How to win a girl in 10 dates

Bake a Date

"M. Agreste will see you now," Marinette stood and made her way into the office of Gabriel Agreste. She'd been summoned in earlier that morning, Nathalie muttering something about dresses and wanting her opinion on them. She had no idea what it was about, as far as she knew she was in charge of accessorising the finished products that Gabriel would send through, not having her own opinion to the actual designs. Come to think about it, she was sure that in the first meeting he told her she wouldn't have any say in the overall designs.

She walked into the office, both hands clutching onto her cross body strap, and noticed Gabriel had positioned three mannequins with outfits on. Each a different style of dress.

She looked them over quickly, deciding she needed to come up with a good lie. The dresses were hideous. She wouldn't want her name attached to any of them.

"Take a seat, Ms. Dupain-Cheng." Gabriel was standing at the side of the desk, indicating to the chair which had been pulled away ready to seat her. Tentatively, Marinette made her way to the chair and sat down, not letting go of her bag or Tikki. Something felt off, but she couldn't quite place it.

Instead of seating himself opposite her, Gabriel made his way over to the mannequins and walked around them, taking the material between his fingers and studying it. The room was silent and Marinette was scared to talk.

"Interesting aren't they?"

Her gaze shifted from walking Gabriel to the mannequins and she squinted at the prototypes. Did she tell the truth or was this a test? A test to check she supported Gabriel and their brand.

"Come here." Gabriel summoned her to his side, and she stood up from the seat she'd only just settled in. Her nerves were on edge and she couldn't help but gasp even harder at her side bag. If she kept this up, she'd snap the strap.

Slowly, she made her way to Gabriel's side and looked from his stone face to the designs in front of her. She looked it up and down before moving to the next one and repeating the action. She knew he was watching her. Watching each and every move she made.

"You can touch them if you want," he said.

He remained at the first design whilst she had moved onto the third. The designs, in a matter of words, were not good. Actually, they were shockingly bad.

"Did - um - did you make these yourself?" She gulped down a nervous bubble in her throat before turning her attention back to Gabriel.

"No, a junior designer did. I'm not sure if they'll be capable of creating any final designs." As if she was a balloon she felt herself deflate. Thank God!

"Oh," she said, feeling a little more comfortable to speak her mind. "Well this one here," she pointed at the third mannequin, "the stitching is slightly off on the sides, it's pulled the neckline out of sync and into an asymmetric line where I think it needed to be a simple scoop neck." She walked to the next one and studied it. "This one's okay, though the overlocking just needs to be a little tighter."

"Exactly my thoughts, and what about this one? I don't know about you but something is not right about the edging and the design."

She moved up beside Gabriel and pulled the edge of the dress up to her eyes. Gabriel was right the edging wasn't right and neither was the design, this was nothing like they wanted to produce, quite the opposite in fact. This looked like a nightgown more than formal night wear.

"This looks mismatched like a five year old badly edged nightgown," it came out automatically, without an ounce of thought. It was almost an exact replica of the dress the previous days akuma wore and her words mirrored it.