Her boss

7

Nathalie stared up amazed at her superior who had just made her heart melt like some ice cream in warm weather.

Never has she heard such kind words come out of her boss's mouth.
Yet now as Gabriel was glancing down at his employee lovingly, the woman almost just would've wanted to stand on her tiptoes and kiss him.
Only a tiny kiss, just for a second or two, nothing more...well...if only there would've been the possibility to have more...then Nathalie couldn't lie, she probably would've wanted it.

But as of right now she wasn't thinking such dirty things, rather the opposite.
She only imagined one tiny 'thank you' kiss, but even that was too far out of reach for her to accomplish as Nathalie had to keep that 'professional' barrier between the two of them.

And that hurt her the most, the fact that she had to look into those pastel eyes and stare back coldly, not even allowed to hug him, or tell him how she truly felt.
That tore her heart into a million different pieces.

Anyways, as she focused back into reality the woman realized that she was still staring  at her boss in that mesmerized manner, so with a quick shake of her head the assistant looked away.

"Uhm so-" she cleared her throat "...Those words you said earlier sir were very kind." Nathalie forced a smile onto her face "Thank you."

"Well of course." He returned "It's the least which I can do for you after you've been so kind to me all those years. As a matter of fact I should be doing so much more to thank you...b-but I just don't know how."

"Sir you don't-"

"Would a higher pay sound nice? Or maybe some extra holidays? You know you can take the weekends off, or any other day you'd like. I can also offer paid leave, and-"

"Sir!" Nathalie stopped him by placing a hand on the man's shoulder and making him suddenly shut up "Sir I need none of that! I enjoy my job greatly a-and as weird as it sounds I love working. I honestly hate being away from the office even for just a few days. I mean of course I very much appreciate your kindness to offer paid leave and more holidays, b-but that will be unnecessary in my case. Maybe you could offer it to someone else though, like Gorilla-"

"-Yeah but he hasn't helped me as much as you have." Now Gabriel was the one to cut off his assistant mid speech "Okay he takes Adrien to school every day, but that's about it, meanwhile you helped my family ever since the very beginning, you've always been there for Emilie and even she told me so herself, plus you tremendously helped both me and Adrien to get over Emilie's death. Oh and you even manage my company as if you were the boss, which to be fair, you should be, after all you're better at everything than me. So it's safe to say that we need you and you deserve the world Nath."

"Oh Gabriel." She sighed from exhaustion "I could argue about everything you've just said there but I won't because I'm way too tired, so can I ask if we may sleep?"

"Oh of course we may." He chuckled "Now would you like to sleep here or?"

"I don't mind anymore, I'm too tired to even walk over to the guest bedroom so this will do, just please don't touch me during the night, I'd be very sorry to accidentally kick you."

"Your wish is my command miss," Gabriel smiled, making his employee blush a little, thankfully though both adults were too tired to comprehend anything which was happening, so the designer didn't realize much, he only thought that she was a bit warm, so the man even suggested that he'd bring her something more comfortable to wear whilst she got ready in his bathroom.
And this time, without hesitation Nathalie agreed and accepted her boss's offer.

"Thank you very much sir." She smiled as he handed her a toothbrush and everything she possibly needed for a good night of sleep.
He even asked what exactly she'd like to sleep in.