Bruce had perfected the art of indifference. The world saw a billionaire playboy, charming and untouchable; Gotham saw its silent guardian. But his assistant? She saw him—and she hated every second of it.

She hated the late nights he demanded without explanation, the meetings he skipped only for her to clean up the fallout, the way he dismissed her sharp remarks with a flick of his gaze. To her, Bruce Wayne was everything wrong with power: careless, smug, untouchable.

And yet… she stayed. She stayed because the paycheck was good, because Wayne Enterprises was an empire, and maybe—just maybe—because something about the man gnawed at her. His silences were too precise. His disappearances too frequent. His exhaustion too real.

Hatred was easier than admitting curiosity. Easier than admitting the way her pulse shifted whenever his blue eyes lingered on her just a beat too long.

Bruce noticed. Of course he did. And though he’d never say it, a part of him liked that she hated him.