Lunch tomorrow. Wear these.

-C

Blair stared at the handwritten note and resisted the urge to scream. A pair of exquisite diamond earrings glinted up at her from a blood-red box on the table, daring her to touch them. Chuck had gone too far this time. Thankfully, Nicolas had forgotten his cufflinks and had gone to pick up a new pair, leaving Blair alone in her apartment for the time being. She didn't want him to know that her ex seemed to be actively pursuing her again. She could handle Chuck on her own without worrying Nicolas.

She'd been furious when Dorota presented her with a package upon arriving home. When Blair sent her maid back to New York from France the week before, she had given her a strict set of instructions to prepare for Blair and Nicolas' arrival as well as their lavish engagement party. One of those tasks had been to make sure nothing entered her apartment unless it pertained to the event itself. It seemed Dorota had forgotten that. Now Blair was left with a Cartier box full of flawless diamonds set in platinum, which she couldn't decide whether to throw out the window or send back to the Basstard.

This was her night, and he had already begun to ruin it. She wished he would go away and leave her in peace. Her life had finally come together: she had a successful career at Elle in Paris that had allowed her to transfer home to the Upper East Side and a wonderful man by her side. After a lifetime of falling short and being not enough, she had her fairytale. Nicolas wasn't a prince, but he was exceedingly wealthy and received in the best circles in French society. They were beloved among their friends and acquaintances and were the couple that all others were measured against.

The pair spent their last week in Paris in each other's arms, making love each night well into the early morning hours. They browsed their favorite galleries hand in hand for artwork to send to their new apartment in New York City. People watched them enviously as they sat close to each other at candlelit tables, sharing lovers' secrets. He held her tightly against him as they walked down the rue Mouffetard in the evenings. It wasn't opulent, but it meant a great deal to the two of them: he had taken her there when they began dating over a year ago. That afternoon, she had fallen in love with more than just the atmosphere.

"The rue Mouffetard?" Blair asked incredulously as they walked down the narrow street.

Nicolas grinned. "Oui, is there a problem?"

She made an effort to twist her lips into a polite smile. Couldn't he take her somewhere more...well, more? She was Blair Waldorf, not some common tourist trying in vain not to stick out like a sore thumb around the Parisians. She might as well have been born in France. In fact, she needed to speak with someone as soon as possible concerning her immediate consideration for dual French and American citizenship.

No matter how vulgar the suggestion was, she was raised with a strict sense of propriety- one she wasn't going to compromise just because Nicolas took her somewhere beneath her. She would look at his suggestion as a challenge: when the afternoon ended, she'd go home to take a long bubble bath as her reward for putting up with his terrible idea. Dorota would serve her macaroons on her monogrammed silver tray and she'd sip wine from her father and Roman's vineyard. Yes, that was exactly how Blair Waldorf would handle this situation: with grace, and the promise of rewards.

"No," she replied. "There's no problem."

Nicolas' brilliant smile grew wider. "Good. I was afraid I'd scare you off."

She stopped walking and turned to face him. "Excuse me?"

He cleared his throat. "Please forgive me Blair, but I feel that it is my duty to tell you," he leaned in close so that she could feel his breath tickling her ear. "You're a bit of a snob."

She was stunned. As he pulled away from her, he took her hand and pressed a soft kiss to the pulse on her wrist. He winked mischievously as his soft lips left her skin, which had heated considerably since he touched her. Her pulse pounded in her ears and the voice in her head sighed in contentment. The sounds around them faded to pleasant background noise, like their surroundings had been a stage set just for them, just for this day. She could feel her eyes shining. Until that moment, Blair had believed she'd never feel that way again.

Then she remembered he had called her a snob.

"I prefer to think of myself as culturally superior," she corrected as haughtily as she could manage.

"Call it whatever you like," Nicolas responded in his deep, soothing voice. He squared his shoulders and stared down into her large brown eyes. His hands came up to cup her face, the pad of his thumbs rubbing her cheeks lightly. Blair was mesmerized. "You will never be anything short of a queen, Blair. As long as you deign to keep me around I will treat you as nothing less, for life is tasteless and dull without you in it."

And it was then that Blair realized she loved Nicolas.

It was impossible to keep a smile from her face when she thought about that day. The rue Mouffetard became the place they went to when they needed to get away from work and society and just be in love. While she reminisced, she could almost convince herself that the earrings lying untouched in front of her were benign. But she knew better. Chuck Bass didn't do anything without a motive, and it didn't take too much guesswork to figure out what he was after.

She called Serena under the pretense of asking about her dress for the evening, but quickly abandoned that charade and demanded that she not breathe a word to Chuck. Serena assured her that he wouldn't cause trouble as she hung up the phone. However, $20,000 worth of diamonds were sitting in front of her to prove he would do just that. Blair glared at the earrings and lifted an eyebrow in contempt. No matter how desperately she willed them to spontaneously combust, they continued to glint up at her. She needed the next best thing.

"Dorota!"

The hurried footsteps of her maid fell lightly on the marble floor, stopping next to her. "Yes, Miss Blair?" she asked with a worried look on her face. The Polish woman was perpetually cautious of Blair's temper, which hadn't waned as the years passed. Thankfully her fiancé's cool demeanor did a decent job of placating her the majority of the time. But because he wasn't around at the moment, anything could happen. She had to be on guard.

"Didn't I tell you that packages were forbidden?"

"Yes," Dorota responded. She was right: her mistress was not in a good mood. "You said deliveries for party only. But I thought engagement gift-"

"Should have been sent directly to the venue," Blair snapped.

The maid fidgeted and her eyes darted as she contemplated what she should say next. "Miss Blair, I know you have anger still for Mister-"

"Don't mention his name! I won't have his destructive aura casting a shadow on my evening," Blair cried forcefully, picking up the Cartier box and shaking it at her maid. The earrings rattled loudly inside. "I'm getting married, Dorota! He's trying to ruin it for me, and this is proof!"

"You want me to get rid of?" Dorota nodded, tentatively reaching for the box. Blair jerked back and slammed it onto the table next to her.

"No," she replied evenly. "I'm keeping them."

"Miss Blair, your face is making war look again."

Blair smiled, her eyes glinting mischievously at her maid. "If the Basshole thinks he can walk back into my life after what he did, he's got another thing coming. I've waited too long for someone like Nicolas and I'll be damned if a selfish womanizer destroys our relationship. This is the last war between us, and I'm going to win."

On Madison Avenue, her fiancé was having a difficult time.

Nicolas had been to three shops already and still hadn't found cufflinks that Blair would approve of. Dunhill was his last hope as evening approached quickly. He nearly sprinted from his limo to the doors of the store, bursting through and heading straight for the nearest associate. After being directed to the accessory counter, he breathed a sigh of relief at the exceptional choices. He chose a pair that a helpful attendant brought his attention to and returned to his idling limo.

As he drove back to Blair's family penthouse, where they were staying until their own apartment was renovated, he thought about the day they met. Since then, they had told the story so many times that both knew what the other was thinking during their first exchange. It wasn't a glamorous first encounter, nor was it particularly funny, tragic, or embarrassing; it was normal. If they had the gift of foresight, they would have known that the first conversation they had would be an accurate prediction of their relationship.

She was rereading Wuthering Heights one Sunday morning at the café near her apartment, enjoying the beautiful fall weather. That summer in Paris had been particularly stifling and she was determined to take advantage of the first cool days of autumn. She was so entranced by her reading that she had hardly touched her croissant and her orange juice had warmed considerably.

"Is this seat taken?"

Blair had jumped slightly at the voice, having tuned out the sounds of the morning to concentrate on her novel. She frowned and looked up at a man who stood holding the back of a chair across from her. He was tall, with fierce green eyes and wavy dark brown hair that begged her to run her fingers through it. Light stubble covered his jaw, and for a wild moment Blair wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. She shook her head to expel the wanton thoughts, and narrowed her eyes at him.

"You are American, yes?" He knit his brows together when she didn't answer him right away.

"You couldn't think of a more original pick-up line?"

He smiled then, and suddenly became even more handsome. The laugh lines at the corners of his mouth and his eyes made her pulse jump. She'd gone too long between men if a mere smile could send her heartbeat racing.

"Unfortunately, I could not," he had said, pulling out the chair and sitting down across from her. He stretched out his hand across the table. "My name is Nicolas."

"Blair," she had responded, grasping his hand. It was warm and soft, and she felt herself slowly drowning in his eyes. "But I didn't invite you to sit down."

"Ah, yes," he chuckled. "I saw you reading Wuthering Heights so intently, and I was compelled to save you from wasting your time. Jane Eyre is by far the better of the Brontë sisters' works."

Blair was incredulous. "Wasting my time? You've got to be kidding. This is one of the greatest love stories ever written!"

"Please," he gestured for her to continue. "Do educate me on the merits of such a destructive and selfish love. I find it to be terribly foul."

He had winked at her then, and Blair knew he'd been teasing her. For the next few hours, they had discussed literature and the political climates of France and the United States, as well as their respective backgrounds. He was a native who owned many well-known luxury brands based in France, and had been scouting for up-and-coming retailers when he had noticed her reading, oblivious to the world moving around her. After that morning, they became inseparable.

Nicolas had realized before Blair did that they were meant to be more than just friends. He began asking her on dates frequently, but it took Blair months to accept his offer. He showered her with flowers and gifts, having been exposed to her favorites for months already. Ladurée macaroons were sent at least twice a week to her apartment and she frequently received packages and notes from him when she was at work. She stayed strong for a long time, knowing she would be lost once she gave in to him. He would be able to truly hurt her then and she wasn't sure she wanted to give him that power. Her failed adolescent romance with Nate and her excruciating breakup with Chuck had forced her to be wary of relationships. But she was curious about him, so she convinced herself that friendship wouldn't hurt. If she was honest with herself, she knew she would fall for him from the very beginning.

He was a descendant of Nicolas Fouquet, marquis de Belle-Île, who was the Superintendent of Finances under King Louis XIV for a brief time. When Nicolas told Blair of his ancestry, she recognized the name from the reign of the Sun King: a golden age of wealth, increased patronage of the arts, the famous captain of the musketeers d'Artagnan, and the stage for Alexandre Dumas' Man in the Iron Mask. Fouquet was arrested by d'Artagnan himself, his sentence of banishment changed to life in prison by the king. Unknown to the public despite his high-profile case, his mistress gave birth to a son soon after he was jailed. To ensure he would not be plagued by the mistakes of his father, he was given the surname Faria.

Nicolas' family did not share their ancestry freely, preferring to claim they could only trace their lineage back to Nicolas Faria, an illegitimate child born in 1661 who achieved his barony through industrious means. He passed his fortune onto his children, who expanded his wealth considerably as the years passed. The French revolution stripped the family's title away, but they remained wealthy individuals who were involved heavily in French politics, commerce, and exclusive society until the present day.

Nicolas was stifled by the expectations that came from his lineage. When his parents assured him that his older brother would continue the business of the family, he left them to make his mark on the world with their blessing. He was intelligent, but it was a stroke of luck that propelled his career forward. Using some of his inheritance, he purchased a small, derelict boutique that sold vintage luxury clothing on the rue de Lille. After extensive remodeling and rebranding, he staged a grand opening using his family connections and received rave reviews. From then on, his business snowballed.

Now, a few years later, he owned dozens of small boutiques in Paris and several luxury brands. Blair often joked with him that he may not be a prince, but he was royalty enough just for the role he played in Parisian fashion.

He smiled as his car finally pulled up to the Waldorf penthouse. Seeing Blair never failed to get his heart pounding, more so since he had asked her to marry him. The elevator door to the Waldorf apartment opened and Nicolas rushed out to find Blair. She was waiting for him on the settee in her satin robe, her hair falling in loose curls around her face and her legs curled under her. When she heard him call her name, her face lit up and she jumped into his waiting arms. He pressed a passionate kiss on her lips and sighed contentedly.

"Blair, my love," Nicolas murmured as he pulled away and inhaled her sweet scent. "Do you know how difficult it is to find a decent pair of cufflinks in this city?"

Blair laughed lightly as she untangled herself from his embrace. "But you managed?"

He nodded and winked at her. "I'll need your approval though."

Blair beamed at him, then her smile fell slightly. "I got a call today, from my assistant at Elle. She said a newspaper in Paris is running a story about our wedding."

"Just one?" Nicolas chuckled. "I can see why you're unhappy. Every paper in the world should be covering our engagement."

"I agree," she started. "But they're printing things about Daddy's vineyard."

He winced. So they hadn't been as thorough as they had hoped.

They had planned to marry in her father's vineyard over six months ago. As a prominent figure in French society, his affairs were closely documented- which to Blair was the equivalent of Gossip Girl but with better cameras, and she was used to it. She thrived on the attention. But some of the press had received information that the rehearsal was really a cover for their wedding. Reporters and paparazzi had flocked to capture the moments. Blair's exquisite white dress didn't help convince the press that they had photographed a rehearsal and not their wedding day, but the couple's families did manage to get the photos retracted the next day.

It wasn't the paparazzi or the false leak that made Blair and Nicolas somber. After the rehearsal that evening, they had called off their engagement. Nicolas had purchased a home for them near Harold and Roman's vineyard as a wedding present for Blair; she had been under the impression that he was purchasing an apartment for them in New York City. Blair's temper had flared up and with an uncharacteristic response, Nicolas had become just as enraged. The result was the couple ending things and retreating to their respective homes. The next day, a distraught Nicolas sought Blair out and apologized for his assumption that they would live in France. It took some coaxing, but Blair forgave him. They resolved to push the wedding back a few months to make sure their relationship hadn't sustained any irreparable damage. Reminiscing about their rash behavior usually made them laugh, but today it carried more weight. On the eve of their engagement party, newspapers in Paris were printing false articles about a ceremony that never took place.

"It's a sign, isn't it? That we shouldn't get married?" Blair asked with a faltering voice. She could feel the painful sting of tears behind her eyes, but forced herself to remind calm.

"No," Nicolas shook his head forcefully. "It's not a sign. The press will print anything they can to sell papers. We're completely fine, Blair. Our only thoughts should be about our future together, which is beginning tonight." He looked down at his watch and whistled softly.

Panicked at his reaction, Blair pushed at his chest. "Are we going to be late?"

"Well, if I had known you'd be alone in the house wearing just this, I wouldn't have been so long this afternoon," Nicolas responded slowly, dragging his gaze up to her wide eyes. His fingers reached out to tug on the sash of her robe. Blair closed her eyes in ecstasy as he leaned in to place a kiss under her ear. "So now we most certainly will be late."

They arrived half an hour late, grinning and slightly flushed. But by the end of the night, Blair would wish they had never shown up at all.

Nicolas Fouquet was a 17th century nobleman who had the misfortune of being tasked with replenishing the France's treasury- a task which had a long, troubled history. He was charming, handsome, brilliant, and an enthusiastic patron of the arts. Fouquet made many enemies- one of which was close to the king- and was eventually accused of financial malpractice, arrested, and imprisoned for 16 years until his death in 1680 . An interesting side note: when his wife and child were not welcome to court as nobles, his son Jacques went on to establish a restaurant on the Champs-Elysees called "Fouquet's Place" that is still in operation today.

All of this information and more can be found by searching for the biography of Monsieur Fouquet, Vaut-le-Vicomte, or the inspiration for Dumas' Le Vicomte de Bragelonne.

I apologize that there wasn't any C/B interaction in this chapter, but I promise plenty will be delivered in chapter four. Because I know some of you might be concerned: Nicolas is necessary to the story and I hope that you stick around on this journey to find out why.

To my amazing readers and reviewers, who brighten up my days with every encouraging word- Curious Blonde, tinamarie333, QueenBee10, chuckandblairftw, batgirl2992, daisyeve, Crystal Twilight, TriGemini, ChairLoveK, pisaniel, myrtle, Maryam25, mlharper, Chair forever, 24hrscout, LeftWriter224, KillerNewton and jamieerin- you're simply the best! And to those who have added alerts- a big thank you to you as well! You all keep me writing for hours on end with your praises.

A quick disclaimer: I don't own Gossip Girl, any of the characters portrayed, or the fashion labels mentioned throughout my story. I only own my plot and Nicolas Faria (who went underwent quite a transformation through the several versions of this chapter). The liberties I've taken with history are also my own, such as Fouquet's illegitimate son. Historians can only speculate that he kept a mistress, and if he did, there is no proof that she carried their child- or is the lack of evidence simply the work of the Faria family?