Lucien held her against his chest as the storm outside the hospital window slowly began to subside, the steady thrum of his heartbeat was all that anchored Ivy to reality. Sensing how overwhelmed she was, he smoothed a stray lock of hair from her forehead gently.
"Take your time, Ivy," he murmured. "You don't need to answer me right away."
And at that moment, Ivy could only lie there staring into the dark as the world continued to crumble around her.
As the days progressed and Ivy became a bit less overwhelmed, she tried to start making arrangements for her mother's funeral. With no one else to turn to, Lucien quietly stepped in. He immediately deployed his own staff to help handle her mother's extensive funeral arrangements, shielding her from the bureaucratic pack laws that th
