The Heiress Wakes to a Second Chance novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Carried Upstairs
Drugged at her own engagement party, Iris wakes beside Dane with the guests at the door and decides not to hide, but the message that lured him came from her phone.
Three hundred guests watched Philip Prewitt carry Iris Kellaway up the grand staircase of the hotel, and most of them held up a phone.
It was her own engagement party.
Her legs had stopped working somewhere between the toast and the cake.
"Too much champagne," Philip told the ballroom, laughing. "I'll put her to bed."
Iris had drunk two glasses.
The third had come from Daphne, her best friend since college, who pressed it into her hand and said it was only club soda, to settle her stomach.
By the bar she saw a broad-shouldered man in a dark suit who did not belong on the guest list, and then the room tilted.
Iris tried to say she was fine.
The words came out slow and thick, and nobody leaned in to listen.
At the foot of the stairs, her guardian squeezed Philip's arm.
"Thank you, darling. Don't worry about the cameras. I'll take care of everything."
"Thanks, Mom," Philip said.
Then he laughed. "Almost Mom. I'll get used to it."
Aunt Sylvia, who had looked after Iris since her mother died, straightened his collar with two fingers and told him to look after her girl.
In the elevator Philip slipped Iris's phone out of her clutch.
"So it doesn't get lost," he said, and put it in his jacket.
The doors closed on the music.
Room 1412 had a wall of windows, and the storm was hammering the glass.
Philip laid Iris on the bed and pulled off her shoes.
"Sleep it off," he said.
He turned out the lamp, and the door clicked shut behind him.
Iris lay in the dark and listened to the rain.
For one clear second the fog in her head lifted.
Then a body came down on top of hers, hot and heavy, and her breath left her.
"Get off," she said.
She tried to shove him away, but her arms would not lift.
A man caught both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head.
"Iris." His voice was low and rough. "You're the one who asked for me."
It was not Philip's voice.
She had asked for no one.
He took her that night, while she could not move, and she could not stop him.
The storm went on for hours.
Iris woke to gray light and a body that ached everywhere.
Her eyes were swollen almost shut.
She blinked until the room came into focus, and her stomach dropped.
A man lay beside her, bare to the waist, one arm thrown across the pillow.
She knew the scar through his left eyebrow.
Dane Fairweather had run security for her father for ten years, until Aunt Sylvia fired him two years ago.
Iris had not seen him since.
He was asleep.
She pulled the sheet up to her chin and the movement woke him.
His gray eyes opened, found her face, and went blank with shock.
"Iris?"
He shot upright and dragged a hand down his face.
"What the hell." He looked at the bed, at the torn gown on the floor, at her wrists.
There were red marks on them.
He saw them too, and the color left his face.
"I don't remember coming here," he said hoarsely. "I don't remember anything after the bar."
"Get out," Iris whispered.
Before he could move, a key card beeped in the lock.
The door swung open.
Philip stood in the doorway in yesterday's suit, with a look of perfect heartbreak.
Behind him were Aunt Sylvia and a crowd of guests, all with phones raised.
"Iris," Philip said, his voice breaking. "Last night you couldn't wait for me to leave? With him?"
A woman at the back gasped.
A phone clicked, and then ten more.
"The heiress and the fired bodyguard," someone whispered. "She planned this."
Sylvia pressed a hand to her mouth.
"Oh, sweetheart," she said, soft and sorrowful. "Let me handle this. Just keep quiet, and I will make it all go away."
Iris looked at the lenses.
Every one of them was waiting for her to cry, or cover her face, or beg.
She looked at Sylvia's kind, worried eyes, and for the first time in her life she did not believe them.
Nobody was going to make this go away.
Philip's smile slipped for the first time, and his hand went to his pocket.
So she stood up.
She wrapped the sheet around her shoulders, and her legs held.
"I was drugged," Iris said, clearly, to every phone in the doorway. "Somebody call the police. Nobody leaves this floor."
The whispering stopped.
Behind her, Dane's phone lit up on the nightstand.
She saw the screen as he reached for it.
*Room 1412. Come now. Alone. Iris.*
It had been sent at 11:07 the night before, from her own number.
Iris had never typed it.
Her phone was in Philip's jacket pocket, and as she looked at him it began to ring.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend