Bruce kept an idle smirk lingering on his face as he watched the man, though he found very little amusing about the situation. Nervous? Unintelligent? Clark's expression suggested neither, but his mannerisms suggested some of both. Regardless, he seemed like a polite sort of man, with a genial face. If the whole country boy aura was just an act, Bruce would have been impressed. He highly doubted that was the case.
"Mr. Kent," he greeted formally, but his tone was everything but formal. With a broad, sweeping gesture reminiscent of a man who had indulged in just one glass of wine too many before breakfast, he indicated the multiple plush and leather armchairs scattered around the room, all tilted to focus upon the sofa Bruce used in the manner of a throne. It was an indication of egomania, the way everything in the room seemed centered around the seat of the drunken billionaire. Simple things like that made his playboy act very, very convincing. "Sit down, take off your coat, stay a while."
Rolling to his feet with a dancer's, or perhaps a fighter's, grace, Bruce abandoned his couch and sauntered across the room to a decanter of crystal-cut glass. Red wine like blood sloshed over the sides as he hoisted it a bit clumsily by the smooth handle and poured a fresh glass. Still holding his grape juice in one hand, he collected the second glass with the other and carried it across to the frazzled young reporter.
"You look like you could use a drink," he noted with an easy, assuming smile. After all, who would dare refuse a drink from the great Bruce Wayne? That was what he was supposed to think, was it not?
Bruce did not wait to see whether or not Clark took the glass, setting it down on a small table beside one of the armchairs and bringing his own drink back across the room. He slouched onto the couch with enough force to shift it backwards, emphasizing carelessness, and took a long swig of his "wine" before he ever got around to forming an answer to Clark's question.
"Why Metropolis," he repeated with a tone of reminiscence. Swirling the glass around again, Bruce tilted his head over the arm of the couch until the world was upside down. His bangs flopped off of his brow and bared his chilled blue eyes to the world. His smile did not reach his eyes. It was a physical phenomenon - smiling, a reflex reaction, could be imitated but not precisely copied. No one alive was capable of making the tiny muscles at the corners of their eyes wrinkle when they were not genuinely smiling. Bruce was banking on the fact that Clark, and indeed most people, even reporters, that he met would not be able to detect the tiny flaw in his act. It took years of training to recognize those miniscule cues. "Because Metropolis is the largest, most successful city where Wayntech has not gained a foothold. Or so my board tells me." He shrugged a little and took another swig of juice. "It seems a logical choice. Almost nine million people and not one of them is available to my corporation, there's no choice but to expand."
And Lex Luthor was in Metropolis, of course, but Bruce was not going to bring that up.