Page 17 of Lush

“Hold the door so she can’t get in.” I didn’t have time for self-pity. Not now.

She hesitated, like she wanted to argue, but then she scrambled to the door.

I ripped open my closet and yanked out a suitcase. Only the essentials. I didn’t even know where the hell I was going. All I knew was that I had to be light.

“You’re leaving me?” Gigi’s voice broke. It wasn’tjustabout me. It wasalwaysabout me. It was time for someone else to be the favorite.

“Yeah, I’m leaving you,” Not caring how it sounded. “You’ll be fine. You always are. I’m the one who has to figure this shit out.” I slammed the suitcase closed.

“Please, Laurene…”

Everything’s a disaster.

I took Gigi’s hands. “I…I need to go. I can’t be here right now but don’t you worry. You are strong. You always have been. I sometimes wish I was more like you, G. Don’t let anyone make you feel small. Not Mama. Not me. Not anyone.You’ve got everything you need inside you, and you can survive this. I’ll be back before you know it.”

And then I heard it—the sound of heavy footsteps thudding up the stairs.

I let her go.

“Don’t go,” she whimpered. “Mama?—”

The door flew open, but I was already moving past her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mama’s voice was cold, but underneath it was something else—something that made me want to cower and fight at the same time.

“Leaving,” I said flatly without looking at her.

I hurried down the hall, her footsteps right behind mine, and I felt her grip my hand and spin me around.

“You think you can just walk away from this?” She shook me slightly. “I’ve spent years shaping you into something useful, and this is how you repay me? You made the family look weak.”

I looked behind her to see Daddy coming up the stairs, frantic.

“I’m not your fucking puppet, Mama,” I said through gritted teeth.

Her grip tightened, her nails digging into my skin. The look in her eyes—pure fury and disappointment—stung more than I expected.

“We’re living in your bullshit! You fucked up. You were supposed to marry Conrad, and the boy is in a fucking coma!”

“I didn’t ask him to fight his brother!”

“I know you had something to do with it,” Mama hissed. “Was that your plan all along? Make these brothers fight and you got out of this deal? Even when you know what?—”

“You mean what it means for you! For the company!” I screamed back.

“You need to see this through,” she spat. “You leave now, and there’s no coming back. Do you hear me, Laurene? If I gotta fix this, you get nothing!”

I should’ve been afraid. For so long, she’d held everything over me—her approval, her money, the life she’d built like a gilded cage. But I felt nothing but exhaustion.

I wrenched free.

“Then clean it up,” I said, my voice steady.

No. Panic was useless. I wasn’t some fragile, wide-eyed girl anymore, and I wasn’t here to beg. Mama thought she had me backed into a corner. She thought stripping me of my choices would make me obedient.

But she’d underestimated me.

I’d spent six years in Paris learning how to bend the world tomywill.

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