Adrien walked into the mansion with determination. He’d already had to convince the Gorilla that everything was fine and that he could handle it himself. As soon as the man saw his face, his professional 'aloof and silent' routine went out the window to fuss over him. It was appreciated, but Adrien had other things to worry about.
The mansion was empty, as usual. Actually, it was emptier. Gabriel had business out of town today, though Adrien had forgotten exactly what it was he was doing. Oh well. It was about to be interrupted anyway.
Marching up to Nathalie’s desk area, Adrien steeled his nerves. He’d practiced what he would say over and over since the whole incident went down.
“Nathalie,” Adrien addressed. “We need to talk about Lila Rossi.”
“The two of you have another shoot scheduled next-“ Nathalie stopped cold as she glanced up from her tablet, eyes going wide. “Adrien! What happened to your face!”
“That’s exactly what I’d like to discuss,” he said, automatically touching the scratches from Lila’s nails, and in turn wincing at the pain.
“Hold on a moment,” she said. “I’m calling your father.”
A few taps on her tablet and it was ringing. It took a few tries to get through, but eventually Gabriel picked up.
“Nathalie,” Gabriel said. “This had better be an emergency, because I am in a meeting.”
“Sir,” Nathalie said. “I would qualify this as a sort of emergency!”
She flipped the tablet toward Adrien and honestly? He wasn’t prepared for the range of emotions Gabriel seemed to go through in about five seconds. Confusion to shock to rage. Far more expressive than he’d been in the past year, though unfortunately it wasn’t a good thing.
“Who did this to you,” Gabriel nearly growled.
“Your new ‘muse’, Lila,” Adrien answered.
Oh. There was a flash of guilt there. Adrien shouldn’t feel good about that. But at least it likely meant that Gabriel was furious as a parent whose child was assaulted, and not as the head of the fashion company whose main model was currently defaced.
“Explain,” Gabriel ordered.
“I tried to be her friend, but she showed her true colors,” Adrien said. “She attempted to blackmail me into dating her by threatening to ruin the reputations and careers of my friends and me, along with you and the brand by association. When I refused she turned violent and did this. She also tried to make accusations of me attacking her, but a friend had been recording our conversation. The teachers and principal have copies of it, and Chloé is making sure a copy gets to her dad along with her friend Sabrina’s dad, as he’s a police officer.”
“Why was I not informed of this?” he demanded. “Your school should have called me.”
“I asked them to hold off,” he said. “I wanted to tell you in person, or at least over video call like this. Partly due to the fact that I knew it would need to be handled on a few levels, and also to discuss part of the video before you watched it.”
“Did she do something else?” he asked.
“Nothing you’re thinking of,” he said. “But there is mention of another friend of mine, Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”
“The one who won the contest and got Audrey’s attention?” he asked.
“That’s her,” he nodded. “Last night, Marinette and I were talking on a call and we found out we both had interest in each other. Romantic interest. And while Marinette is worried about how her career might falter due to perceived favoritism, she made me promise to tell you that she’d be incredibly disappointed in you if you tried to favor her because of me.”
That threw Gabriel off his game a little. The man actually almost smiled a little at the news. A good sign.
“Of course,” Gabriel said. “I had expected you to choose Miss Tsurugi. However, Miss Dupain-Cheng seems to be a good candidate. The only bad things I have heard from her were from Miss Rossi, and in light of recent events, her word will be disregarded.”
“Thank you, father,” Adrien said, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“As for Miss Rossi and her little incident,” he continued. “Nathalie and I will discuss the full repercussions of that. Between your injury and the fact that Miss Rossi’s contract with the company will be terminated immediately, we will have to reschedule a few photo shoots too.”
Notes:
Lila's gonna get the smackdown from Gabriel.
