Chapter One: Really Got It Bad

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sooo, I decided to start a new story. It's going to be a future fic, but for those of you who may wonder, it's not a sequel to Radar. I'm going to wait a while before doing one of those.
This chapter is a bit short, but I just wanted to introduce things. It may not add up, but I promise that it will eventually. Enjoy. : )


"May I help you?" asked the receptionist that sat behind the front desk. She had just hung up the phone and looked up to see a man waiting impatiently for her.

"Is Nathaniel Archibald in?" he asked, his hand now resting on the desk as he leaned forward slightly.

"Mr. Archibald is in a meeting at the moment. Would you like to leave a message for him?" She knew that Nate wasn't actually in a meeting; it was just the time of the day where he told her that he preferred to be left alone. The only time he was to be disturbed was in an extreme emergency.

"Uh, yes. Tell him that Charles Bass stopped by and that I'd like if he gave me a call later." He then gave the receptionist his phone number, resisting his urge to tell her that she should give him a call sometime too.

"I'll be sure to do that, Mr. Bass," she told him, a small smile crossing over her lips. She knew who he was, since she had heard the name quite a few times before. There were a lot of clubs around the city that he owned, along with a couple of hotels. "Hope to see you again soon."

He may have been thirty years old and a more serious man, but he still managed to charm women, even when he wasn't trying.


Chuck Bass would call most women crazy for asking him to go shopping with them, but this woman was different. The last thing that he'd want was to make her upset. However, even if he was shopping with her and buying everything that she wanted, she wasn't happy that his daughter was tagging along with them. He tried to explain that he couldn't just leave her alone. A nanny just wasn't an option, because he refused for his daughter to always be away from him. He wasn't going to let himself turn in to his father anymore than he already did.

"Corinne!" he snapped when he noticed her running her hands over some of the expensive dresses. "Get back here," he said, holding his hand out for her to take.

"I told you that we shouldn't bring her here, Charles," Haleigh sighed. "If we just got a nanny, she'd be fine walking around the park and playing while we had to do important things. Do you know how frustrating it is to have her come with us?"

He rolled his eyes at her as Corinne took his hand, struggling to keep up with him as they walked through the store. Haleigh was already five steps ahead, looking around for things that she wanted to try on. Chuck felt awful for his daughter, who was as bored as he was. The only time she expressed any interest in shopping was when she saw something that sparkled.

They walked through the store for about twenty more minutes until Haleigh declared that it was time for her to go try stuff on. Chuck and Corinne stood outside the dressing room waiting for her, both wanting it to just be over already.

"Why doesn't she like me?" Corinne asked, pouting up at her father as she played with his Marc Jacobs sunglasses. They were unbelievably large on her, making her even more adorable than she already was.

"She does like you. She's just stressed out," he insisted. "All will be good after the wedding, I promise." Okay, so the wedding was still about a year away, but Haleigh liking Corinne was better late than never.

She sighed and took the glasses off, handing them back to her father. He knew how much she hated it when there was someone who didn't like her. She was like her mother in that way, except she didn't turn in to a total bitch and start snapping at him. Chuck didn't doubt that once she turned in to a teenager she'd be a bitch, though. Most women were.

"Aunt Serena!" Chuck's head snapped up when he heard Corinne yell.

What the hell was his step-sister doing there? The last he heard from his father, she was in Puerto Rico with her latest boy toy. Things hadn't worked out with Brooklyn Boy so many years ago, and ever since then, she had reverted to her old ways. He couldn't say that he wasn't proud of her for being a whore and admitting it. He liked her better that way.

"Corinne, shush. No yelling in stores," he told her.

He wasn't in the mood to talk to Serena, but it was too late, since she was already rushing over to give her niece a hug. She may have not treated Chuck like family, but she certainly treated Corinne like she was.

"I thought you guys were on the West Coast!" she exclaimed after letting go of Corinne. The seven year-old was now smoothing out her pink dress, as she had been taught by her mother that appearance was everything.

Chuck shrugged. "Things change. We needed a different pace. Anyways, what're you doing here?"

"Just shopping with Bl-"

She didn't even need to finish her sentence. He knew what she was going to say, because that was just his luck. He could see the brunette walking up behind Serena, and he cringed. However, maybe it was better that they were running in to each other at a store. It meant that she wouldn't slap him, because if she did, there was probably some way that it would be bad for her reputation.

"Bass," she sneered, giving him a critical once over before noticing the little girl who was standing in front of Serena. "So I guess this is your kid," she said.

Serena raised an eyebrow, and it was clear that she was curious about how Blair could've known that the girl was Chuck's daughter. It couldn't have been just a lucky guess, could it? Serena thought that the two of them hadn't seen each other since the end of high school.

"Corinne Grace Bass," she announced, causing Chuck to laugh slightly. It amazed him how proud his daughter was just because she got to say her full name.

"Well, it's lovely to meet you. How old would you be, Corinne?" Blair asked, leaning down so she could be on the same level as her.

"Seven years old," she said. She had a bright smile now, the gap on the left side of her mouth showing where a tooth used to be.

Blair shot Chuck a dirty look, but he was looking at the ground to avoid her. Listening to her tone of voice was bad enough for him. It killed him to feel this guilty.

"Seven, huh? Wow, Chuck, you must've been a father young. What did you do? Impregnate some W-H-O-R-E?" She could only hope that Corinne didn't know how to spell dirty words yet.

"No, Blair. It was actually my wife. I'm surprised that you didn't hear about it," he said, gritting his teeth. He looked up at her now, upset that she was trying to make him seem like an idiot. He was one of the most successful men his age, and it was insulting for her to say that he could've gotten some slut pregnant.

"Oh, really? You were married? How did that go?" she asked, holding one hand on her hip.

Corinne took the opportunity to butt in to the conversation. "Mommy lives in France now with Frederick."

Blair was visibly pleased with this, until she saw Haleigh exit the dressing rooms and come over to them. She took Chuck's hand and linked their fingers.

"What's going on?" Haleigh asked, looking up at him, then over at Serena and Blair.

"Nothing. This is my step-sister Serena, and... this is Blair. We used to go to high school together." There was no need for him to mention anything about the history that he had with Blair. That would only worry Haleigh and cause her to think something was going on. "Blair, Serena, this is my fiance Haleigh."