Nathalie's Breakup

Part 23 - Custody

"I am so happy, that nothing is wrong with the baby!" Nathalie whispered as soon as she felt his hand on top of hers. "I was so scared!"

"I know, darling, I know! But now just try to relax and get better, so you can soon help me to design the nursery, okay?" Gabriel replied calmly.

"Oh, I would love that! But to be honest, we can start doing that later already. I am not feeling so bad any more. And it would help to distract me a little from everything else."

He grinned as he told her, 

"I have already had a better idea to keep you busy, dear. Only if you'd like that too, of course. There is a new issue with Adrien and Marinette and this time it's about, well, he has asked me yesterday, if I was okay with her, staying the night. Or if not, if he could stay at her place. I was kinda hoping, you could talk to him again, when he comes back from school and make sure, they both understood, what we told them back then!"

Nathalie shook her head.

"I still can't believe why you're that embarrassed when it comes to your son and making his first sexual experiences, when you are so very open and giving while we're having any sexual contacts. But I would suggest, you send him a message to bring his girlfriend with him and we'll talk about all of it together one more time before allowing him that. Meaning, you me and both of them. Alright?" she wondered.

"Okay!" he hesitantly sighed. "But now just lie back and let me protect the two of you with my strong embrace, yeah?"

"Mh, yeah, that sounds utterly good!" the still fatigued woman responded.

As soon as he was sure that Nathalie had fallen asleep deeply again, Gabriel got to his feet and sneaked out of the room and down to his office where he sent a short text to Adrien, like his beloved woman had told him to do.

His answer came quick.

"Okay, see you later!"

Gritting his teeth as he had rather stayed with Nathalie instead of drawing any new clothes for Audrey Bourgeois, he began with his work. As the time went by fast anyway it soon was time for his son to arrive back home and Gabriel looked up from his tablet with concern as he hadn't heard anything from upstairs for hours. Quickly running up the steps and barging into their bedroom, he saw the pregnant woman just getting to her feet, about to get into the bathroom as it seemed and rushed to her side. 

"May I help you, my love?" he asked her lovingly and Nathalie instantly took the hand he was holding out for her.

"Thank you, I wasn't sure if my legs would already hold me!" she cooed softly.

Gabriel scoffed as he watched her slowly get up. 

"Why didn't you just call for me? You know I would have come to help you as fast as possible. Can you stand? Or would you like me to carry you?" he asked her with an almost angry tone.

"Please don't be mad, I... I'm sorry for making you worry. You did so much for me already today, so I didn't want to bother you again!" she muttered timidly.

The designer could hear the fear in her voice and quickly told her,

"I am not mad, love, I am just scared for you and our baby! There was a letter for you in the mailbox, this morning. I brought it upstairs with me and placed it on your nightstand. So you can read it as soon as you're awake and back in bed. Is that alright?"

Nathalie nodded and let him walk her inside the bathroom to then be left on her own for some time. When she slowly got on her feet and opened the door to the bedroom again, she could see him shaking her pillow to make it fluffy again to then straighten the sheets so she would lie more comfortably.

"You don't have to do that!" the pregnant female told him sweetly.

Gabriel whirled around as she had startled him and stared at her, then rushed towards Nathalie and held her by her waist.

"Why didn't you call for me? What if you had been too weak and had fallen? Come, let me help you lie down. And please, my love, stop scaring me!" he gushed out and nudged her through the room until the back of her legs touched the mattress and she sat down and smiled at him.

"Please try to calm down a little bit, Gabriel. Where's that letter? That's weird, I receive most of my mail via eMail, so what might this one be?" 

She grabbed the envelope the tall man was holding out to her.  After opening it and narrowing her eyes, seeing who it came from, an attorney, whose name she hadn't heard before, she quickly cross read it and paled. 

"N-No! H-He wouldn't d-dare!" she stammered.

"What is it? Nathalie, hey, look at me love! Come, let me lift up your feet. I don't want you to pass out!"

She shook her head, but handed him the letter to see for himself. Gabriel took a little longer to read it, but then he too changed his colour. Yet instead of turning white, his face was all of a sudden deep red and he was taking deep breaths.

"He is sewing for custody of 'your' child? The child, 'he' wanted you to get rid of? Oh how I would love to pay him a visit and beat him up the way I should have months ago!"

But Nathalie grabbed his arm and objected,

"That would only make it worse, Gabriel. It would just show, that we're not capable of raising this child, just like they say in the letter. Because of my mental health issues. This fucking moron is using against me, what was the reason why we met at all! If he hadn't done that job for a couple of days, he would have never had the chance to even talk to me. How can he be so cruel to try and take my baby away from me?"

She started to sob and held on to his hand very strongly. Gabriel pulled her against his chest and let her cry for some time, then he looked down and hummed calmly,

"Does he have any proof, that it's his child? I mean, did you do any sort of paternity test to show him, he is this baby's father?"

"N-No! Why?" the woman asked hesitantly.

But Gabriel just smirked and bent down to kiss her passionately.

"Because then, my darling, I know how to get rid of him before the end of this week!"