Second Chances

Lila -------->chp8

Lila

The week ended with a very sunny Saturday. Having been cooped up in either his house or his office far too long, Adrien was itching to get out. “Emma, do you want to go to the park?”

“Yes!”

Ten minutes later, the duo was walking hand in hand to the park a small distance from the house. “Emma,” Adrien began. “Did you like having Mrs. Marinette watch you this week?”

Emma nodded. “Yes. But I don’t like doing chores.”

Adrien grinned at that. There was nothing wrong with Marinette requiring Emma to pick up her toys or help with dishes. In fact, Adrien couldn’t have approved more. It was little things like that that might curb the sense of entitlement that Adrien desperately wanted Emma to avoid getting. “Besides making you do chores, do you like playing with Marinette?”

“I like baking cookies with her,” Emma quickly answered.

He liked when they made cookies, too. Marinette’s cookies were the best he’d ever had. She had made them twice with Emma this week and promised Emma they would make something new next week.

Which reminded him, he really needed to go grocery shopping. Marinette hadn’t just given him a list of things for whatever treat she was making. Oh, no. He had caught her raiding his entire kitchen—and when he said entire, that included all his utensils and equipment—cleaning it out, and writing an essay length grocery and utensil list. She also took complete advantage of the dry-erase board on the fridge to plan out meals for the week. Adrien had had to veto a few because he knew Emma wouldn’t eat a couple nights of planned dinners, but they had quickly been replaced and approved.

When they got to the park, Adrien let go of Emma’s hand so she could go play on the playground. There were a couple other kids already running around the play structure. Within a few minutes, Emma managed to weasel her way into playing their little game of tag.

Adrien smiled as he watched from his spot on a park bench. She really was her mother’s daughter. Besides seeing it in Emma’s appearance, there were a handful of other traits that were purely Chloe’s. Emma was a natural social butterfly, able to jump in and play with the kids of the playground with ease.

“Adrien Agreste?”

He looked up upon hearing his name, eyes locking on a woman who was walking a dog through the park. It took him a moment, but he soon recognized her as the Italian model they recently hired.

“Hi,” she chirped, pulling her little dog along and taking the seat next to him. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Forgive me,” Adrien said. “I know we have met, but I can’t remember your name.”

“Lila Rossi,” she said, extending a hand in expectation of a kiss.

He would do no such thing. “Ah, yes. Nice seeing you.”

She looked a little put out upon being denied, but she pulled herself together quickly, placing her hand in her lap and sitting up tall as though nothing had never happened. “Well, Trixie needed her walk,” she said, looking down at the fluffy, red and white dog that stood at her heels. Adrien was terrible at breeds, but he would forever recognize a papillon after another model ‘educated’ him when he was a teen.