Page 45 of Devoured
CHAPTER 12
Iris
I took Teagen’s car to a wealthy neighborhood in Sage City. A small strip of woods separated the community from the coastline, protected by conservation laws. Haley, one of the best servers to have ever worked at the Dahlia District, was living there these days. She had always known that serving was a job and that there were rules that had to be followed. And that genius woman had used those rules to her advantage, keeping the club members chasing after her for that hint of seduction. But as soon as Haley saw that her debt had been cleared, she had left, never looking back. Unlike me, who had chosen to stay.
Expansive mansions were built on each large plot of land. It was easy to see that Haley was doing well for herself. I wondered if she still danced for fun.
I turned down the long driveway, parking the car near the house. A woman stepped onto the patio, her long, dark brown curls shimmering in the wind. It was good to see Haley go natural; she had always straightened her hair at the club.
She raced down the stairs. “Iris!” she shouted.
“Quite the place you got here,” I said in a loud voice as I got out of the car. She wrapped her hands around me, and I gently patted her back.
“You know he actually lets me help pay the mortgage?” she said. “I invested some of my last checks from the Dahlia District, and look what it’s done.”
Maybe I should have been investing my funds too. And not fantasizing about being forced to give my money to bored billionaires who liked to play twisted games.
No… That wasn’t fair. I was as sick as Roland was.
She showed me around the place, and it was as picturesque as I had assumed from the exterior. I shook hands with her new man.
“Iris, right?” he asked.
I stared into his hazel eyes. Hm. Maybe I did know him? “Right,” I said hesitantly. “Wehavemet before.”
“Briefly.”
Then I remembered. Lucas Conway. He had his eyes set on Haley from the moment he had walked into the club, which meant that he asked me about her. Which was fine. He didn’t seem like a sub anyway.
Haley took me to the backyard, though it seemed more like a courtyard than a lawn. It stretched out, surrounded by vine-covered walls, with a fountain bubbling in the center. A young teenager with her hair in a ponytail sat off to the side, reading a textbook and fiddling with her phone. Haley handed me a cup of lemonade, and I held back a snicker. Lemonade. Freaking lemonade. And hell, a backyard. This woman was living the dream.
“So what’s up?” Haley asked. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”
Ah. Onto business then. “There’s a chance,” I started, but then I paused. “A really big chance,” I corrected, “that I’ll be the new owner of the Dahlia District soon.”
“Really?” Haley sat up. “I thought Roland Price had bought it.”
“I’m in the process of convincing him to give it to me,” which was one way of putting it. I took a sip of the drink to give myself a moment to think. It was tart and sweet at the same time, the perfect lemonade, just like Haley’s new perfect life. She’d never want to come back to the Dahlia District.
But I had to try.
“Do you think you’d ever be willing to come back?”
She blinked her eyes at me, then leaned forward. “Like visit there?”
“No.” This was going to be more awkward than I thought. “Not exactly.”
“You mean likeworkthere?”
I sighed. “Yes?”
She furrowed her brows. “It took me years to leave that hell hole.”
“But that’s the difference—it’s not going to be a hell hole anymore. I’m going to change it. Make it better for everyone who works there.”
“And the debts?”
“Gone,” I said triumphantly, but then the back of my throat tingled. I couldn’t take credit for something that wasn’t truly mine. He deserved the praise. “Actually, Roland got rid of the debts. I think it was the first thing he did once he took over.”
