When Chloe woke up the next morning she already had 3 messages from Oliver. Perhaps she should have called him last night but it was so late and she was so tired and the truth was she didn't know what to say. It probably would have helped if she hadn't slept till almost noon. She needed her sleep. In the absence of that she needed coffee. Before she called Oliver she dialed the kitchen and had them send her up a pot.
"Not a cup, a pot." Like she was the only one that needed more than one cup of coffee in the morning. Scratch that. Afternoon. As soon as she placed the phone back in the cradle it started to ring again.
"Seriously, the whole pot."
"Do I even want to ask what that means?" Oliver sounded chipper.
"Oliver I haven't had any coffee yet. You've been warned." She heard his soft laugh.
"Okay then I will get right to the point. How was your date?"
"Fine, great, wonderful, Bruce was a perfect gentleman."
Oliver couldn't help but notice the disappointment in her voice. "And the other thing?"
"I don't trust this phone, can you send over a messenger? Maybe a really fast one?" Chloe knew he would get her meaning.
"No problem. He can be there in ten minutes." Chloe looked around the room quickly and sighed.
"Ollie, tell him to be here at 1. I need coffee and a shower before I'll be up for any visitors. Especially the hyperkinetic kind."
"No problem and be careful Chloe. A well dressed shark is still a shark."
"Good bye Oliver." She heard him laugh as she hung up the phone. She wasn't up to listening to him warn her about Bruce. She wasn't up for anything until she got her coffee. Just as she was contemplating drinking the cold pot from last night she heard the bell. Hurrying to open it she grabbed her robe and barely glanced through the peephole. Standing there was a distinguished older gentleman holding flowers. Chloe flung the door open.
"Coffee, thank god!" only he wasn't holding any coffee and he wasn't pushing a cart. "Coffee?" She looked so disappointed.
"Miss Sullivan I presume." His spoke with a crisp British accept.
"Yes and you?" She didn't really care; all she could think about was coffee.
"Alfred Pennyworth" Her caffeine deprived brain took a minute to process but then it clicked.
"Oh," She could only imagine what he was doing at her suite. "Sorry." She stepped back "Please come in." He followed her into the room and placed the flowers on the table.
"I'd offer you something but I'm afraid all I have it last night's coffee, I was actually hoping you were the kitchen with a fresh pot" She looked wistfully at the door again.
"Not a problem miss. I'm here on behalf of Master Bruce." Chloe noticed the formal speech but also the warmth in his eyes when he said Bruce's name. He was certainly a lot more than a massager.
"Oh does he want the dress back?" It was the only thing she could think of.
"Dress?" He looked confused at her.
"Yes the dress he had sent over yesterday."
"If he gave you a gift he would never ask for it back." Hmm gave her a dress? Yet another thing out of the ordinary. Very interesting. Bruce had talked to him this morning about her little League and then he had spent the next 3 hours digging up every piece of information on her. The only new piece he had found was the sealed DHS file and that was a bust. After finally breaching the firewall it was obvious that she had been wrongly imprisoned. The only thing of interest was that once again Oliver Queen was involved. In the end Bruce told Alfred he needed to see her again. He had chastised him for his grin telling him it was business. If she was asking questions about the Batman he needed to find out what she was all about.
So now Alfred was sitting in her hotel room passing her an invitation.
"Oh" she looked at him with a confused expression.
'I'm here to extend an invitation to the Mansion this evening." Chloe raised her eyebrow
"Mansion?"
"Yes. Master Bruce's home." Alfred conveyed this as if it was a regular occurrence.
Chloe was trying to figure out how to respond when there was another knock at the door. She rushed over and flung it opened. Thrilled beyond words that is was her coffee.
"Oh thank goodness!' She signed the little slip and handed the young man a tip. She quickly fixed herself a cup, smiling widening as the first sip touched her lips. She looked up at the sound of Alfred laughter.
"Sorry it was a late night and I'm not very good without coffee." She smiled at him sheepishly.
"I will send a car here to pick you up at 7 this evening." Alfred stood and started walking to the door. He didn't give her a chance to tell him no. He simply nodded formally and closed the door behind him.
"Well this is interesting development." Chloe took another long sip of her coffee. Glancing at the clock she briefly wondered if she would still have time for a shower before Bart showed up. Deciding it was better to make him wait that to have to fend off his advances in a robe she walked into the bathroom to try and get ready for the day. What was left of it anyway.
Alfred arrived at the mansion to find Bruce back in front of the computer. Not satisfied with what he had discovered already he was busy tapping into every secure database he could think of. He now had every scrap of paper on one Chloe Ann Sullivan right down to copies of her pediatrician visits when she was an infant and nothing contradicted what she had told him about herself. If anything he was more fascinated with her. The problem was he still had too many questions. What was her attachment to Queen and was he connected to the League? More importantly why did he care what her attachments were? He scowled at his own thoughts. He wasn't happy about having to break his vow. Seeing her again for dinner tonight was a necessity to protect the Batman but it was a danger to Bruce. With her safely across town in her hotel he was free to analyze her draw for him. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that, but he never had a shortage of beautiful woman waiting to be on his arm. Obviously she was intelligent; something that was sorely lacking in most of his other dates, but that still wasn't it. There was something about her. A quiet strength perhaps. He was finding it hard to put into words what made her so dangerous to him.
"Anything new?" He turned at the sound of Alfred's voice.
"Nothing, She is what she appears to be."
"Why do you sound so disappointed?" Alfred could always read him.
He was disappointed because he had spent the morning looking into her background in an attempt to find something that would make it easier to dislike her. Something that would show her to be an adversary, an enemy.
Alfred tried to hide his smug smile, "I take it you heard our conversation?"
He nodded and turned back to the computer.
"Don't forget you have a board meeting at 3 downtown."
That would give him just enough time to shower and prepare himself.
"It's on the new energy project for the plant in China." Alfred answered his unspoken question.
"Thank you."
"Any special requests for dinner tonight sir?"
"No Alfred. I'm sure you will come up with something suitable."
Chloe had just dried the last lock of hair when she heard the knock at the door. Rushing over the opened the door to find Bart Allen standing on the other side smiling and holding a cup of Coffee.
"Columbian Supremo, since you didn't need me hear till 1 I took the long way."
Chloe took the cup from him and stood back as he walked in. Talking a sip she smiled.
"Still warm. Thank you Bart."
"Nothing but the best for my Chloelicious." he gave her his biggest smile. "So the boss man sent me here for some files?" He moved towards the table where Chloe had a plate waiting for him. She had called down to room service the minute she knew he was coming knowing how ravenous he would be when he arrived. Superspeed came with a price.
In between bites of pancakes and sausage he looked around the room. "Looks like someone wanted to say he was sorry."
"Yeah typical Oliver." Her words might have sounded harsh to anyone else but Bart knew how much she cared for their leader.
Chloe moved towards the desk and sat down in front of her laptop. "You eat your lunch Bart, I have a few more notes I want to add to the file before I hand it off."
So far she had everything she knew about the batman written out, the only thing missing was the one thing she was struggling with. Should she tell Oliver about Bruce? It just didn't seem right. When the time came when he agreed to work with them she would let him make the decision on who he wanted to tell. She would convince him to join the league. It was only a matter of time but she could already tell that trust would be a huge sticking point. To start out with a violation wouldn't be helpful. The only real problem was keeping it from Oliver. They were just getting themselves back to their former level of trust. Hopefully he would see this her way when he did find out. Decision made she sealed the file up and put in on the table in front of Bart. She wasn't the least bit surprised to find almost all of the food was gone.
"Hungry?" She smiled at him.
"You know how it is." He shrugged his shoulders. Chloe sighed. Sometimes he looked so young.
Bart wiped his mouth with the napkin and grabbed the file. "Be careful Chloelicious and remember I am only a phone call away."
Chloe gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and watched his face turn red. She realized Oliver must not have told him about her date last night or he would be going all Alpha male protector on her just like Ollie had.
"Tell the big guy to call me after he goes over this." She watched Bart nod in reply and vanish into thin air. Her only indication of his departure was the wind that tugged at her shirt tails and blew her hair around her face.
She had plenty of time before she went to dinner at the Wayne Mansion tonight and nothing to wear. Time for some more retail therapy Chloe smiled, grabbed her bag, and headed towards the door. Despite her reluctance to spend Oliver's money today's trip was going to be on him. Dinner was going to be research after all. She briefly wondered if it would be better to just call and cancel. She didn't like the game she was going to have to play tonight. Not to mention she knew the only reason Bruce had asked her to dinner again was because he knew she was watchtower and what better way to investigate her then through his alter ego? Of course he didn't know she knew that he knew who she was. Ouch! That thought made her head spin. Tonight was going to be a very challenging juggling act and that was before you added the powerful attraction she felt for both sides of his personality. It was going to be another long night,
Bruce heard all of her conversation with the massager who arrived. Two things were very obvious, this was no random messenger and Oliver Queen was somehow involved in this League of hers. More than likely he was the Green Arrow but Bruce would need to confirm this information later. It wasn't really that shocking. He had always felt the other boy billionaire hid behind the façade of indifference. Later he could muse over the irony of the situation, right now he needed to get downtown for his board meeting.
For the second night in a row Chloe found herself stepping off the elevator into the lobby for a date with Bruce Wayne. She was wearing a simple chocolate brown wrap dress and espadrille wedges. The look was simple yet elegant. Her only indulgence had been a jade necklace that she had paid for herself despite her earlier pledge to put this on Oliver's tab. When she had seen it in the display case at the little boutique she had been intrigued, when the shop owner explained that it was the Chinese character for protection said to watch over the wearers loved ones she just had to have it. She felt its weight sitting in the hollow of her throat and hoped it would help her do her job tonight. She needed to be able to get past her attraction and remain objective. Bruce would be watching her for any signs that she wasn't the person she presented herself to be. Tonight was basically an interview disguised as a date.
As she slid silently into the backseat of limo she tried to think about the night as a mission. The objective was to get Bruce to trust her and by proxy the batman to trust the League. She pulled herself back to the present when she saw the house. If you could call it that. Chloe had been to Oliver's family home a few times but this made that look small. She openly stared at the massive stone structure. How could one man live in all those rooms? To describe it would imply it was ostentatious but it didn't feel that way. There was something dark and welcoming about it at the same time. As the car pulled up to what she assumed was the main entrance she checked her appearance in her compact one last time. Stepping out as the driver opened the door she walked up the steps and watched as the door opened before she even reached it. Standing there looking exactly as he had this morning was Alfred.
"Welcome to Wayne Manor Miss Sullivan." He smiled warmly at her. He had a way about him that despite his formal behavior reminded her of a favorite grandpa.
"Thank you Alfred."
"Master Bruce was slightly delayed in the city, if you like you can wait in the library. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
She smiled warmly at the mention of coffee. She could only imagine that Bruce had some excellent beans.
"Alfred can I help you with anything while we wait? I can get into trouble when left to my own devices." She knew herself too well. If she were alone her curiosity would get the best of her and she didn't want Bruce walking to find her snooping.
Alfred smiled knowingly at her. "I was just finishing dinner; you are welcome to join me in the kitchen."
"That would be wonderful Alfred."
Bruce looked at his watch again. It was still another ten minute ride back to the mansion and he was already 20 minutes late. This was really pushing the limits of fashionably late. Never mind that Chloe was probably already waiting at his home for him to join her. He assumed it made him appear arrogant. He sighed. It was a good thing for her to believe that about him but he didn't like it. Despite the danger it presented he wanted her to think well of him. His foot pressed harder on the gas pushing the little sports car faster.
.
The gravel crunched under his feet as he lept out and strode to the front door. Letting himself in he took one last look at his watch. He was just shy of a half hour late. Cursing silently under his breath he made his way into the house searching for signs of life. Had she gotten annoyed with him and left? Surely Alfred would have called him? He titled his head and listened catching the soft lilt of her laughter coming from the kitchen.
He approached the door silently. He could hear her laughing again and felt warmth spreading at the sound. He briefly thought about how a sound like that could change a house to a home. He took a deep breath and pushed through the doors. She was sitting on the counter with her legs crossed her head was thrown back in abandon. Bruce was struck by her beauty. Her attire was much more casual than it had been last night and yet she was just as breathtaking.
"I'm so sorry I'm late." Chloe and Alfred both looked up at his entrance and Chloe burst into fresh peels of laughter. Bruce felt the smile spreading despite his ignorance of the cause. The sound was infectious.
She was trying to to catch her breath. Alfred had been amusing her with stories of Bruce's childhood. With every story she became more certain of two things; Alfred couldn't have loved him more if he had been his own son and Bruce had tested that love at every turn.
"I'm sorry it's just that Alfred was telling me about the time you brought home a skunk because you had watched Bambi and thought it would be a good pet." Tears were still spilling from her eyes as she spoke. Barely holding in another round of laughter. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself. Looking at him she realized something was different. He was smiling. Not the fake half smile he offered when the occasion called for it but a genuine smile that made his eyes sparkle and left little crinkles at the corners.
"Did he also pull out all of my embarrassing baby pictures?" Bruce tried hard to sound angry but his face couldn't hide his amusement.
"You should do that more often" Chloe slid off the counter and walked over to him.
"Walk in while people are talking behind my back? Actually it happens quite often."
She just frowned at him and placed a chaste kiss on his cheek. "No, Smile." and she pushed through the doors and headed back into dinning room.
"I smile all the time." Bruce grumbled to no one in particular.
"If you say so sir." Bruce shot Alfred a deadly look which he ignored as he walked past carrying the tray with their dinner to the table.
Seated at the table she watched Alfred place dinner on the table. She had no idea what it was but the smell was making her mouth water. She watched as Bruce sat opposite her a scowl on his face.
"If you need anything else just let me know."
"You aren't joining us Alfred?" Chloe was genuinely surprised. Despite his title he wasn't just the help and she was hoping to hear more about the mysterious man across from her.
"Not tonight miss. I have a previous engagement with a chess board and a very determined young man."
"Thank you so much for entertaining me while we waited for Bruce." He cringed at the reminder of his rudeness but when he looked at her face he realized she hadn't said it to make him feel bad. Alfred only nodded at her and walked out.
She turned her attention back to Bruce. "You are a lucky man, he loves you very much."
"Yes well in a lot of ways he is the only Father I have ever know. My dad was a wonderful man, caring, compassionate, and patient but I was still so young when he died and I was so angry and rebellious. I'm afraid it's only recently that I have begun to appreciate all that Alfred has done for me." He felt the details spilling out of him. Something about her eyes made his defenses weak and left him giving her more than he intended.
"I am sorry about making you wait."
She just waved a hand at him. "Nothing you could do about that. Besides it gave me a chance to see a side of you I doubt many people see." Not to mention that smile. That one moment when she had realized he was really smiling and it had sent sparks sizzling across her skin and made her worry that being objective was going to be much harder than she ever thought possible.
Again they chatted amicably while they ate. Bruce talked about the board meeting that had caused his lateness and Chloe talked about her time at the Daily Planet. As the last morsel was eaten she smiled up at him. She couldn't keep up the pretense any longer.
"So a second date huh?" She raised her eyebrow at him. "Guess that makes me special." She was teasing him, testing him.
He didn't know what to say to that. The truth was tonight was an aberration for so many reasons and it being a second date was low on the list. Another evening in her company and nothing new had been discovered. Maybe she was exactly what she appeared to be? His gut wanted to trust her but his head was standing in the way. She was too good to be true.
"Would you like to see the greenhouse?" he walked over to her and offered his hand. She looked up surprised and placed her much smaller one in it. She felt the calluses brush against her soft skin. How did no one notice? Looking up into his eyes she saw the darkness there. How did they not see? She took a deep breath as she followed him down a long hallway. They turned enough times that Chloe wasn't even sure if she could have found her way back to the dinning room without him.
"Should have brought my breadcrumbs." She heard his soft chuckle in reply as he stopped and opened a massive door. Before she could say another word she gasped, there in front of her were enough roses to finish all the floats for the rose bowl parade. "Oh"
He was pleased by her reaction. The greenhouse was a part of the mansion no one ever saw. Most of the front rooms had been used during the many parties he threw but no one ever came back here.
"My Mother had this built before I was born. She wanted it to be a magical garden that bloomed no matter how gloomy the weather was outside."
Chloe turned to look at him; his face was soft, nostalgic, sad. She squeezed his hand with hers and he looked down at her. His gaze was piercing and she felt her skin tingle and then the butterflies took flight in her stomach. She licked her lips nervously and she watched the smirk tug at his lips. The bastard was well aware of the effect he had on her and was using it to keep her off balance. She tried to pull her hand from his but he held firm. There was no way she could get away from him. He was moving forward, causing her to step back until her legs bumped into a bench, suddenly she was seated in it and he was looming over her. She knew he was trying to intimidate her but all it did was excite her. She couldn't drag her eyes away from his face. That smirk was so sexy; somehow even the smugness was sexy. The ever present darkness was in his eyes and she wondered just how far he would be willing to go to test her?
Not likening the submissive spot he had forced on her she pushed herself forward from the bench, standing again only there wasn't any room and he didn't step back as she had anticipated and suddenly she was standing in front of him forced to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. Two can play at this game she thought as she watched his jaw clench. She could only assume he was trying to maintain some level of control.
Neither wiling to loose the advantage they stood there a hairs breathe from each other silently starting. Bruce's mind was battling for control from his body. He wanted her. He thought about how his name would sound on her lips as he drove her mad with passion and he clenched his first forgetting for a moment he was still holding her hand until he felt the responding pressure from her. She hadn't cringed, she hadn't pulled away, she had simply responded in kind and that thought drove him mad with desire. With his last ounce of self control he took a step back very deliberately giving them some space. Still holding her hand he smiled at her and felt a stab of annoyance as he watched the smile spread across her lips. She had won this little battle but only because he had let her. Or at least that was the lie he told himself.
"We should be getting you back to your hotel miss Sullivan." despite his words he stood unmoving in front of her.
"Yes it is getting late and I still have some research to do tonight." She hoped that sounded innocent. She still wasn't sure if she should tell him she knew. She watched the frown flicker across his features as he turned and led her back to the main hall.
He had offered to take her home himself but she had insisted the driver was fine. No need for him to drive all the way back into the city only to have to turn around. Better to let him get out there are patrol. She could tell the minute the sun went down he was itching to get out.
He held the door to the car open for her. She turned before sliding in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips again. She had intended it as a chaste goodbye but Bruce had other thoughts. His arms wrapped around her and crushed her to his chest while he deepened the kiss. Using her shock at his sudden aggressive behavior to press his advantage. Just as quickly as it started she found herself standing in front of him with his hands on her shoulders steadying her. She took a deep breath a let the cloud of passion clear. She hadn't even had a chance to respond before it was over.
"I'd like to see you again." it was a true statement. Despite his need to know more about her he truly wanted to see her again. A fact that he found terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time.
She nodded feebly, the only response she was willing to risk. Her body was betraying her. Once again she found herself willing to give him anything he asked, but he didn't press. She slid into the seat and heard him close the door. Staring ahead she wondered how she would be able to handle a visit from his alter ego tonight if he chose to show up. It wasn't going to be easy.