Page 135 of Lavish

Ma reached over. “No. I can handle him. Now you want something, so tell me.” Ma grabbed my hands and squeezed.

I looked over at Mama Teagues and then back to her, slowly deciding what was the best way to confess what happened.

“I may have made a mistake.”

Ma raised a brow. “What you do?”

I licked my lips, and dropped my head.

“Miles Donovan. You tell me what happened. It’s not going to affect our families, is it?”

Yes.Regret was a helluva bitter pill to swallow, and it felt like I was trying to force my emotion down but I couldn’t.

“It might.”

Ma looked over at Mama Teagues, who was clearly eavesdropping, and she cleared her throat.

“Rosetta? Can you take that to Omar? Make sure he eats and gets his insulin after.”

Mama Teagues looked disappointed at the dismissal, but turned off the stove and plated the food before slowly walkingout of the kitchen, hoping she could get another piece of the conversation.

“I’ve been…feeling some things for a while now,” I forced myself to say. “I love you guys. I love the company. I loved Gramps. But some days it’s so fucking hard, Ma.”

She squeezed my hands, her face turning downward.

“Then, when I come around here, Pops just wants us to drop everything and throw it away. Did I just waste six years of my life when I could be doing something else?”

“You volunteered for this, Miles?—”

“Could I really let you take over the company?Andtake care of Pops at his worst?” My voice cracked. “What kind of son—what kind ofmanwould I have been if I had?”

Her lips pressed together, eyes turning away from me.

“Do you wish we were more like them?” I asked quietly. “The Kings.”

She was still for a long moment.

“No.”

I blinked. “Really? Even with everything that happened? Miss Yvonne was your best friend, Ma, and she just dumped you quicker than trash.”

“Yes, Yvonne was my best friend. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but I can’t get mad at the reaction she had. Especially after dealing with her own father. I wasn’t there for her like I should have been.”

“Don’t make excuses for her.”

“I’m not. I’m just telling the truth.” She looked at me, really looked. “The Kings hold tight to legacy, but they weaponize it too. That’s one thing Yvonne and I used to argue over. I may view it differently since I married into the Whitmores, but to me, legacy isn’t just about continuing a name. It’s aboutfamily.The bonds between one another. Compassion. Empathy. What’s thepoint of having a legacy if everyone in the family hates it and each other?”

I stared at her, the weight of it all settling in my chest.

“I’ll admit, we haven’t been on top of our legacy like we should. We might have been in the shadow of the Kings, but I think what we have is better. Resilience. We survived. How many people can say that? Look at the Sterlings—no one has heard from or about them since they left.”

I thought about to the other prominent family here in town. When Blair and Tobias’s secret came out, things were never the same for them.

“You could have left. Started a new life. But you care, Miles. You care even on the days where you feel like you’ve hit a brick wall. The Whitmore legacy isn’t just real estate development. It’s you. It’s the way you stayed. The way you fought. I’m so proud of you for that, baby.”

“I… After we’re done with renovations on this property, I want to step down as CEO for a while. Will you take over?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “You sure?”