Nathalie, though she was not an idiot (and maybe because of that), had obtained her bachelor through relentless lying, cheating and bribing. It made her uniquely qualified to hold a position in a fortune 500 company.
She was not above embellishing her resume. Maybe opening Photoshop once in her life did not give her 'advanced skills', but - if her new place of employment ever required her to use the software - internet came with millions of tutorials to get her out of any predicament. As far as she was concerned, she 'excelled at everything' until proven otherwise.
She looked at her resume, threw a few key skills in, and attached it to the email she was writing. He proofread her cover letter for spelling mistakes. She made sure she had replaced her "CONTACT_NAME_HERE" and "COMPANY_NAME_HERE" by the proper names.
She pressed "send".
###
Jagged Stone arrived at four PM instead of five, as usual, which meant he arrived exactly when Nathalie had scheduled his meeting with mister Agreste. By this point, she just told the rock star to come an hour before whenever he was actually needed. It made things much easier for everyone involved.
Like every morning, he signed a few autographs before making his way to Gabriel's office, and greeted Nathalie with a "woah, Nat, love the hair!". Just like every morning. Sometimes, he said it twice. It meant so little to him and his addled brain that he did not realize he used the same line over and over again. He rarely did it in front of Gabriel, who had no time for such nonsense and did not leave Jagged Stone's attention wander. That being said, the singer's silence was never borne out of respect, nor even self preservation: as soon as the stylist left him to his own devices, Stone had to chat with everyone around, fishing for compliments and talking, talking, talking.
Sometimes, it just so happened that the only available audience was Nathalie. That afternoon, she had been unlucky enough to still be in Gabriel's office when the man had started to correct his last batch of sketches, after receiving a few contradictory suggestions from Jagged Stone. Ten seconds in, the musician had decided he couldn't possibly survive his boredom, and turned to Gabriel's assistant.
She had listened to none of his unending flattery (it mostly pertained to him , anyway), and answered what sounded like questions with noncommittal noises.
"Your eyes, Natalee, they are so blue", he said at some point, after what felt like four hours of uninterrupted monologue. "I should write a song about them. Like… 'Oooh, those aquamareene ooorbs, they reduce me to soooobs…'"
"Stone", Gabriel cut in. "If you can't learn to treat my employees with a modicum of professionalism, you will have to find yourself another designer, are we clear?"
He hadn't turned, he hadn't raised his voice, but his words was enough for Jagged Stone's mouth to snap shut.
The conversation, after that, consisted in short questions from mister Agreste ("This pattern or that one? Does this cut work for you?"), and even shorter answers from Jagged Stone. Gabriel gave the man the illusion of a choice. He offered a myriad of simple alterations so Jagged Stone would feel like his opinion was taken into consideration, but Gabriel's mind was set on a final look for each of the outfits he had prepared, and he deflected any requests that could have impacted it.
It still took two hours for the meeting to end but, when it did, every design had been agreed on. Jagged Stone left satisfied. Everything was "so cool, man, woah".
Gabriel watched him go, waited for the door of his office to close, and clicked his tongue.
"Sometimes, I wonder why he is so popular, then I remember that he caters to the lowest common denominator."
Nathalie unpinned the approved designs from the whiteboard and picked them up from every surface, to slip them into plastic pockets.
"I suppose, sir."
Gabriel turned to her, watching her sort the drawings and put them all in a binder. He waited for her to be done.
"I'm starving", he declared. "What about we grab dinner?"
Nathalie frowned, then raised her eyebrows.
"Your evening is free, sir. Would you not rather go home?"
Gabriel tilted his head to the side, studying her face and keeping his own unreadable.
"Well, I would not", he said.
Oh.
###
If it was a date, Gabriel made sure not to let it look as one, talking numbers and marketing for the best part of an hour, as they sat in an Italian restaurant two streets away from the office. It was the way Nathalie liked it. She favored numbers and marketing. She favored work.
She favored rigidity, professionalism, and boredom.
"By the way", Gabriel told her at the end of the meal, as she was taking a sip of her coffee, "I told Xavier Dubois from Grenat Fashion that I was very satisfied by your work performance, and that he couldn't find a better employee if he decided to hire you."
Nathalie choked, that sip of coffee traveling up her nose and burning everything on its way.
She had sent that application in strict confidence. The had made sure to mention that twice in her email.
Gabriel waited for her to recover.
"Now, I would rather prefer if you stayed with us. You are one of my best employees. So why do you want to leave?"
She hesitated, unwilling to have that conversation with so many prying ears around them. He understood her concern, and called the waiter to ask for the bill. Ten minutes later, they were walking out of the restaurant. Gabriel led her across the street, towards the Seine, leaving car and driver waiting for them. Nathalie, who had never been one to take leisurely strolls along the Seine under a cool evening breeze, wrapped her coat around her and followed him in nervous silence. They stopped a few moments later, once far from the constant flow of passersby.
"Have you made up your mind?" he asked, leaning against the railing, which conveniently put his face in the shadows. "Can I change it?"
She sighed, crossing her arms and moving closer to him.
"I don't know", she replied.
"You've worked for me fifteen years, Nathalie. Why now?"
You know why.
"Things have changed", she explained, staring at the water underneath them. "They have become… complicated. And I don't like complicated. I don't like uncertainty. Do you see what I mean?"
He studied her face, and all she could see of his was the reflection of the city's light on his glasses. That, and hard edges of black shadows underlying features that were not soft to begin with. There was no reading him.
"Do you?" she asked again, when he failed to answer.
"I understand that our situation is… confusing, lately, but that's something that can be discussed."
"It's not confusing ", she replied. "It's complicated. And I didn't mean just 'lately'."
He sighed, irritated, but she saw him force himself to let it go. His shoulders relaxed. He lowered his head to stare at the water. He nodded.
Nathalie uncrossed her arms and pressed herself against the railing too, not quite brushing against him.
"I selected your company with great choice, so I could do a specific job, and… It's not the job I'm doing now, Gabriel. It hasn't been in… years."
She didn't say 'in five', wanting to let Alice's ghost rest, but the memory of her disappearance hovered over them all the same.
"I know", he said.
"And I'm not… I'm the last person who should be taking care of your son. I think you know that too. I'm not nurturing, I'm not warm, I'm not even nice. I still can't understand why you picked me ."
Gabriel looked down at his hands, balling a fist and nervously clawing at it with his other hand.
His voice dropped to a whisper, rough and raw.
"I knew without the shadow of a doubt you had nothing to do with her disappearance", he explained. "The police cleared you, and so did every other investigator who looked into your life after that." - He took a deep breath and gasped it out. - "It was the only thing I knew for sure. Everyone else..."
He waved a hand and shook his head.
Nathalie thought about that time, of the state he had been in, the weeks of constant shaking. He had been terrified, enough to turn his home into a cage for his son, so the boy could neither escape nor be taken away. And months, years had gone by without answers.
He straightened up, peeking at her.
"I know I pulled you away from what you did best. I didn't intend for it to last quite so long. But Adrien was safe with you. Not just in the sense that you wouldn't hurt him. I like knowing that paparazzis and reporters run for their life when they see you."
Nathalie clicked her tongue, turning her face away.
"A few restraining orders, sir. Some blackmail."
She tried to infuse that truth with an humor she did not possess, and failed.
"I know", he replied (and of course he did. Why had she believed he was blind to her methods?). "That's why I hired you to begin with."
That was new. She blinked and turned to him again. He tilted his face to the side, finally letting light hit him, and smiled.
"If I had wanted someone to organize my schedule and smile at my customers, I could have picked anyone. You, however, landed your internship with… let us say 'creative tactics'. I know if I throw a problem at you, you will make it go away. I know it will always be better not to ask questions on the hows and on the how much it cost, but… I needed those skills and you have never disappointed me."
"Never."
"There were hiccups. Should you get another job, try to not steal candy from your employer's three year old son. That one was hard to explain away."
Nathalie gaped. He chuckled.
"I-I…" she stuttered. "I sincerely have no idea what you are talking about. Actually 'sincerely'."
"I think it was some pinata candy from Adrien's birthday, and he told Alice you had taken it, and it escalated to her ordering me to fire you. Again. "
"I'm sorry it seems to have been a common occurrence", she commented. "To be honest, Alice had very valid reasons not to want me around."
Those words earned her an amused snort.
"I'm sure she did, not that they mattered. Alice loathed you for far simpler and sillier reasons. I think the exact words I overheard were 'that girl is not unpretty or anything'."
Nathalie frowned.
"What?" - Understanding dawned. - "She thought you would cheat? Had she even met you?"
He snorted again.
"Well, look at us now ", he retorted. "And you were hired at a… difficult time."
Difficult time . Nathalie had the feeling his time with Alice had been difficult for fifteen years in a row.
Gabriel turned back to the Seine.
"If you want your original duties back, we can see about that", he told her. "About uncomplicating things…"
She waited.
A minute went by. The world kept moving. They paid no attention to the noises of the city, nor to the passerby who moved behind them. Gabriel stared at the Seine and said nothing at all.
Nathalie closed her eyes.
"Are we putting an end to this?" she asked.
"I don't want to."
She twirled her tongue in her mouth so it would feel less like lead.
"Then I should quit. You keep moving back behind your position, and I don't know where I stand. I can't have that."
He sighed, running a hand through his hair.
"It wouldn't be any different if you were not working for me", he said. "I'm known to use any wall I can build, I… What do you want, Nathalie? Not just from this, but in general?"
It was not a difficult question to answer.
"Little", she said. "I'm hardly emotional. I'm not looking for anything. I have never been that concerned with the whole romance thing. I dated, sometimes for months or so, but I can't say I've ever been in love."
"Then count yourself lucky", he replied, voice hoarse.
The look on his face made it clear the words had escaped him. He moved back into the shadows. Nathalie, much to her own surprise, felt her heart break a little, out of sympathy.
She swallowed.
"What do you want?"
"Company?" he said, the emotion gone from his voice.
She waited, to see if he would bluff to the end. He tried. When it became clear Nathalie could outmatch his patience, however, he sighed.
"Company", he repeated. "Nothing more. I'm not looking for love. I… What I felt for Alice is best described as mental illness. I can safely say I never want to feel that way again."
Nathalie's heart skipped a beat. She put a hand on his shoulder, inching closer as she did so.
He pursed his lips.
"It was very much a moth to a flame situation", he explained. "I'd have done anything for her, which turned out to be quite a problem. People think it's romantic. They don't realize how dark a mindset it can be."
Most people were blissfully naive. Others, like Nathalie, had a more clinical point of view on life. While she could not understand the dynamics of Gabriel's relationship with Alice, she had no illusions about his notion of 'anything'. He had been willing to erase himself, and had obviously considered that a small price to pay.
Anything.
Alice would never have accepted 'anything'.
"Purely theoretically", he said, his voice lighter, "if I told you I would do anything for you, what would you think?"
"That we should draft some kind of legal documents giving me full control of your assets should you be jailed", she replied.
He sucked in a breath, then laughed, as if he had never heard a joke that hilarious in his life, nor that reassuring. She felt him relax. It took him a moment to calm down, and he kept smiling, leaning forward to look at the river. He started to play with a tiny something, rolling it between his fingers.
"You would send lawyers, of course?"
"I can safely say I would take the money and run."
He chuckled.
She looked at his hands, watching the 'tiny something' move and spin, and belatedly realizing what it was.
"HOW?" she exclaimed, reaching for the hairpin. "WHEN?"
Her hand brushed against his. They both stilled.
Nathalie had thought the evening was chilly. It was not, not at all.
Gabriel dropped the hairpin and wrapped his hand around hers, his thumb caressing her palm from its center to the ticklish, soft skin of her wrist. He looked at her then looked around, frowning in annoyance as he remembered they were not alone. He composed himself, slipping back into himself, shoulders square, chin high, back straight. But, when he let go of her hand, it was so his fingers could travel from her wrist to her shoulder, brushing along her sleeve the whole way there.
He looked around again, moved so he would best protect them from prying eyes, and leaned in for what looked like the chastest of kisses.
###