easily tricked, she was happy as well as angry at him. She made a mental note to extract her revenge from him soon.
"By any chance...did you think I will not join you" James asked in a shocked tone but his playful smirk said otherwise.
"I did, consider that as well after all James Sirius Potter belongs to none, so how can I be presumptuous to think that you will consider joining my council" Evelina said in a serious tone but has a small smile playing on her lips.
"Indeed James Sirius Potter belonged to none but that was because he was yet to meet Evelina Rose Wood" James said in a flow of words, clearly agitated by Evelina's words.
Sam almost choked on his own saliva, he looked at James with wide eyes full of disbelief and horror. Others were also somewhere near his condition because they felt that James just confessed and surrendered himself to Evelina.
Evelina on the other hand was not sure as to what was going on. She looked at James calmly as if trying to scrutinize if he was joking or serious with his words.
When James noticed everyone's expression he realized his slip of tongue, his eyes immediately shot in direction of Evelina.
His heartbeat sped up in fear, when he looked at Evelina he could not understand why she had a such a calm expression. Next second his heart was full of unease and fear, when he thought that she was angry and masked it with her usual calm facade.
Little did he know that Evelina's mind was already a mess when she confirmed his words were not a joke but a slip of tongue and those words were directly from his heart.
"I-I meant that, I will support Evelina and accept her proposal of making me the part of her council. I accepted it because Evelina was too outstanding to deny her leadership" James explained his short statement quickly with an awkward smile.
"It is fine, we understood what you meant by your statement" Antonio said in a calm and easygoing voice as he smiled meaningfully towards James and Evelina.
"Well...James I want to hear about how you did the investigation because all four Ambassadors are trained wizards and witches keeping up with them is already a hard task but you also helped them with the investigation so I would like to listen to your experience" Evelina said with a smile.
"Sure I will share it with you, how about after my Quidditch practice is done" James asked in a calm and casual tone.
[QUIDDITCH is a Wizarding sport, which resembled basketball up to some extent]