"He made miniature custom dresses for his little girl-"

"SHUT UP!"

"I know about Emilie. Oh poor thing."

"LIAR! You don't know half of the story!"

"...next thing I know you guys are coming back here in a month time with your own baby."

"NEVER!" The designer shouted as he fell to his knees before the massive painting of Emilie and then quietly mumbled "...I could never betray you."

"Sir? Is everything alright?...I heard yelling and-"
"Mhm, I'm fine."
"O-okay...so you're not going to sleep tonight or-"
"Nathalie!" He exclaimed loudly whilst turning around a giving her a fierce look "just-...give me a minute okay!"
"Yes of course, I'm sorry."

And with that the assistant immediately left the scene.
She ran back up to the bedroom and waited those 'couple of minutes until Gabriel would arrive'.

But now as more than an hour had passed it seemed that he wasn't just taking a 'few minutes' but a 'few centuries' to come upstairs.
So without even noticing Nathalie fell asleep.

...

She had been sleeping for quite a while when the sound of silent mumbling woke her up.
The young woman slightly opened her eyes so the flashing light from the bathroom wouldn't hurt her, but now all she could see was a smudged silhouette of her boss getting changed.

Gabriel thought his assistant was asleep because she didn't wake when he was showering but little did he know she was having an absolutely blast right now as she glanced upon his so called 'prefect figure' which was highlighted by the strong light coming from behind it.

After putting his shirt and boxers on the designer laid down in bed and shut off the lights.
Now Nathalie turned away as there was no more to see but when Gabriel heard her disappointed groan he somehow sensed that she was awake.

"N-Nathalie?"
"Ye-" she replied but then immediately regretted that since now her boss would know that she was indeed spying on him.
"You-...fuck...you were awake?"
"I-...uhm...yes sir."
"And you-..."
"I-..."
"Great..." He sighed embarrassed "...whatever it's not like I haven't seen you naked."
"SIR!"
"What?! Now we're equal."
"I-..." Nathalie shook her head as she turned the lamp back on and now sat up straight in bed just so that she could give her boss a death stare "...why'd you think I was staring? I never said I was."
"I wasn't born yesterday Nath, I know I'm right for assuming that."

The assistant blushed heavily and tried to reach for the light switch so at least the dark would hide her awkward face but before she could do so Gabriel caught her hand and instead pulled the young woman in his direction.

"It's alright, I'm not mad. I mean how could I be mad if you lie here next to me in the first place?..." The designer giggled as he took Nathalie's hand and now placed a gentle kiss onto it "...but just to clarify I don't have you here for any sexual stuff. We're just simply friends and I know I've crossed that border many times but-...just ignore it please. I try my best to keep myself loyal to Emilie but every once in a while I do crave...attention...I just don't know what to do then..."
"Right, so do you want me to become your distraction or what?"
"NO! Oh no never. I couldn't use someone like that. I was just saying that I apologize if sometimes I act too clingy. I really wouldn't want it to negatively affect our friendship-"
"Oh...okay."
She sighed and tried to pull away but Gabriel was holding onto her hand too tight.
"Are you angry?" He asked still not letting go which only enraged her more.
The assistant didn't want to give him an answer so she just arrogantly shook her head and tried to at least not face in the same direction as him. But then the designer held onto her face with his other hand and slowly turned it back to look at him. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to anger you. So whatever I did wrong please forgive me...Nathalie?...are you going to ignore me?...fine, then I'll leave you alone." Gabriel sighed letting go of her hand and face.

He scooted over to his side of the bed and laid down whilst waiting for the woman beside him to turn off the lamp.
But she didn't.
Nathalie in fact didn't even move.
Instead she teared up right where she was, in the middle of the bed.

"Nathalie? Could you please turn off the-...are you crying?!" Asked the designer as he heard a quiet sobbing coming from behind him and he immediately turned around to see his assistant's red puffy face.
"No! I'm not!"
"Yes you are! What's wrong?"
"Nothing!...nothing.."
"Nathalie, I know there's something, and I want you to tell me. Please."

The woman sighed turning a bit away from her boss just so she could wipe her own tears away herself.
"I-it's just-...I-...I...I d-don't w-want to s-say it...it'll h-hurt y-you."
"I don't care, say it!"
"W-why c-can't I-I b-be better than-n h-her? Why I-is Em a-always on y-your m-mind?"

The designer sighed pulling her close once again, but at least this time Nathalie allowed herself to be held in his arms.
After taking a deep breath and clearing his throat Gabriel laid her chest against his and carefully ran his fingers through her hair.
Not to mess her bun up this time.

"You see, she's not better than you, because trust me Nathalie you're very important to me b-but I-...I just...it's me who's not allowing myself to fall in love with you, because trust me Nathalie I could. So don't blame yourself for my stupidity, because trust me Nathalie nothing is your fault, you're absolutely perfect. I could go on for days complimenting every single feature on you but I won't allow myself. It's simply torture at this point."

Once her superior was done speaking the young woman hugged him like never before. She held onto him desperate as if letting go would mean her death. But it didn't, so slowly after a few minutes Nathalie could eventually pull back.

"Right...a-and what about t-the doctor's?"

Gabriel sighed again rolling his eyes this time.

"I didn't want to talk about it."
"I know, but you know so much about me and I feel like I barely even know who you are, or meant to be. I've embarrassed myself multiple times in front of you...I WENT TO ABORT A GODDAMN BABY WITH YOU! And you can't just tell me a 'little secret'?!"
"I-it's not, a 'little secret' Nathalie. It's my whole fucking life I hid away from the public and acted like I'm so fine and happy WHEN I WASNT!..." He cleared his throat to calm down for a moment "...sorry that got personal."
"Well I want to get more personal, I want to know who you never showed to the public, what happened with that version of you Gabriel?"

The designer still didn't get used to her saying his real name, so every time she did he got a sudden shiver running across his whole body.
But thankfully this time Nathalie didn't notice that, although she was right on top of him,
Chest against chest.

"He...well he's a weak link, that Gabriel is a social rejection. We don't talk about who I used to be because that's more embarrassing than anything in the world but-...gosh...so where do I start?"
"At the very beginning?"
"Yeah no shit-...pardon...I'll start at the very beginning." The designer hesitated for one last moment before he got into the story telling "...so this whole thing started when I met her...Emilie, we were around seventeen I'd say but definitely not older. And we didn't meet like usual people do, no, no, no, our parents used to be old friends and since both of our families are pretty rich and well known they thought it would be great to get us married."
"Oh..." Nathalie whispered as she was interested in more. "...continue please!"
"Well obviously I didn't want to get married at seventeen because that is insanely young to make any decision but our parents didn't care...I don't even know if that was legal or illegal..." Gabriel shook his head as he now laid back and stared at the ceiling trying to hold back his tears embarrassed "...Emilie was very pretty don't get me wrong, but no matter how nicely I tried she didn't even want to breathe the same air as me. You can imagine how difficult that made our relationship. Well...I was fine with it, until some years later we were told to 'keep up the family name' and make a child."
The grey haired man stopped speaking for a moment and instead wiped his newly formed tears away"...I know...my parents are insane...anyway so then obviously I tried harder to at least be able to kiss her but again and again she kept pushing me away! I didn't know if it was either because I looked horrible or acted horrible, but I would never force a woman to do anything so I had to wait patiently until she would at least tell me what her problems were with me..."
"So what was it?" Nathalie asked as Gabriel suddenly didn't speak anymore and he just shook his head vigorously trying to hold back the tears "Sir you're doing very well so far, you're telling the story great, don't be embarrassed." The assistant hugged him and waited until her boss would calm down.
Eventually he did and then with a deep breath he began to continue the story.
"S-so, s-she told me, the problem wasn't with me b-but with her. Of course you can imagine how dumb eighteen year old me would react to that, I was utterly confused. She looked perfect so I couldn't possibly imagine Em having any sort of problem b-but t-turns out...well before we got married she secretly dated someone else who you see mistreated her and...well forced her to do a lot of things. So obviously she didn't want to sleep with me because that would remind her of horrible times. I couldn't blame her it was a fair reason and I wouldn't even want to sleep with anyone like that at eighteen but well...our parents...they didn't know about her troubled past plus they did absolutely everything just to make us..." Gabriel began to sob "fuck, this is so embarrassing. I hate myself!"
"No-no-nooo it's absolutely fine Sir. Don't worry I'm here." Nathalie whispered as she lifted his face up from his palms and wiped away his tears. Then after she gave her boss a gentle kiss on the cheek which encouraged him to continue "thank you Nathalie...you're so sweet...anyways..." he shook his head "...so I tried to make at least small moves towards her but nothing too serious. She told me she liked it and that it was actually useful because this was she'd be more comfortable around me, so some hugs turned into kisses and some kisses turned into making out but making out never turned into whatever our parents wanted. Emilie was still too scared and I didn't want to push her plus I myself was also intimidated by the thought. Just imagine me trying to raise a kid at eighteen, complete disaster, I can barely do it now at 47." The designer giggled a little looking at Nathalie who still seemed very interested in the story "anyways so our parents got mad, they told us to urgently figure out a way to do it or they'd take matters into their own hands. So naturally I was insanely pressured, and so was Emilie. We figured we'd do the same as before: taking small steps so she'd feel comfortable with whatever I would be doing but then she always had a limit and I just couldn't push her past it!"

To be continued-