A/N: This chapter is part 4 of 4.

"Bass!"

"Yes, Waldorf?"

"Well? What are you still doing here? I ordered breakfast this morning so you could nurse your hangover and leave. Not that you deserved breakfast, after what you did."

"Thank you for that. For breakfast, I mean. Not for the rather demanding note I found attached to my coffee, instructing me to vacate your room before you returned."

"And yet, here you are."

"Here I am. I wanted to show my gratitude for your…hospitality last night –"

"I never should have let you in to begin with."

"Blair, about last night –"

"No. You've gone too far this time, Bass."

Chuck rose from the couch. "Gone too far with what, Blair? What did I do now?"

"Shut up, you know exactly what you did," Blair snapped. "You won't be happy until you've destroyed my relationship with Nicolas completely, will you? Well, I've got news for you, Basshole: even if you were the only man left alive on this planet, I wouldn't give you a moment of my time."

"That's wildly unrealistic," he pointed out.

"Please leave?"

"No."

"Okay, Bass, " Blair said, crossing her arms. "Fine. If you're not going to leave, then you can tell me why my fiancé had a meeting with Jenny Humphrey."

Faria had actually met with Little J? Chuck thought. God dammit, he must have set something up with her after I left his office. Stay calm, Bass. She'll be able to smell your fear.

"What do your fiancé's meetings have to do with me?" he asked.

"Don't lie to me," Blair countered, nearly stamping her foot. "I may not have seen you for five years, but I grew up with you. We staged a good amount of take-downs in our time. I know when you've had your hand in something…and this reeks of Chuck Bass!"

"What are you saying?"

"Nicolas called me," she replied curtly. "He told me that he spoke with Jenny Humphrey about her ideas for a fall clothing line, and she said she knew me. He said she told him to tell me thank you."

So Nicolas did have a meeting with Jenny, Chuck thought. Interesting.

"Why would she say that, Chuck?" Blair demanded.

"Your engagement is public knowledge, Blair," Chuck retorted. "You just hosted a party for half of New York society! In case you've forgotten your guest list, most of the Humphreys were in attendance."

"But she had a meeting with my fiancé –"

"Stop saying that word," Chuck growled.

"– of all the owners of designer firms in New York City!"

"And so you thought…what, exactly?" Chuck questioned hotly. "That I set up a meeting between Nicolas and Jenny even though I know how much you hate her? Or maybe you thought that I devised a plot to get the two of them together in a room so that she would seduce him? Do any of those scenarios sound plausible at all?"

"No!" Blair cried. "I mean…yes, they are really far-fetched. But you're Chuck Bass! You stoop to unbelievably low levels to get what you want, and you don't mind using pawns. No matter who they are."

"I want you, Blair!" he shouted, exasperated. "I'd be mad to think that directly involving Jenny in any scheme I came up with to get you back would work out in my favor."

"Then why, of all the designers in New York, did my fiancé pick her to meet with?" she repeated.

Chuck shrugged, at a loss. "I don't know, but I didn't arrange it. I wouldn't intentionally cause you that kind of pain."

Blair glared at him, trying to ferret out any sincerity in his words. She knew he was telling the truth…but admitting that meant that she would be on equal footing with him again, and it was much easier for to hate him.

"I'm sorry. I just can't believe you," Blair lied. "I recall more than a few times that you've willfully hurt me."

Chuck winced at the memories she alluded to. Threatening to tell Nate about her lost virginity, revealing her pregnancy scare to Gossip Girl and tossing her aside in its wake, the Empire fiasco with Jack, sleeping with Jenny…though the last two were different. He hadn't meant to hurt her then.

"That's all in the past. It's been five years. I'm much…different now."

"Really, Chuck?" Blair spit. "Because ever since I came back from Paris, you've done nothing but scheme to get me back. Involving Jenny seems like the next logical step to get my attention."

Chuck's mind raced. How could he prove to her that Jenny wasn't his doing? He wanted to grab her by the arms and shake some sense into her.

"Blair," he said desperately, reaching out to grab her arm as she turned away. "Alright, I did set up a meeting with Nicolas under Jenny Humphrey's name."

Blair's eyes blazed and her mouth flew open, ready to spew insults at him.

"Wait," he insisted, lifting a hand in emphasis. "It was only so that I could meet with him myself, to convince him to let me buy out his brand."

"To buy his…?" Blair repeated softly, staring at Chuck like he'd grown a third head.

"He didn't let me, of course," Chuck continued, sounding slightly annoyed. "But that meeting was the day after you arrived in Paris. When did he say he met with Jenny?"

Blair shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut, trying desperately to process Chuck's words, to separate fact from fiction. "I…I'm not sure…"

"When?" Chuck pressed.

"I don't know!" she exploded. "I think it was a couple days ago."

"There!" Chuck exclaimed, smiling as if the problem was completely resolved. "That proves it. I had nothing to do with Jenny."

Blair scoffed at his excitement. "Are you kidding? That doesn't prove anything at all. In fact, you've just made it worse, since I had no idea you met with him."

Chuck seized the opportunity she had just handed him. "He didn't tell you?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "But don't think for a second that that means something, Bass. He probably just didn't want to upset me."

Chuck shot her a look that told her he didn't buy what she was trying to sell him.

"Shut up," she snapped. "I'm sure that's the reason he didn't say anything. He thinks about my feelings, unlike you."

"That's because I already know what you're feeling," Chuck corrected. "You feel the same things I do…we're cut from the same cloth."

"Ugh," she groaned. "Stop saying that! We may have been the same a long time ago, but we're not anymore. I grew out of you and you're still stuck on a teenage romance. Stop living in the past."

He stared at her, chest heaving and teeth clenched so tightly it hurt. Living in the past? She was, and would always be, the only woman he was capable of loving completely. No amount of time would change that.

"Blair." His voice was hard and determined. "What is it going to take for you to see that nothing, not even the fact that you have a fiancé, will deter me from winning you back?"

"Chuck, I don't want to be 'won back'!" she cried in frustration. "Jesus, how many times do I have to tell you that?"

He shook his head and let out a humorless laugh. "You're so blind. You think just because this man loves you and you…love…him, that you're guaranteed some fairy tale ending. You think he'll be enough for you –"

"He will," she interjected, then amended her statement. "He is."

"He obviously isn't giving you everything you need," Chuck insisted. "Why else would you be so eager to leave him for two weeks?"

"I wasn't eager," Blair retorted. "This is for work and Nicolas understands that. He knows that my job is important to me."

Chuck studied her for a moment, searching for the lie in her voice. When he couldn't detect anything other than truth, he decided to try a different tactic. "Why are you so upset about Jenny?"

Blair lifted her chin. "Because I hate her. That's all the reason I need."

"Are you forgetting anything else?"

"No," she said, crossing her arms like a stubborn child.

"Blair, it's been five years. You've been living in Paris this whole time and your banishment of Jenny has never been lifted."

"And your point is…what? She crossed me. Several times, actually."

"Exactly."

"I don't follow," she replied, shaking her head at him. "I can't have disloyal subjects, Chuck. A queen has to punish those that commit crimes, especially the poor social climbing ones from Brooklyn. She's the Mary of Scots to my Elizabeth! "

Chuck smirked at the frantic note in her words; he was prepared for a response like that. He leaned casually against the table behind him and set his jaw.

"Blair," he began. "You haven't been a queen in a long time, and she doesn't want your crown. From what I understand, she's too absorbed in her little fashion dramas to worry about destroying your life. I've explained to you that my…involvement in the events of last week was purely coincidental, and I've made you aware of the fact that little Humphrey wants nothing to do with you. I know you don't really think Jenny was out for your blood again."

He took a few steps towards her and dipped his head to meet her lowered gaze.

"So," he said in a soft voice. "Would you like to tell me the real reason you're so upset about Jenny?"

Blair didn't respond for a moment. Chuck worried that he had pushed her too far or spoken of Jenny too much. Even Blair had limits, and he was trying her patience by asking her a question he already knew the answer to. There were much more important things he could be discussing with her.

But then she took a deep breath and spoke.

"She took you from me," Blair blurted, speaking as if the words pained her and she wanted them out as quickly as possible. "From the moment Jenny Humphrey came into our world, she wanted to be me. She lied to me to get to Nate, she tried to dethrone me as queen and undermined me as often as she could, and she told Nate about you and I sleeping together…"

A shadow passed over her features.

"But then you slept with her," she continued, her voice souring. "And then she had everything that was supposed to be mine: my crown, the Upper East Side life, and the person I loved more than anything in the world.

"It destroyed me, Chuck," she said softly. "It destroyed me and you know it. I never thought I would recover from that. And even though you and I are…done, that doesn't change the fact that I will never forget the horrible things she did to me."

"Have you forgiven me?"

"Of course," she said, shrugging. "It was easier for me to forgive you than her. I don't know why…but I guess that's what love does. It helps you look past the things that we do to hurt each other."

"Blair –"

She held up a hand to stop him. "I forgave you a long time ago. Let's leave it at that, since you'll just be upset if I have to explain – again – how Nicolas made my life better."

"Yes, let's not delve into that," he agreed. "And thank you…for forgiving me. I know I don't really deserve it, but I appreciate it more than you know."

Blair eyed him skeptically, ready to pounce if she detected the slightest bit on insincerity. But he looked contrite, and she found herself softening. She believed him.

She smiled coyly at him. "Yes, well, it takes more than even you to destroy Blair Waldorf."

"You're right about that," he said, returning her smile.

"So," she probed, watching as he turned away and walked towards her couch. "You weren't really drunk last night, were you?"

He sat down lazily and didn't answer her, but she recognized the glint in his eye.

"I should have known," she laughed. "You weren't nearly as lecherous as you usually are. Or as charming, for that matter."

"I'm always charming," Chuck protested, making a show of crossing his legs and throwing his arm across the back of the couch.

"Of course you are," Blair teased, sitting on the chair opposite him.

A few moments of companionable silence stretched between them. He toyed with the cufflinks on his shirt sleeves while Blair regarded him with curiosity. It was a bizarre experience, she mused, sitting in the same room without screaming at him about something. It reminded her of the way they were before things spiraled out of control.

Oh, their relationship had always thrilled her – their dramatic fighting that invariably led to incredible sex on the nearest surface, the way their minds worked on the same wavelength, the comfort of knowing how perfectly they were made for each other…it was intoxicating. It was exciting.

But now…it scared her. She wasn't 17 anymore and she had different priorities. Priorities that didn't – couldn't – include Chuck.

"You know that this can't happen, right?"

"What?" Chuck asked. "We can't enjoy each other's company?"

"You know what I mean," she said, her voice soft. She looked down at her hands and twisted her engagement ring.

The smile faded from Chuck's mouth as he realized the time for joking had passed. She was going to put a stop to them once and for all now, finally gaining the upper hand by terminating things on her own terms.

So this is it, he thought. The end of the road.

He took a deep breath and wished he could find a way to stop the inevitable. But as the moments ticked by and nothing came to him, he realized that there was only one option available to him: she was offering him a way to stay in her life without scheming or manipulating.

His instincts screamed at him: Take it. Take it.

"I understand," he said, voice calm and resolute.

Blair's gaze shot up to meet his. "You do?"

Chuck nodded. "I do," he answered.

"And you're…okay with it?" Her tone was incredulous. She was obviously expecting more of a fight from him. "You're okay with being just friends?"

"I wouldn't say that I'm okay with it," he replied. "But being your friend may be the only way to stay in your life. And Blair…I don't ever want to be out of your life again."

Blair couldn't help it. He looked so sincere and he sounded incredibly tired – tired of the games? Tired of her rejecting him? Did it even matter? – that her nose began tingling, alerting her to impending tears.

"And if never losing you means being your friend, I'll take it," Chuck continued. "You're too important to me."

Blair smiled and reached for his hand. She rubbed her thumb across his skin, ignoring the familiar burning at the contact. "Thank you, Chuck," she said. "I'm glad you feel that way. After everything we've been through…I would have hated to lose your friendship, too."

As a smile played at the corners of his mouth, she felt her stomach tighten into knots.

Blair turned in her final assignment to her editor the next day. Since she wasn't due to fly back to the city until the following afternoon, she called her mother and asked if they could meet for lunch.

Less than an hour later, the two women were seated at a table in the center of the dining room of Le Royal Monceau. Their waiter presented the bottle of wine Eleanor had ordered before Blair arrived and poured both women a glass.

"It's to die for," Eleanor gushed after she took a sip.

"Mother, what has gotten into you?" Blair asked, her voice low.

Her mother winked conspiratorially at her. "Can't a mother be excited to see her only daughter?" she said.

"Yes," Blair responded, lifting the wine to her lips. "But I think you have a particular reason for being so…giddy."

Eleanor smiled. "I have a gift for you."

Blair lit up as her mother reached down by her feet and produced a large portfolio. She cleared a space on the table and opened it to the first page, displaying a beautiful wedding dress.

"For you," she said proudly. "For my darling girl, on the most important day of her life."

It was a beautiful thing: strapless with thin fabric draped elegantly across the model's breasts, a moderately long train, and a thick skirt. The back of the gown was layered with silk, contrasting pleasantly with the form-fitting bodice. Here and there, bold splashes of elegant beading appeared and then faded underneath the layers of fabric.

But a smaller sketch of the model from the hips up displayed the pièce de résistance: the material from the bodice met the fabric from the train at the small of her back, where a perfect bow rested. The backless choice was admittedly bold – if it descended just a few inches lower, it would have been inappropriate – but the entire Eleanor Waldorf original was equal parts daring and demure.

It was perfect.

"Mother, it's the most beautiful dress I've ever seen," Blair said, knowing that her words could never do her emotions justice.

"You don't mind wearing something your mother designed?" Eleanor teased.

"Oh, Mother," Blair exclaimed. "I would have been disappointed if you didn't design it!"

Eleanor held out her arms and her daughter fell into them, suddenly feeling lighter and happier than she had in days. When she pulled away, she saw tears in her mother's eyes.

"I can't believe you're finally getting married," Eleanor explained. "You're going to look incredible."

"Mother, we went through this last year. Please don't start crying again."

"I won't," Eleanor assured her, dabbing the corner of her eye with her napkin. "I promise. Not until I actually see you walking down the aisle." She shot Blair a pointed look, as if to say, You had better make it down the aisle this time.

"When should I come back for the fitting?" Blair asked, smiling eagerly.

"You don't need to, dear," her mother answered. "I already have the material and the form for the dress, and Laurel will be in touch with you to get measurements next week. I'll be flying in a few days before the wedding to do the last-minute alterations."

"Isn't a few days a little…late for a last-minute fitting?" Blair questioned.

"Blair, that is the very definition of 'last-minute alterations.' I want this dress to fit you like a glove," Eleanor replied as reached down towards the floor again, this time producing a small box. "Now, one more gift, then lunch should be arriving. I saw this and thought of you immediately."

Blair attacked the wrapping paper. When the paper fell aside and she read the writing on the box inside, she let out a squeak of surprise and nearly flung it to the floor.

"Darling, is something wrong?" Eleanor asked. "I know it's what you wore at one time; I always thought it was the loveliest smell…"

Eleanor continued to talk, but her words were drowned out by Blair's pulse pounding in her head. She stared at the package in her hands and felt her earlier happiness draining out of her body.

In her hands was a pure white box with gold lettering shining up at her:

J'adore.

MEANWHILE

Nicolas opened the door to the apartment he and Blair had purchased and was instantly excited. As he walked through the foyer and to the living room, he was pleased to see that most of their things were already in place. The interior designer had added a few pieces and bursts of colors here and there of course, but there was a new piece in the center of the room – a white chaise lounge – that had Blair's taste written all over it.

He loved watching her face light up when she spied something she liked. It reminded him of the first time he saw her reading Wuthering Heights intently at the café in Paris, her light breakfast sitting virtually untouched in front of her. Nicolas had never seen a face etched with such intensity and vulnerability before, and he remembered thinking that she must have identified with something in the novel.

But he'd cast that thought aside with a laugh. She couldn't possibly have anything in common with that novel – it was too dark and twisted for someone so beautiful…someone who looked like she deserved all the warmth and sunshine and love in the world.

As he wandered down the hallway towards their future bedroom, he realized he was frowning. Blair's daily phone calls and texts since she'd been in Paris were invading his thoughts again.

She was thrilled when she told him about her assignment – "I know it's only been a few weeks, but I miss brunches at the vineyard with Daddy and Roman," she'd confessed – but after a few days she sounded exhausted. She brushed off his concerns lightly, explaining that she had more work than she anticipated, but he was worried about her. When he suggested that he fly there to join her for a few days, she insisted that she was fine.

He hadn't known Blair at all when he saw her reading at that café, but now he knew her like the back of his hand…and he knew something strange was going on with her. He was also well acquainted with her stubbornness; there wouldn't be any way to wring anything out of her until she was back in the States again.

So instead of spending his time worrying, he shrugged it off and focused on the task at hand: surprising his future bride by having their apartment completely set up by the time she got home. It would be a "welcome home" gift she was sure to appreciate – and since Alena was helping, he wouldn't have an opportunity to mess anything up. He tasked himself with arranging things the way he knew Blair liked.

The giant master bathroom took him over an hour to organize. (I'm sure Blair just isn't fully aware of how much bubble bath/hair product/perfume she owns, he reasoned when the bottom of a box he was moving split open.)

He spent another hour on Blair's "dressing room." ("Of course I need a dressing room, Nicolas," she'd told him firmly while he rolled his eyes. "And no, dressing rooms are not antiquated!")

He refrained from sending her a nasty text when it took almost half an hour to sort out the next nightmare he encountered: a box filled with stacks of books. ("Books 4 Nightstand," the box read. "MUST be alphabetized.")

But when he looked at the items for her closet, he nearly passed out. Nicolas knew that Blair owned a ridiculous amount of clothes and shoes since he'd purchased most of them for her, but the pile before him was just obscene.

"Mon dieu," he groaned, cursing himself for giving Dorota the day off.

He tackled her shoes first (arranging them by color as she always had) then moved on to her lingerie (for which Blair had specifically requested a floor-to-ceiling cabinet in her closet). He chose a tall stack of hat boxes in various shapes, knowing that Blair had kept some of her lingerie in them. But he misjudged the weight of the small hat box that rested on top and tugged too lightly, causing it to drag the boxes underneath it forward and onto the floor.

He mumbled a curse and bent to retrieve the items that had spilled from the boxes, stopping when he noticed a flash of gold resting against a stack of note cards. When he plucked the gold object from its resting place and examined it, he smiled – between his fingers was a tiny heart pin. After making a mental note to put the pin in her jewelry box later, his eyes fell to the stack of envelopes the pin had been lying against.

They were wrapped in a crimson silk ribbon and looked virtually untouched, with just one letter – B – written with a flourish on the front of the exposed envelope.

Nicolas reached for them, knowing he shouldn't, somehow knowing that whatever was in those envelopes would break his heart. Dread swept through his body as he untied the ribbon; his fingers trembled as he pulled the heavy embossed paper from the top envelope. He pushed his gaze across the elegant handwriting on the small card with a peculiar curiosity, unable to look away. He remained impassive as he slipped the card back into the envelope a moment later, wrapping the red ribbon carefully around them.

He had to assume that the reason Blair hid the notes was because she believed he'd never find them; she would have destroyed them otherwise. But what bothered him was the fact that she had hidden them instead of throwing them out. It seemed to him that maybe she wasn't willing to let go of them. What if something had changed for her? What if she was connecting with Bass again?

He forced himself to push thoughts of infidelity aside. There was nothing to worry about; Blair loved him and they were getting married in less than three months.

Alena called his name from somewhere in the hallway – her voice and click-clacking of her high-heeled shoes bounced loudly off the walls – and Nicolas panicked. He shoved the bundle of notes into the pocket of his jacket that was draped over the bed and stood, snatching up the closest box of garters just in time to see the bedroom door being pushed open.

The interior designer threw a quick glance around the room. "Still sorting through Blair's closet, I see?" she joked.

"Yes," Nicolas replied, relieved that Alena obviously hadn't caught him stowing the notes into his jacket. "It's…quite a challenge."

Alena smiled. "I imagine. The Waldorf women don't live simply."

"No, they certainly don't," Nicolas agreed, casting a sideways glance at the boxes he had yet to open.

"Would you like a break?" Alena suggested. "I was just about to order lunch. The sitting room is finished and we could go over the finalized plans for your office while we eat, if you'd like."

Nicolas' eyes darted to his jacket and the same grotesque curiosity overwhelmed him as it did before. "I'm sorry," he said. "I want to make sure this is done by the end of the day. When Blair says she'll be gone for two weeks, she really means ten days. It wouldn't do to not have the surprise finished when she comes home early."

Alena nodded with an understanding smile and left the room, closing the door behind her.

His intention had been to tear the rest of the notes free from their envelopes, absorbing every word and reading between the lines to find out the truth – was Blair keeping these from him to spare him the pain he was feeling now? Had she kept them because she still harbored feelings for Chuck Bass?

He furrowed his brow at the thought. He was probably overanalyzing the situation. Blair obviously had a good reason for stashing the notes out of sight, and he would give her a chance to explain herself. In the meantime, he would finish the daunting task of organizing her closet.

But suddenly, the excitement of surprising his fiancée tasted bitter on his tongue.

Ivorykeys09: thanks for slapping me around when I over-think things. And for making the editing process much less painful! :)

And of course...thank you, readers! KillerNewton, TriGemini, LeftWriter224, Aliennut, Rf (thank you!), Temp02, Krazy4Spike, SaNaa.91, MegamiTenchi, and Trosev, thanks for taking the time to review. Your opinions mean the world to me :)

This chapter puts us at about halfway through my story outline, so lots more to come! I hope everyone is still along for the ride (and enjoying it)!