Fake Dating

16 - A truest first kiss

"Don't you think that they didn't know what to do with all this money they had?" Marinette asked, when she entered another wainscoted study with so richly decorated that she didn't even try to imagine the price of the interior finish. Not to mention a value of furniture!

"Well, they were rich, so they could afford it..." Adrien only shrugged.

"You know, maybe I'm not so wealthy, but I have some money. And I wouldn't spend such amounts on luxury."

"Nowadays we spend money on electronics and gadgets. They used to spend it on golden furniture. Here I'd say someone was partial to crystal chandeliers. Which weren't cheap for sure."

"When I recall the other palaces, I start to suspect that they had a kind of competition who would spend more on their houses. I mean their palaces."

"Probably you're right. Thanks to that we can have a pleasure of visiting those palaces and seeing those stunning interiors. Fortunately we don't have to live here..."

"You think you could live in such a house?"

"I guess not..." he admitted. "Too much of all that stuff. And it would be a long walk to anywhere. Just imagine that I'd want to ask you something. Do you have any idea how many kilometres I'd have to walk to find you in one of those rooms?"

Marinette suppressed those strange butterflies in her stomach awoken after those words. Intentionally or not, but Adrien had just described their possible future together. This morning he had told her that their fake dating would start tomorrow, so... Would it mean...?

"It would be easier to call me. And to install GPS on our phones." she replied after a moment.

"An option of sharing your real-time location would be useful. Otherwise we would look for each other for hours..." he added and she chuckled.

"Yeah, you could be lost here without a problem. I've already lost track of which room we've just visited, who lived here and what they were doing in it."

"I've heard it's a chapel there as well."

"I wonder if we manage to reach it before the evening..." she muttered ironically, passing an impressive staircase in a direction of another part of the palace. "Oh, God... It's another corridor..."

Adrien looked over her shoulder and chuckled.

"Do you want to watch those paintings and sculpture, or we're going directly to the Napoleon Bonaparte Museum?" he asked pointing out to the left.

"Not sure yet." she muttered. "I'm trying to count kilometres already made and how many there are ahead. Has anyone got a guidebook?" she asked, looking around for Nino.

And that was a moment she lost the ground under her feet.

Nino saw everything in a slow motion – as always when something was happening. The couple under his protection stopped in the middle of the corridor wondering about visiting the gallery or the Napoleon Museum. Suddenly a school trip left the museum and without looking around all those teenagers ran into Marinette and swept her off her feet. The more, they blocked Nino, so he couldn't reach the girl, despite the fact he moved to the rescue immediately, even before she began losing her balance.

Meanwhile Adrien reacted instinctively. He gripped Marinette, saving her from falling. At the moment, when he embraced her, it seemed to them both that the time stopped and the surroundings disappeared. For her – the world ended in his green eyes staring at her, and in his arms around her waist. Was it a reason why breathing became so difficult? For him – all he could see were her bluebell eyes, but when he heard her gasp he glanced at her lips and that was it. All he could think about was kissing her. Right here. Right now. Marinette ran out of breath when she noticed, what Adrien was staring at. Involuntarily she licked her lips, and he leaned in...

"Are you OK?" Nino asked suddenly, when he finally reached them.

They looked at him dizzy, as if they wondered where he came from and why he was there.

"Sorry for ruining your plan of keeping distance between you and me, but I can't let something like that happen again." Nino added, perfectly aware what he'd just ruined. "After all, your father pays me for protecting you, Adrien..."

"Sure, dude. Do your job..." his friend muttered, releasing – rather reluctantly – Marinette from his embraces. He glanced at her uncertain, still thinking about how close he'd been to kiss her. "Are you OK, Mari?"

"Safe and sound." she replied with a smile. "Thanks for the rescue."

"Always at your service, M'Lady." Adrien grinned.

"I wish I could stay away from that..." Nino commented under his breath, and they only laughed.

"So? Napoleon Museum?" Marinette changed the subject.

"If you don't have a trauma after that school trip, we can go." Adrien agreed.

"No trauma. My ankles are fine. We can go."

"They probably didn't even notice who they ran into. I bet that a half of those kids are your biggest fans."

"Only a half?" she winked at him. "Anyway, you've got a proof that Tikki's methods are very effective."

"On the other hand if you weren't so incognito, you wouldn't have been trampled underfoot."

"Apparently there are disadvantages of looking like an ordinary girl..."

"You never look like an ordinary girl." Adrien denied, letting her pass. Yet, he couldn't help it and he touched her back by the way.

Marinette blushed, but said nothing. She focused on keeping her pace and on pretending to be very interested in the exhibition devoted to Napoleon Bonaparte. It was all about pretending again! She watched every room, furniture and showpieces with unseeing eyes – her mind was busy with remembering the moment in the corridor before they'd come here. A line between true and fake dating had been fuzzy for a while already, and Adrien's words about pretending from tomorrow only complicated her judgement. Because... If it was real, that would mean that Nino had interrupted their truest first kiss.