The Highest Bidder

❊ Cʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ Tʜɪʀᴛᴇᴇɴ ❊

I helped Sophia clean up after everyone left, bringing the dishes to the kitchen and setting them in a sink for the kitchen crew to clean up. The list that Enzo gave us was short, and Sophia said that was strange for a Monday. We were to clean the entrance hall, the dining room, the lower bathrooms, and the lower rooms. Apparently there were four bathrooms all together on the bottom floor.

Who the hell needed four bathrooms on one floor?

I followed her around the house, watching as she slipped on pink latex gloves to clean the bathrooms. She slid me a pair and I pulled them on, grabbing the necessary cleaning supplies to clean the mirrors. While she worked on the toilets - thank God - I worked on the sinks and the occasional bathtub.

By the time that we were done with all four bathrooms, we turned and began to head towards the end rooms. She showed me where everything was - from the odd amount of brooms to bleach. I never really liked cleaning, but I figured that one year of it would possibly make me begin to enjoy it.

Or not. I was going to go with or not.

Lunch rolled around and we washed our hands before bringing waters out to the three new guests and Enzo.

The man to Enzo's left grabbed my wrist gently and I turned to look down at him. He had green eyes and bright red hair cut into a short mohawk. Compared to the rest of the guests, he looked a hell of a lot different. If it weren't for the expensive suit that he was wearing, I wouldn't have thought that he was a business associate of Enzo's.

"Can you bring me some coffee?" He smiled, but his eyes weren't on my face.

I gritted my teeth. "Yeah, I can get you some coffee."

Enzo cleared his throat, a reminder to keep my cool. I didn't need reminding, although I'm sure the aggravated look on my face told him otherwise. The guy was blatantly staring at my chest, never once looking up to see the angry woman before him.

I knelt down so that he was staring directly into my eyes rather than my boobs. "Do you want cream with that?"

His eyes widened at the innuendo, then a grin spread over his face. "Lots of it."

"I'll have the cooks do that for you," I said and watched his eyes widen further. I doubted that he wanted coffee anymore after what I hinted at. He wouldn't know if he was drinking coffee or coffee with semen mixed in. And oh, how I wanted to have one of the chefs do that for me. But I promised to be polite, dang it. The least I could do was give him actual coffee.

I brought his coffee back out and set it down in front of him. He eyed it warily before looking up at me. I cocked an eyebrow with a smirk before walking out, knowing full well that he wouldn't be drinking it.

We brought out their lunches and I pointed at his untouched coffee. "Not enough cream?"

I heard Enzo cough, which made me smile slightly. I was asking a completely innocent question. If he wanted more cream, I would give him more cream to ponder over for the rest of the day. The man would never take coffee from me again, which meant he would never have coffee as long as I was within the walls of Enzo's mansion.

"There's plenty of cream in it." He waved my question off dismissively. "It's just...not my cup of tea."

"No?" He walked straight into this one. "Well, it's not tea. It's coffee. That should ease your mind a little."

His eyes narrowed and I smiled sweetly at him before turning to Enzo. He shook his head in admonishment. That would teach me, for sure.

After lunch was over, we grabbed their empty plates and I grinned at the untouched coffee. Beside the coffee was a note, written in Enzo's handwriting. I knelt down and looked at it, puffing out a breath when it was an order for me to go to his office. I felt like a teenager getting sent to the principal's office. How many times had it been?

I gestured to the note and Sophia waved me off. I headed out of the dining room and up the stairs. When I got to his office, I didn't knock. I just walked in and slammed the door shut, making a show of crossing my arms over my chest and raising my eyebrows to ask him what the hell he wanted.

Enzo glanced over at me from his work - on his fancy new computer monitor - before gesturing to one of the seats in front of him.

I sat down. "Give it to me straight. Do I get detention?"

His fingers stopped moving over his keyboard long enough for him to shoot me a look of utter confusion. It had been a while since he was in high school, but he should have gotten what I meant. I had been called to his office a lot since arriving at his home two days before. Each time I was called to his office, he had something to say about my actions or he was trying to force me into signing paperwork that I didn't want to sign.

"I sent the copies of your paperwork to your parents to let them know that you'll be working for me for a year." He began typing again. "I told them to email me any questions. I see where you get your sass from."

"My mom?" I smiled. My mother had always been sarcastic and hard-headed and I loved telling people that I took after her. A lot of people didn't like sarcasm, but it was like a second language to us. We could have entire conversations to try and out-sass each other. And although I got close a few times, I never once beat her. I blamed her age.

He nodded. "Your mom is quite the character. The woman doesn't want to agree to any of it."

That sounded like her.

"She said that she would only allow it if you could email her once a month to tell her how you are doing." He stared at his computer screen for a second before typing again. "I'm setting you up an email. You are to only email her once a month and all emails will be monitored. You can't tell her what happened or why you're really here."

"I will do that if you do something for me," I said, making him turn his attention back to me, a wary look on his handsome face. If he was planning on standing over me while I wrote to my mother, then there had to be something I got in return. I was sure my mom would send something embarrassing to me through the emails, which meant Enzo would end up seeing them.

"But first, I have a question." I tilted my head. "Who all knows of my miscarriage? And will your people tell anyone else?"

"The only people who know are the people who were in the room at the time," he said. "And no, they will not speak of it to anyone else. My employees will obey my order to pretend they never heard it. And if they do decide to tell someone, they know they will be fired."

Usually, people would push my depression away with a command to get over it. But he didn't tell me to get over it. He felt bad for outing me to the room and told them that they would be fired if they ever spoke of it again. I knew that he was a good man, but I never knew how good of a man he was. I figured that he saved girls to get the title of a hero. But he truly cared about the wellbeing of every girl he saved, and even the ones he couldn't.

I sighed, defeated. "I won't tell anyone what happened or why I'm here. You've done enough. Thank you, Enzo."