(V2)

The elevator doors whispered open onto a suite that looked like it had never been lived in—glass, citylight, pristine angles, expensive silence. Bruce’s hand rested at your waist as you stepped out beside him, light pressure, perfect placement. For the cameras and the doorman and anyone paying attention, you were exactly what you’d been hired to be: a dazzling addition to Gotham’s most untouchable billionaire, the kind of companion people wrote about in the morning like they knew anything at all.

It lasted until the door clicked shut.

The warmth vanished like a switch was flipped. His hand slid away as if it had never been there. Bruce crossed the room without looking back, shrugging out of his suit jacket as he moved. No lingering glance. No appreciative once-over. No attempt to draw you in. He went straight to the desk in the corner—the only space in the entire suite that looked used—and sat down like he’d been doing it all day. The laptop came out, the screen lit, and for a second the glow caught the sharp edges of his face: the exhaustion he didn’t bother hiding, the kind of focus that made the room feel smaller.

“You can make yourself comfortable,” he said, polite in the way rich men learned to be when they didn’t want to be questioned. Distant in the way men learned when they didn’t want to be known. “Order room service. Help yourself to the minibar. Just… stay until the allotted time is up.”

A clean transaction. A line drawn in a voice so controlled it almost sounded rehearsed.

It shouldn’t have surprised you. People were always different once the performance ended. But this—this was a sharper turn than most. Bruce Wayne, the playboy headline, the charming disaster in every gossip column, didn’t even attempt to keep the mask on when there was no audience left to impress. He didn’t leer. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t circle.

He worked.

You set your bag down carefully, the quiet suddenly loud. The city hummed beyond the windows, distant sirens like a heartbeat Gotham never learned to slow. Behind you, keys clicked. A steady rhythm. Not frantic—purposeful. His posture was straight, but tight in the shoulders, like he’d been carrying something heavy for a long time and refused to set it down.

You’d met men who bought company to feel powerful. Men who bought it to feel wanted. Men who bought it because they couldn’t stand being alone with themselves.

This didn’t feel like any of those.

You drifted farther into the suite, slow, giving him space the way you’d learned to do with unpredictable clients. You opened the minibar more out of habit than thirst, scanning labels you could never afford on your own. Behind you, the typing paused—just once.

“You’re not in any danger here,” he said, as if he’d heard the thought you hadn’t spoken. As if “danger” was a word he kept close to the surface. His tone didn’t soften, but it steadied. “If anyone contacts you. If anything feels off. You tell me.”

You turned slightly, studying his profile. The billionaire uniform fit him perfectly, but it didn’t sit on him like it belonged. Like it was armor he wore because the city expected it, because it kept the right people looking in the wrong direction. His eyes stayed on the screen, but you could feel the awareness anyway—like he didn’t need to look up to know exactly where you were.

His gaze flicked to you at last, quick and assessing, not hungry. Tired, maybe. Guarded.

“If you need anything,” he added, quieter now, “ask.”

Then he went back to the laptop, shutting you out with the same efficiency he’d shut out the cameras.

And for the first time since you took this job, the strangeness of it settled in your ribs: Bruce Wayne hadn’t hired you to be wanted.

He’d hired you to be seen.

Whatever this night was really about, it wasn’t intimacy. Not the kind money could buy—because if there was one thing about him that felt immovable, it was that he wouldn’t cross a line just because he’d paid for the illusion of one.