Page 6 of Lush

No. Reese protected me. We had a plan. It went horribly wrong.

I couldn’t say that. If anyone in this town found out what I’d done—that I was sleeping with Reese, what we’d planned—Mama would be disgraced. Mama would disown me.

I could already hear the whispers, the headlines if the truth got out. Laurene King, the daughter of the powerful Yvonne King, destroyed over a hundred years of the King family’s prized legacy here in Lush.

I’d be the tarnish. The black blip. The outcast.

Mama’s image of me was everything. The town respected me.Everyone wanted to be me. I couldn’t lose that. If I crumbled, so did she. So did my sibling. So did our companies.

“Miss King,” the detective said, his voice breaking through my thoughts.

I glanced at Mama. I could feel the anger and the fear radiating off her. She wanted me to protect us.

“Reese was jealous.” I almost gagged on the words.

Mama inhaled sharply beside me.

Screams and shouts—the music cutting off as the speaker went over the edge. The sound of fists hitting skin. The boat rocking, a body slipping?—

“Jealous of what?” the detective pushed, and I could feel his eyes drilling into me. He wasn’t buying it.

The blanket around me suddenly felt too tight, too heavy. My head was pounding, and my nails were digging into my palms.

“Reese didn’t want me with Conrad.” I swallowed hard, my breath coming in short gasps. It was easier this way. Reese wasn’t the victim here. He was the villain. I’d make him the villain.

“Why wouldn’t Reese want you with Conrad?”

Don’t do this, Laurene. Reese loves you. You love him. Stand up to your mother for once in your fucking pathetic, privileged life.

“Because Conrad was everything Reese couldn’t be. He was always better than Reese—more successful, more liked. Reese couldn’t stand it. He was…frustrated.”

And just like that, I betrayed the love of my life.

Mama didn’t say anything, but I could feel her relief. But she didn’t know the truth. She didn’t know my plan with Reese, and if she knew the truth of the relationship, this moment could have gone differently.

Mama stood abruptly. “Can we go now?”

I’d saved us. And I was still the perfect daughter.

The beach city of Lush stretched out before me like a postcard—too perfect, too idyllic. My hometown, the rich’s last-kept secret. Tucked away in the cliffs, the place where my great-great…maybe seven times great-grandfather had made his mark. Augustus King. The man who’d fled the Black Wall Street massacre with only scraps of his wealth.

And here I was, standing in the aftermath of everything that he had been built, that now my mother maintained. The Kings’ history here was covered in blood and secrets and lies—mine included.

The memory of that night had been replaying nonstop in my brain for six years. The fucked-up truth of it I couldn’t escape. I’d gotten exactly what I wanted. I remained the perfect, innocent King daughter. I’d secured my family’s status and wealth. I didn’t have to answer for betraying Conrad.

And then—before Reese could come after me, before he could demand answers or turn on me for what I had done—I ran.

I left for Paris, untouched by the fallout, while Reese was left to rot in the mess we’d created together.

But now I was back. In the distance was a stunning collection of pastel-colored mansions, beachfront villas, and low-rise condos, their smooth stucco walls warmed by the sun. The air vibrated with the sounds of seagulls and distant boat horns as luxurious yachts passed in the marina; the scent of grapes hung heavy in the air from the nearby vineyards.

The wind whipped my hair, carrying the scent of jet fuel as I surveyed the array of luxury cars—Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, and a couple of Ferraris—lined up by the hangar with my family’s huge sign.

King Enterprises.

The empire we’d built. The empire I was a part of, for better or worse.

My grandfather’s initial textile venture merged into a conglomerate sprawling across industries: real estate, luxury goods, media, tech startups. If it could be bought, built, or leveraged for power, we owned a piece of it.

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