Broken Hearts

★★Chapter 3★★

Oh, Nathalie...

Gabriel Agreste sighed as he stared at a picture of her. He regretted ever letting her go, but it had been for the best. If Nathalie didn't want Adrien, then she wasn't getting him either.

Shaking his head at the thought, he put the picture back inside his drawer. He then heard the front door opening and he knew his son was back. Standing up from his seat he walked out of his room to greet his son, but stopped sharply.

"Adrien..." He didn't speak as he watched Adrien enter the mansion with a girl.

"I hope you don't mind, Father," Adrien spoke. "We have to do this art project, and we decided to do it here." Adrien turned to Marinette with a small smile.

"Of course you can," Gabriel didn't have any problems with the ides, but something else bothered him. It's been 17 years, Adrien had been doing so good.

"Why can't I, Father?"

"Adrien, this is for your own good. You heard about how your mother left us. I don't want you to suffer through the same heartbreak as I did, so it's better to just not think about dating or getting close to any girls at all."

"Alright, Father."

Gabriel shook his head at the memory. It bothered him so much to see Adrien close to a girl, but he shook it off and headed to his room, wanting to sleep for the rest of the day due to how tired he was.

"So, where should we work?" Marinette asked with a huge smile on her face. She was so glad that Adrien had agreed to work at his mansion instead of her house. She didn't want Adrien meeting her so-called parents and having problems with them.

"My room if that's fine with you." Marinette quickly nodded at the reply without thinking. She gathered some of the materials and Adrien gathered the rest, then the both of them headed upstairs to where Adrien said his room was.

Placing the materials on the floor of the bedroom, Marinette heaved a huge sigh of relief. "Again I have to say thank you for letting us work here, Adrien." She gave him a look of appreciation.

"It's fine," Adrien shrugged. "Anyway, Jérôme said to work on rough drafts first. Did you work on any drawings?"

"Glad you asked." Marinette chuckled as she pulled out her sketchbook. "I did a bunch of drawings of Mr. Agreste. All we have to do now is pick the perfect one and paint it."

"Don't rush. We have two weeks," Adrien took a seat on the floor. "Here, let me have a look at your drawings."

Marinette leaned over and handed him the sketchbook, him taking it. He looked over all the drawings, nodding his head at each and every one of them.

"They're good that it's almost impossible to choose one that's better than the others," He handed her the sketchbook back. "But I'll go with the third drawing. I feel like you put way much efforts than you did with the others."

"How did you notice?" Marinette giggled, surprising herself, as she took a seat on a floor across from Adrien.

Adrien didn't answer. "If we finish the painting and show my father, he's going to show 10 times more respect for you. Anyway, I forgot to tell you after school, but... My father is planning on making you his assistant for the next designing competition that he's holding. He wants you to talk to him once you get the chance."

"M-me?" Her eyes widened. "T-thank you. I'm definitely in!" Marinette exclaimed. She had worked so hard and look where it brought her. Now even Gabriel Agreste wanted her to be his assistant.