A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Here's the next chapter, tell me what you guys think ~
As we pulled in front of one of the several Wayne Enterprises buildings in Gotham that held the penthouse, I stared in silent awe at the front scenery. With what it lacked during the day time it surely made up for how it looked during the night. The building lit up like a Christmas tree with all the bright lights, mirroring the rest of the impressive city lights around the area.
After Dante and I said our goodbyes to our Uber driver - a means of transportation we thought was best since it was more affordable than a taxi driver but still left me feeling out of place beside all of these fancy limos and luxury cars around the parking space, we stepped out of the car and headed towards the entrance.
The cool breeze of the city hitting my skin caused me to cross my arms and I found myself wishing I had brought a jacket with me. The small sprinkles from the large water fountain in the front weren't helping much either. However I was too busy admiring the scenery still.
"You want my jacket?"
Once I heard someone speak beside me, I turned to come face with a man in a tux equally as nice as Dante's. He looked to be around possibly our age.
He nervously lifted up his glasses and stood there rather awkwardly when his offer was met with silence.
"Oh, it's fine-" I immediately responded, but Dante interjected with a "hey!"
"Paul, nice to see you here. I didn't know how many of the other interns were gonna come," Dante shook hands with him and put a hand on my shoulder. "Lyssa this is Paul, he's one of the other interns with me. He goes to Gotham University too, he's senior there. Paul this is Alysa." He introduced us.
"Hi," I smiled and reached out to shake his hand, figuring this was the other student intern besides Dante he was talking about earlier. He returned the smile and nervously brushed his hair back for a second before noticing my hand out. His hand immediately shot down and met mine with a firm grip.
"N-Nice to meet you, Alysa." He stammered.
I kept a friendly grin and briefly pushed my elbow back against Dante's chest when I heard him stifle an amused laugh under his breath. He gave out a cough and rubbed his hands together to try and keep warm from the cold. "Well shall we head on in then? I'm kind of freezing my ass here."
"Yeah, let's get inside." Paul nodded in agreement.
"No, really? I just thought we'd stand here and talk for the rest of the night. It's pretty nice out," I sarcastically mused.
Dante put an arm around me and squeezed himself against me while we walked inside the building. "Okay, miss cheeky." He teased, to which I responded with a light laugh.
The front entrance of the building as we walked inside was impressive as well, surrounded by white walls and pearl tile floors. Some of the invited guests of the party already started to swarm in, either taking the elevator up to the penthouse or waiting for others to arrive and snapping pictures. I was already starting to feel a little intimated by the wealthy guests. Most of them were clearly sophisticated aristocrats or entrepreneurs that had probably already had lifelong experiences with parties such as these.
Once we took the elevator up to the penthouse, there were already possibly hundreds of people inside enjoying cocktails or champagne laughing and conversing with one another. The echoing of the room allowed me to hear even the faintest of clinging of glass or ladies walking with their high heels across the room.
The penthouse itself was absolutely gorgeous - diamond chandeliers sitting high up on the ceiling from the center of the room with glass walls all around that provided a breathtaking view of the city at all sides. As I marveled over the sight, I couldn't help but feeling an overwhelming sense of being out of place next to all of these other rich guests that clearly weren't as fazed by all the extravagant scenery as I was, seeing as they've probably already were used to extravagant things.
"This place is so cool," Dante equally marveled over the sight, earning a nod of agreement from Paul. Another man in a tux which I assumed who worked here for the party approached us with a tray full of glasses of drinks once he saw more guests arriving inside.
"Champagne?" He offered.
We all proceeded to grab a glass from the tray and give him our thanks. He dipped his head and went back to stand and wait for more guests to offer drinks to.
"So they don't even have to ID us?" I asked, amused.
Dante chuckled. "No, because it's a party. They're gonna assume everyone here is over 21 anyways." He explained.
I replied with an intrigued 'oh'. My lips twitched into a small smile as I took a sip of the champagne.
"I wonder if the other interns are here..." Paul turned his head and gazed around the room to try and find sight of them. Dante peered across the room and raised his glass to point towards the direction of the small group of interns once he spotted them. "Hey, there they are."
As they started to make their way towards them I casually snaked my arm around Dante's to not be left behind. Once the other group spotted us I was briefly introduced to the other interns before they all began to chat amongst each other. I assumed they all had already became friends since they were all interns together. I began to feel slightly awkward standing beside Dante as they talked about their experiences of their internships, a conversation I obviously couldn't be part of.
"Hey, does anyone have the time?" Dante asked at one point in the conversation.
I reached inside of my wristlet for my phone and turned on the screen. "It's 9:30." I responded.
"Is Bruce Wayne here yet?" One of the interns wondered, leaning his head over to peer around the room.
Paul shook his head. "Probably not, I heard he always arrives late to parties anyways. Something like that is pretty normal for a playboy billionaire."
"God, I hope we at least get to meet him. That man is freakin hot." Dante sighed.
Another one of the interns shook his head. "I doubt it, he might make a speech or something and then leave. I heard from another employee that he never stays too long for parties like this, even if he's the one throwing them."
"Probably leaves to go to another party." Paul chuckled.
After the topic of Bruce Wayne died down the group moved onto another topic of work and continued with their conversation. I sighed and took another sip of my champagne, just barely realizing it was almost to the bottom. I started to have a feeling that I had to pee so I lightly tapped Dante on the shoulder.
"I'm gonna go to the restroom okay?"
He nodded with a smile. "Okay."
I turned and left the group in search of the restrooms which I would hope wouldn't be too hard to find.
Within minutes later, a crowd of excited yelps and cheer could be heard down below. Many of the guests moved toward the glass to get a better look at the flashing lights of the cameras from a particular small luxury car rolling up beside the curb entrance in front of the building.
"What's going on?" Paul wondered. The other interns rushed toward the glass windows with the other guests to see what was going on. Dante stepped in beside them to get a closer look as well.
"Bruce is here." One of the interns gave an excited gasp.
Dante pulled out his phone and held it against the glass. "Hell yes, this is definitely going on Snapchat," He squealed with excitement. "Damn it, Lyssa's missing out on all the fun."
Bruce stepped out of the car, ignoring the usual camera flashes that came whenever he arrived to a party. He gave out an annoyed sigh as he put on a forced smile to hide his normally serious and tired facade. He was getting too old to play the eccentric playboy every time he had to show himself to the public, but Alfred had insisted him to at least attend his penthouse party to continue making a good impression for the company.
After stepping out of the car and onto the sidewalk he allowed the two models that were accompanying him to wrap their arms around his so he had them on both sides. As the camera continued to flash, he offered the crowd of guests waiting outside a brief raise of the hand along with a smile. They walked on into the building and up the elevator to the penthouse. Once the elevator doors opened, he was met with the friendly faces of his guests raising their glasses in greeting.
"Apologies for the usual tardiness, I want to thank the rest of you for actually arriving on time to my lovely penthouse. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna help myself to a glass of champagne before we all run out."
The crowd broke into a brief row of chuckles. The models unattached themselves from his arms to go chat with other company and he allowed his hands to linger on their waists for a moment as he brushed past them to get to the drinks.
"Here you are, sir."
Bruce turned and took the glass of champagne from the tray before offering a raise of his glass. "Alfred," He greeted.
"You're late again Master Bruce."
The billionaire quickly finished his glass of champagne and set aside the empty glass back on the tray.
"At least I came."
Alfred sighed and muttered a witty remark under his breath no doubt, something that hasn't been foreign for him these past years. Ignoring his inaudible remark, Bruce stepped away to engage himself in idle conversation with a few of the guests around the penthouse. As he played decent host to at least some of his guests, he found himself wandering back to find another drink. Excessive drinking had almost became a habit to him anywhere now.
Spotting another tray full of drinks sitting against the wall near the entrance to the restrooms, he pulled the wine bottle open with a cork twister and poured himself a glass of Chardonnay. As he lifted the glass to take a sip he stared ahead for a brief moment, catching sight of a few older aristocratic men standing around some poor young woman it seemed. The men were very clearly trying to flirt with her but based on her body expressions from what he could see at his angle they weren't succeeding too well.
He took another sip of his wine contemplating whether or not he should go save her from the vultures, but then he got a closer look at her face. He brought his glass back down, too interested in examining the young woman's features to continue on drinking.
She was gorgeous.
Her skin tight gold sequin dress just beautifully accentuated her hourglass figure even more as he found himself shamelessly staring at her curves. He had to forcefully pull his gaze away to stare at her face now - which was possibly the main thing that attracted him to her in the first place. She had a glowing olive skin tone and a dark violet lipstick on that nearly looked black. Her eyes were either brown or green, he couldn't quite tell from the lighting. She had ebony black hair pressed neatly into a side bun.
He couldn't help himself but thinking she reminded him of Talia al Ghul in a way since they both had those same exotic features. They were both beautiful nonetheless as he kept staring at this young woman who resembled his former lover, he found himself wondering this girl possibly could be prettier than Talia. Grant it this girl was much younger too; at Talia's prime they could have equally matched with beauty.
He shook his head and took another drink to distract himself from his absent minded thoughts of his ex.
Beautiful exotic brunettes were going to be the death of him someday.
I stood awkwardly at the entrance of the restrooms with several other of the older male guests who had stopped me in my tracks after I had exited the bathroom and started to make my way back into the foyer. A few of them looked to be between 40-50 or 60 years old, grant it that were the ages of most of the men in here. I tried to ignore their sleazy comments and boasts about how rich they were. Instead I was silently praying in my head for Dante to come and look for me, which I knew wasn't likely to happen since he was to preoccupied with the other interns all the way across the room.
"You know I own a yacht in Greece, maybe I could take you there sometime, baby." One of the men flashed me a lustful grin.
I found myself internally wanting to vomit at his offer, however instead I tried to force the most realistic smile I could muster. "No thanks, I should be getting back to my friend now. He's probably wondering where I am," I sarcastically muttered, trying my best not to roll my eyes as I took another sip of my drink.
I decided I was going to kill Dante later.
"Aw, come on don't leave us. We were having such a good chat," The men frowned.
"You heard the young lady, she wants to get back to her friend."
We all turned our heads toward the new voice, and I found myself staring at another older man possibly around his late 30s to early 40s. As soon as I was about to play in my head the dread of another wealthy bachelor coming into the conversation, the feeling began to die away once I continued to stare at the man's handsome features. His hair was dark with slight grey flecks and his face was very neatly clean shaven besides a slight five o'clock shadow that still remained. My gaze slowly averted to his nicely toned arms which were bulky with muscle, as well as the rest of his body. Just by staring at him I knew this man definitely worked out.
The man offered us a friendly smile, and I soon decided I didn't mind his company too much.
"It's best to leave her alone, I'm sure your wives would understand."
I suddenly caught sight of the visible wedding rings on each of their fingers that the man seemed to have noticed way before I did. I felt even more disgusted by them now, be that as it may I still found myself smiling at his sarcasm and trying to hold in a laugh from escaping my lips.
The men begrudgingly dipped their heads in respect, the grimaces on their faces clearly expressing utter annoyance. One by one they casually drifted away back into the crowd of guests without saying another word.
"Sorry about that, my guests tend to get a little too excited about beautiful things sometimes." The man now turned to face me, exchanging his hand out with a small smile. "What's your name, sweetheart?"
I fluttered my eyelashes, my chest hitching from an unusual tightness caught in my throat. I was too distracted by his sweet words to even get confused by the fact that he had called the guests 'his'.
"Alysa," I replied, slowly shaking his hand.
"Alysa.." He repeated to test the sound on his lips. "Forgive my manners. I forgot to introduce myself, I'm Bruce Wayne."
I nearly choked on my champagne glass after I stupidly decided to take another sip.
"What?"
He gave out an amused chuckle under his breath at my response. "I thought you knew that already," He admitted, his voice laced with slight surprise. "You're attending my party after all."
I suddenly felt myself feeling like an idiot for not knowing he was Bruce Wayne, but it wasn't like I actually expected for the celebrity billionaire to actually be talking to me. Besides I wasn't completely familiar with Gotham's popularity, I had only saw Bruce on the news a couple of times and must have forgotten what he looked like by now. It wasn't like he made too many public appearances either.
'Why are you taking to me?' The words nearly escaped from my throat, but instead I just merely stared at him and stammered.
"Um..."
He was about to say something else, however once his butler came on over and whispered something in his ear I sighed in relief as I was momentarily saved from looking like a clueless fool. I watched as his expression grew serious after whatever the butler had whispered. He nodded and raised his head to meet my gaze again.
"I'm sorry, I have to leave to get to a business meeting. It was nice meeting you, Alysa." He gave a rushed apology, his eyes lingering on mine for a moment before leaving me there to make his way out of the penthouse.
"Okay, bye.." I trailed off but he had already left. I felt it to be a little odd that he had to leave so rushed but I figured he had just forgotten about the meeting he had to attend or something. It wasn't like I knew about what went on inside billionaire's heads.
The butler remained standing where I was, kindly offering me another glass of champagne on the silver plate when he noticed my empty glass.
"More champagne, miss?"
I politely shook my head no.
"No thanks, I think I've had enough champagne for one day."
The understatement of the year.
