Chapter 9

                                    

                                          
"It seems that you have fallen in love with my son"
On listening to that, Marinette's mind completely went blank, and just stared at Gabriel. 
"I have... what?" She whispered.
But then she scoffed "Love? you think I love him?"
She might have heard a little angry growl from Gabriel because of the disrespectfulness she was showing to him.
But he chose to ignore it and continued "Just think about it, my dear. You love to spend time with him and love it when he puts effort into making your wishes come true. You always had his complete attention and time but now that he hasn't been spending much time with you and his attention is diverted to other young ladies you are feeling jealous and afraid that you might lose his interest because of the distance created between you two"
"T-that... that's not possible. I don't think I-" Marinette tried to speak but Gabriel cut her off "then how do you explain this? It's only natural my dear. You being here complaining about my son means that I was your last resort to getting my son's attention back to you, presuming he is not listening to you because trust me, no one in this empire would ever dare to come to me with such a petty complaint that too unannounced but I respect your bravery that's why I will ignore it this once"
Gabriel rose from his seat and started walking towards her. As he kept on getting closer and closer, the chills in her body started increasing more and more.
He stopped a few steps away from her and raised his hand to pet her head which did not feel pleasant to her at all "take a moment and think about it my dear, think about it"
Marinette paused and let Gabriel's words sink in and suddenly his words weren't feeling... nonsense anymore. There might be some truth to them.
Marinette likes beautiful and pretty things and Adrien is breathtakingly handsome. She loves his position, background, and behavior, especially his voice, attention, and company. He is absolutely perfect and the only one who is worthy of her.
Just maybe, maybe it could be possible that... that... she...
Gabriel could read Marinette's emotions clearly on her face and then smirked "how about we solve your problem now? I have a perfect idea for it"
Gabriel ordered a servant to call for Adrien while Marinette was still stuck with this new feeling like a warm spring day blossoming inside her and soon enough, Adrien was there in the courtroom, greeting Gabriel and her with surprise on his face on seeing her there.
Now that she thinks about it, Adrien at that moment was really scared of what was happening because Marinette and Gabriel being in the same room could never be good for Adrien.
Because Marinette was the one who made his life difficult but Gabriel was the one who took every chance to make Adrien's life miserable as much as he could.
Why?
Because Gabriel hates Adrien.
This fact was hidden from the world so well that even the servants working in that very palace never knew that. Marinette only found out about it when she was you know, captivated and tortured and Adrien spilled his unknown secrets. That's when she found out, along with a very deep and dark secret about this family, especially about the Empress. The reason behind Gabriel hating Adrien was related to the Empress.
No one could even a million years guess or even imagine that. When Marinette had found out, she for a moment had forgotten about all the pain in her body and lost her senses in trying to comprehend that secret, a secret which was sickening and nauseatingly disgusting.