Lucien found the record by accident.

Which irritated him immediately.

Nothing inside his house happened accidentally anymore.

Not since Ivy Bennett arrived carrying chaos, sarcasm, and emotional damage into rooms that had stayed cold for years.

The mansion sat unusually quiet that night.

Rain tapped softly against the windows while most of the staff slept upstairs. Matteo had disappeared into the city hours ago, and Lucien finally escaped three consecutive meetings with men who smelled like cigars and betrayal.

Exhaustion dragged behind him like chains.

He loosened his tie while walking toward the library.

Then stopped.

Light glowed faintly beneath the music room door.

Interesting.

Nobody used the music room.

Not anymore.

Lucien pushed the door open quietly.

And froze.

Ivy sat cross-legged on the floor beneath warm lamplight surrounded by old vinyl records, scattered papers, glue, and cleaning cloths.

One of his records rested carefully in her hands.

The record.

Lucien recognized it instantly.

Black label.

Silver lettering half-damaged from years ago.

His mother’s handwriting still faintly visible near the center.

The sight hit hard enough to stop him breathing for one sharp second.

Ivy looked up immediately.

“Oh.”

She blinked once.

Then looked down at the mess around her.

“…This looks worse than it is.”

Lucien didn’t answer.

His eyes stayed fixed on the record in her hands.

The damaged edge.

The repaired sleeve.

The tiny strips of archival tape sitting beside her knee.

The room suddenly felt strangely distant around him.

“I found it in the west storage room,” Ivy said carefully.

Still no response.

So she continued talking.

Nervous now.

Interesting.

“I wasn’t snooping. Okay, I was snooping a little, but in a charming way.”

Lucien stepped slowly into the room.

His voice came quieter than expected.

“You touched that.”

Ivy frowned slightly.

“…Yes?”

Lucien stared at the record.

For years, nobody touched it.

Not the staff.

Not Matteo.

Not even Lucien himself.

The record stayed buried inside storage after his father smashed half the collection during an argument twenty years ago.

One surviving piece remained cracked down the center.

Ruined.

Untouchable.

Until now.

Ivy shifted slightly on the floor.

“I know it’s damaged, but I thought maybe—”

“You repaired it.”

The interruption came soft.

Almost disbelieving.

Ivy looked down at the vinyl again.

“Well… sort of.” She scratched lightly at one piece of tape. “It still skips near the middle.”

Lucien moved closer slowly.

The lamplight caught faint silver near his eyes while he stared at the record in her hands like something painful had climbed unexpectedly out of the past.

“You shouldn’t have touched this,” he murmured.

Ivy immediately stiffened.

“Oh.”

There it was.

The mistake.

She started carefully setting the record back inside its sleeve.

“Right. Okay. Sorry. Rich people boundaries. Emotional haunted objects. Got it.”

Lucien noticed the shift in her face instantly.

And suddenly hated himself for it.

He crossed the remaining distance before she could put the record away completely.

“Stop.”

Ivy looked up.

Lucien crouched slowly in front of her.

Close enough now that he noticed tiny glue stains across her fingertips.

She’d spent hours working on this.

Hours.

For him.

The realization landed harder than expected.

“I didn’t mean to ruin it more,” Ivy said quietly.

Lucien looked at the repaired sleeve again.

Then the cleaned vinyl.

Then at her.

“You repaired the cover.”

“The corners were separating.”

“You cleaned it.”

“There was mold.”

A pause.

Then softly:

“You kept all the handwritten notes.”

Lucien’s chest tightened unexpectedly.

His mother used to write dates on the sleeves.

Songs she liked.

Tiny comments.

Little pieces of herself pressed into ink.

Nobody else ever noticed those.

Ivy noticed.

Of course she did.

Silence stretched quietly through the room.

Rain tapped the windows.

The old grandfather clock down the hallway ticked softly somewhere in the dark.

Then Ivy looked at him carefully.

“…You really loved her.”

The sentence hit like a knife wrapped in velvet.

Lucien lowered his eyes briefly.

Too brief for most people to catch.

Ivy caught it immediately.

“She played this record all the time,” he said quietly.

His own voice sounded strange to him.

Rusty.

Unused.

Like opening doors sealed too long.

Ivy stayed still on the floor beside him.

No jokes now.

No sarcasm.

Only warmth sitting quietly in her expression.

Dangerous thing.

Very dangerous thing.

Lucien picked the record up carefully from beside her knee.

His fingers moved across the repaired crack slowly.

“She used to dance in this room.”

The confession slipped out before he could stop it.

Ivy’s eyes softened instantly.

“She sounds beautiful.”

Lucien stared down at the record.

“She was lonely.”

The room fell silent afterward.

Ivy watched him carefully now.

Not scared.

Not curious.

Something gentler.

Lucien hated how much that affected him.

“She’d lock the doors and play music after my father left,” he said quietly. “Sometimes until sunrise.”

Ivy folded her arms loosely over her knees.

“And you listened outside the door?”

Lucien looked up sharply.

She smiled slightly.

“That’s where you hide when things hurt.”

The accuracy of it unsettled him immediately.

“How do you know that.”

“You sit outside doors during thunderstorms.”

Silence.

Lucien looked away first.

Again.

Ivy noticed.

Again.

Interesting pattern.

The rain softened outside while warm lamplight wrapped quietly around the room.

Lucien still held the repaired record carefully in both hands.

Like it might disappear if he loosened his grip.

“I thought you threw this away,” Ivy murmured.

Lucien’s expression darkened slightly.

“My father tried.”

The answer explained enough.

Ivy’s face changed immediately.

Tiny shift.

Still there.

Anger.

Not for herself this time.

For him.

That realization hit strangely hard.

Lucien looked down at the repaired sleeve again.

Then at the tiny organized pile of restoration supplies beside her.

“You researched this.”

“I watched four old British men on YouTube argue about vinyl preservation for two hours.”

A faint breath escaped him unexpectedly.

Not quite laughter.

Close.

Ivy’s eyes widened immediately.

“Oh my God.”

Lucien closed his eyes briefly.

“No.”

“That was almost a smile.”

“It wasn’t.”

“You emotionally glitched.”

Lucien looked back at her.

And there it was.

The thing that kept happening more often now around her.

The unconscious softening.

The warmth he failed to bury quickly enough.

One corner of his mouth lifted slightly before he realized it.

Small.

Real.

Gone too late.

Ivy stared openly.

“…Wow.”

Lucien became aware of himself immediately afterward.

Dangerous.

He stood too fast and crossed toward the record player near the windows.

Distance.

Control.

Necessary things.

Ivy watched him carefully from the floor.

Lucien placed the repaired vinyl gently onto the turntable.

The needle lowered slowly.

Static crackled softly through the speakers.

Then—

music.

Old jazz filled the room warm and low beneath the rain.

The repaired section skipped once.

Twice.

Then steadied.

Lucien stood completely still beside the record player.

The sound dragged something old through the room with it.

Memory.

Grief.

Home.

Ivy rose slowly from the floor.

Neither spoke.

The music wrapped quietly around them instead.

Lucien finally looked toward her again after a long moment.

And found Ivy already watching him.

Not the mafia king.

Not the monster.

Just him.

The realization shook something loose inside his chest so suddenly it almost hurt.

“You fixed something I buried twenty years ago,” he said softly.

Ivy stepped closer.

Close enough now that he noticed glue beneath her sleeve cuff and exhaustion beneath her eyes.

“You looked sad every time you passed this room,” she answered quietly.

Silence.

Then Lucien asked the most dangerous question possible.

“Why do you notice things like that?”

Ivy smiled faintly.

“Somebody should.”

The song continued playing softly between them while rain streaked the windows behind the piano.

And Lucien—

for the first time in years—

understood how terrifying it felt to be cared for gently.