…Guess it makes sense that he’s got an Alfred, too.
I follow the tall butler-or-whatever-he-is through the sprawling apartment…if you can call it that…until we get to a set of heavy double doors. The man raps his knuckles once on the wood.
“Enter.”
Ihatethat I didn’t instantly recognize his voice up on the roof that first night. If I had…well, I don’t know. Maybe I would have jumped.
Possibly.
I’m not sure.
All I know is that when that deep, rich baritone rumbles through the door, something tingles inside me.
The butler swings the doors open, revealing a huge, stunning room, every wall covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves of leatherbound books.
I don’t have time to admire Belle’s library, though. Instead, my eyes are utterly arrested by Bane’s dark glare, leveled at me through the doorway.
The Lord of the Castle himself is sitting at a heavy, old-school dark wood desk, his feet propped up on one corner of it as helounges back in his chair. A glass tumbler of what looks like vodka sits on the desk in front of him, glinting in the low light of the room.
“Ms. Marchetti, sir.”
“Thank you, Alfred.”
I blink, my head whipping around quickly as I rip my gaze to the butler, then to Bane, then back to the butler. I wait for the snicker, but it doesn’t come.
The butler—I'm sorry, there isno wayhis name is really Alfred—clears his throat quietly, gesturing for me to enter the room. When I do, albeit only by a few steps, he bows and then closes the doors behind him as he retreats.
Then I’m alone with King Asshole himself.
I drag my eyes up to Bane’s in the silence of the room.
“His name is legitAlfred?”
His brows knit slightly. “Yes?”
“Really?”
Bane frowns. “Really.”
“That makes you…what…Batman?”
“I’m heir to a bratva empire,” he growls. “Not sure I’m cut out tofightcrime.”
I swallow, resisting the urge to pick my cuticles as I glance around the—frankly—stunninglibrary. Under other circumstances, I could losedaysin here. Give me a barre, an easel, and some paints?
I’d never fucking leave.
You might not…
I pull my gaze back to Bane, suddenly considering how insane it isnotto keep your eye on the predator in front of you.
“Thanks for dressing up,” he says dryly.
I glance down at my outfit: black knee-high Doc Marten boots, fishnets, an inch-too-short pink and black plaid skirt criss-crossed with low-slung studded belts, and a black Nine Inch Nails hoodie.
I lift my saccharine-sweet smile to him. “I wasn’t aware that Wayne Manor had a dress code.”
“I mean, most of the world has an adult dress code of slightly above angsty goth middle-school theater nerd,” he says with his own humorless smile. “But you do you. The black and white photography class is right down the hall past ‘Hating Your Parents 101’. Not to be missed, either of them.”
