Lucien had always assumed he would end up alone.
Before Vivian, women annoyed him. Men did too, for that matter. He had drifted through life like a migratory bird with nowhere to settle, never imagining he would want a home until she came into his life.
He still remembered the first night she gave herself to him, flushed and dazed in his arms, whispering his name again and again. In that moment, something deep in his chest had shaken hard enough for him to realize he was already hopelessly lost to her.
So when Vivian disappeared, he lost his mind.
He used every connection he had to search for her, even calling in favors from people he had never intended to involve. The clerk at Bliss Pharmacy told him the last thing she had seen was Vivian being taken away by a man, and Lucien immediat
