Page 14 of Lavish

Even when we were kids, she didn’t smile. Not once, not genuinely—not unless she was scheming or sparring with me. Cold, composed, terrifyingly brilliant.

But I saw the fire under all that ice. The way her mind never stopped moving. Her curiosity and compassion. The rare moments when she let herself laugh—God, they were blinding. It felt like the sun came out just for me.

So yeah,Sunny. Because it pissed her off. But I never stopped using it. And I never stopped waiting to see her shine again.

Even after three phones, I still had her number.

“We can’t let this get out,” I said.

Carlus turned to me slowly. “You’re saying cover it?”

“I’m sayingcontainit.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to breathe around the tension. “If this ends up in theLush Chronicles—‘Whitmore Crewman Injured in Unsafe Conditions’—we’re finished. I’ll lose the next project before I ever bid.”

Carlus folded his arms. “You want me to talk to his family?”

“Yeah. Just…soften it. Say we’re taking care of everything—hospital bills, worker’s comp, hell, I’ll even cover the damn groceries for the month. But they don’t talk to anyone until I say so.”

Carlus nodded. “It’s done.”

“Get the site shut down for two days. Say it’s for a safety review. Quiet. No press.” I clenched my fists.

“It’s already in motion.” Carlus slapped me on the shoulder, then squeezed. “I’ll go sit with him a bit.”

I waited until Carlus entered the room, then let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I wanted to punch something—anything to release the furious energy coursing through me.

This was supposed to be the comeback year.

I was so fucking tired.

Tired of smiling through failure. Tired of pretending this wasn’t all one long free fall from grace. Every damn day, I woke up and tried to will this company—and my last name—back into respectability like it was a corpse I could drag upright. But no matter how many boardrooms I pitched in or palms I greased, the whispers always came back:That’s Omar’s boy. You remember what he did?

This situation was the kind of thing that would bleed out slow—one photo, one blog post, one ugly headline at a time. Itwouldn’t matter that I paid every bill or that I handled it in private.

Optics were everything in this town.

And the vultures would circle. Like they did when Pops was dragged out to the cop car in cuffs where all our friends and family could see. How the lights and press were in our faces during the trial. That was six years ago, but the way people in town behaved, you woulda thought it happened yesterday.

What the fuck was I really fighting for?

Everything. I had to. Because no one was coming to save us.

I knew above all I couldn’t wait to watch everyone in this town—Serena, Erik,all the Kings—eat fucking shit and be shocked by the way I turned things around.

That was what the last six years have been about: proving everybody and their bald-headed aunties dead wrong.

They were wrong when they said the Whitmores would never make it again. They were wrong when they said we’d only hold our heads in shame. They were wrong when they said we would run from the town my relatives helped build with our tails between our legs.

Whitmores were petty above all.

But we didn’t run. Never that.

One day, it won’t be us ducking our heads in shame. It’ll be them. All of them. Looking up at me from the dirt, wondering how the hell I did it.

Yes, my father fucked up. But I was turning this ship around.

So, if Serena wanted to fight dirty—sabotaging sites, stealing clients, sweet-talking people I danced salsa with, for Christ’s sake—fine.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t going as hard as I could be. Now? Fuck feelings. Fuck these people. They meant nothing to me anymore.