The gala was his father's idea again, though this time with a purpose neither of them could easily object to—a charity fundraiser held annually in his mother's name, always dressed in white in her memory, a tradition Lucien had endured for two decades without ever quite examining why the color felt like both tribute and wound at once. White orchids lined the entrance, white linens covered every table, and even the small orchestra had been asked, per his father's longstanding instruction, to favor pieces his mother had once loved — a detail Lucien had never once questioned until tonight, standing beneath it all with Ezra at his side and twenty-one...