Page 69 of The Auction
“I’ll call maintenance,” I say, my voice lower than it should be.
And then I leave before I do something that’ll end this night in a way I can’t take back.
Maintenance gets here fast. Two guys with a shop vac have the water gone in no time, but the damage is already done—drywall’s saturated, cabinets warped. The head guy explains the drywall will take a couple days to replace, but the custom vanity? That’ll take weeks to get a new one in.
She’s sitting on the edge of my bed while they talk, looking smaller than she normally does, hands twisting in the towel like she’s bracing for me to be furious.
When I walk the crew out and close the door, she’s still sitting there, staring at the floor.
I lean against the frame. “Well… seems your room’s out of commission for a while.”
Her head snaps up.
“So you’re going to have to bunk in here with me.”
She blinks. Then narrows her eyes like she’s just solved a crime. “Jaxon Kane. Did you do this on purpose?”
I give her my best confused look, brow furrowing just enough to make it believable. “Why the hell would I flood my own penthouse?”
She doesn’t buy it for a second.
“I’ll take one of the other guest rooms,” she says, standing and marching for the hall.
“That’s the only one.”
“Bullshit.” She starts opening doors. Surely convinced a penthouse this size has more than two bedrooms.
It does.
But the second she opens the first extra room, she freezes.
“Is this… a server room?”
“Pretty much.”
She frowns at the wall-to-wall racks of hardware and blinking lights.
“Fine, I’ll sleep on an air mattress in another room,” she mutters, heading for the next door.
The second room? Same thing. Full of racks and cabling. And cold enough to see her breath.
“What the hell, do you have your own fucking data center in here?”
“Pretty much,” I repeat, leaning in the doorway.
She slams it closed and checks the last one.
Same setup. Same sub-zero temperature.
“And why is it so cold?” she asks, pulling her wrap tighter.
“Servers run hot. They need to be kept cool.”
She crosses her arms. “You’re single-handedly contributing to global warming.”
I press a hand to my chest in mock offense. “I’ll have you know I use only clean thermal energy, thank you very much.”
She rolls her eyes, but I catch the faintest twitch of a smile before she turns away.
