You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

3
BRIDGET
ONE OF THE WORST THINGS ABOUT HAVING A ROUND-THE-CLOCK BODY-
guard was liv­ing with them. It hadn’t been an issue with Booth be-
cause we’d got­ten along so well, but liv­ing in close quar­ters with
Rhys put on me on edge.
Sud­den­ly, my house seemed too small, and every­where I looked,
Rhys was there.
Drink­ing cof­fee in the kitchen. Step­ping out of the show­er. Work-
ing out in the back­yard, his mus­cles flex­ing and his skin gleam­ing
with sweat.
It all felt strange­ly domes­tic in a way it hadn’t felt with Booth,
and I didn’t like it one bit.
“Aren’t you hot in those clothes?” I asked one unsea­son­ably
warm day as I watched Rhys do push-ups.
Even though it was fall, the tem­per­a­ture hov­ered in the high sev-
enties, and a bead of sweat trick­led down my neck despite my light
cot­ton dress and the ice-cold lemon­ade in my hands.
Rhys must be roast­ing in his black shirt and work­out shorts.
“Try­ing to get me to take my shirt off?” He con­tin­ued his
pushups, not sound­ing the least bit wind­ed.
Warmth that had noth­ing to do with the weath­er spread across
my cheeks. “You wish.” It wasn’t the most inspired answer, but it
was all I could think of.
Hon­est­ly, I was curi­ous about see­ing Rhys shirt­less. Not because I
want­ed to sneak a peek at his abs—which I grudg­ing­ly admit­ted had
to be fan­tas­tic if the rest of his body was any­thing to go by—but be-
cause he seemed so deter­mined not to be shirt­less. Even when he left
the bath­room after a show­er, he was ful­ly dressed.
Maybe he was uncom­fort­able get­ting half-naked in front of a
client, but I had a feel­ing not much dis­com­fit­ed Rhys Larsen. It had
to be some­thing else. An embar­rass­ing tat­too, maybe, or a strange
skin con­di­tion that only affect­ed his tor­so.
Rhys fin­ished his pushups and moved on to the pull-up bar. “You
gonna keep ogling me, or you got some­thing I can help you with,
princess?”
The warmth inten­si­fied. “I wasn’t ogling you. I was secret­ly pray-
ing for you to get heat­stroke. If you do, I’m not help­ing you. I have…
a book to read.”
Dear Lord, what am I say­ing? I didn’t make sense even to myself.
After our moment of sol­i­dar­i­ty at The Crypt two weeks ago,
Rhys and I had set­tled right back into our famil­iar pat­tern of snark
and sar­casm, which I hat­ed, because I wasn’t a typ­i­cal­ly snarky and
sar­cas­tic per­son.
A shad­ow of a smirk filled the cor­ners of Rhys’s mouth, but it
dis­ap­peared before it blos­somed into some­thing real. “Good to
know.”
By now, I was sure I was beet red, but I lift­ed my chin and reen-
tered the house with as much dig­ni­ty as I could muster.
Let Rhys bake in the sun. I hoped he did get heat­stroke. Maybe
then, he wouldn’t have enough ener­gy to be such an ass.
Sad­ly, he didn’t, and he had plen­ty of ener­gy left to be an ass.
“How’s the book?” he drawled lat­er, when he’d fin­ished his
work­out and I’d grabbed the clos­est book I could find before he en-
tered the liv­ing room.
“Riv­et­ing.” I tried to focus on the page instead of the way Rhys’s
sweat-damp­ened shirt clung to his tor­so.
Six-pack abs for sure. Maybe even an eight-pack. Not that I was
count­ing.
“Sure seems that way.” Rhys’s face remained impas­sive, but I
could hear the mock­ing bent in his voice. He walked to the bath-
room, and with­out look­ing back, he added, “By the way, princess,
the book is upside down.”
I slammed the hard­cov­er shut, my skin blaz­ing with
embar­rass­ment.
God, he was insuf­fer­able. A gen­tle­man wouldn’t point some­thing
like that out, but Rhys Larsen was no gen­tle­man. He was the bane of
my exis­tence.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I was the only per­son who thought so. Every­one
else found his grumpi­ness charm­ing, includ­ing my friends and the
peo­ple at the shel­ter, so I couldn’t even com­mis­er­ate with them over
his bane-of-my-exis­tence-ness.
“What’s the deal with your new body­guard?” Wendy, one of the
oth­er long-term vol­un­teers at Wags & Whiskers, whis­pered. She
snuck a peek at where Rhys sat in the cor­ner like a rigid stat­ue of
mus­cles and tat­toos. “He’s got that whole strong, silent thing going
on. It’s hot.”
“You say that, but you’re not the one who has to live with him.”
It was two days after the upside-down book deba­cle, and Rhys
and I hadn’t exchanged any words since except good morn­ing and
good night.
I didn’t mind. It made it eas­i­er to pre­tend he didn’t exist.
Wendy laughed. “I’ll glad­ly change places with you. My room-
mate keeps microwav­ing fish and stink­ing up the kitchen, and she
looks noth­ing like your body­guard.” She tight­ened her pony­tail and
stood. “Speak­ing of chang­ing places, I have to head out for study
group. Do you have every­thing you need?”
I nod­ded. I’d tak­en over Wendy’s shift enough times by now to
have the rou­tine down pat.
After she left, silence descend­ed, so thick it draped around me
like a cloak.
Rhys didn’t move from his cor­ner spot. We were alone, but his
eyes roved around the play­room like he expect­ed an assas­sin to pop
out from behind the cat con­do at any minute.
“Does it get exhaust­ing?” I scratched Mead­ow, the shelter’s new-
est cat, behind the ears.
“What?”
“Being on all the time.” Con­stant­ly alert, search­ing for dan­ger. It
was his job, but I’d nev­er seen Rhys relax, not even when it was just
the two of us at home.
“No.”
“You know you can give more than one-word answers, right?”
“Yes.”
He was impos­si­ble.
“Thank God I have you, sweet­ie,” I said to Mead­ow. “At least
you can car­ry on a decent con­ver­sa­tion.”
She meowed in agree­ment, and I smiled. I swore cats were
smarter than humans some­times.
There was anoth­er long stretch of silence before Rhys sur­prised
me by ask­ing, “Why do you vol­un­teer at an ani­mal shel­ter?”
I was so star­tled by the fact he’d ini­ti­at­ed a non-secu­ri­ty-relat­ed
con­ver­sa­tion I froze mid-pet. Mead­ow meowed again, this time in
protest.
I resumed my pet­ting and debat­ed how much to tell Rhys before
set­tling on the sim­ple answer. “I like ani­mals. Hence, ani­mal
shel­ter.”
“Hmm.”
My spine stiff­ened at the skep­ti­cism in his voice. “Why do you
ask?”
Rhys shrugged. “Just doesn’t seem like the kin­da thing you’d like
to do in your free time.”
I didn’t have to ask to know what types of things he thought I
liked doing in my free time. Most peo­ple looked at me and made as-
sump­tions based on my appear­ance and back­ground, and yes, some
of them were true. I enjoyed shop­ping and par­ties as much as the
next girl, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about oth­er things too.
“It’s amaz­ing how much insight you have into my per­son­al­i­ty
after know­ing me for only a month,” I said cool­ly.
“I do my research, princess.” It was the only way Rhys addressed
me. He refused to call me by my first name or Your High­ness. In turn,
I refused to call him any­thing except Mr. Larsen. I wasn’t sure if it
accom­plished any­thing, since he gave no indi­ca­tion it both­ered him,
but it sat­is­fied the pet­ty part of me. “I know more about you than
you think.”
“But not why I vol­un­teer at an ani­mal shel­ter. So, clear­ly, you
need to brush up on your research skills.”
He flicked those steely gray eyes in my direc­tion, and I thought I
spot­ted a hint of amuse­ment before the walls crashed down again.
“Touché.” He hes­i­tat­ed, then added reluc­tant­ly, “You’re dif­fer­ent
from what I expect­ed.”
“Why? Because I’m not a super­fi­cial air­head?” My voice chilled
anoth­er degree as I tried to cov­er up the unex­pect­ed sting of his
words.
“I nev­er said you were a super­fi­cial air­head.”
“You implied it.”
Rhys gri­maced. “You’re not the first roy­al I’ve guard­ed,” he said.
“You’re not even the third or fourth. They all act­ed sim­i­lar­ly, and I
expect­ed you to do the same. But you’re not…”
I arched an eye­brow. “I’m not…?”
A small smile ghost­ed across his face so fast I almost missed it.
“A super­fi­cial air­head.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
Me, laugh­ing at some­thing Rhys Larsen said. Hell must’ve iced
over.
“My mom was a huge ani­mal lover,” I said, sur­pris­ing myself. I
hadn’t planned on talk­ing about my moth­er with Rhys, but I felt
com­pelled to take advan­tage of the lull in our nor­mal­ly antag­o­nis­tic
rela­tion­ship. “I got the gene from her. But the palace didn’t allow
pets, and the only way I could reg­u­lar­ly inter­act with ani­mals was
by vol­un­teer­ing at shel­ters.”
I held out my hand and smiled when Mead­ow pawed at it like
she was giv­ing me a low five. “I enjoy it, but I also do it because…” I
searched for the right words. “It makes me feel clos­er to my mom.
The love for ani­mals is some­thing only we shared. The rest of my
fam­i­ly likes them fine, but not in the same way we do. Or did.”
I didn’t know what prompt­ed my admis­sion. Was it because I
want­ed to prove I wasn’t vol­un­teer­ing as a PR stunt? Why did I care
what Rhys thought of me, any­way?
Or maybe it was because I need­ed to talk about my mom to
some­one who hadn’t known her. In Athen­berg, I couldn’t men­tion
her with­out peo­ple shoot­ing me pity­ing looks, but Rhys was as calm
and unruf­fled as ever.
“I under­stand,” he said.
Two sim­ple words, yet they crawled inside me and soothed a
part of me I hadn’t known need­ed sooth­ing.
Our eyes met, and the air devel­oped anoth­er lay­er of thick­ness.
Dark, mys­te­ri­ous, pierc­ing. Rhys had the kind of eyes that saw
straight into a person’s soul, strip­ping past lay­ers of elab­o­rate lies to
reach the ugly truths under­neath.
How many of my truths could he see? Could he see the girl be-
neath the mask, the one who’d car­ried a decades-long bur­den she
was ter­ri­fied to share, the one who’d killed—
“Mas­ter! Spank me, Mas­ter!” Leather chose that moment to let
loose one of his noto­ri­ous­ly inap­pro­pri­ate out­bursts. “Please spank
me!”
The spell shat­tered as quick­ly as it had been cast.
Rhys flicked his gaze away, and I looked down, my breath gust-
ing out in a mix­ture of relief and dis­ap­point­ment.
“Mas—” Leather qui­et­ed when Rhys lev­eled it with a glare. The
bird ruf­fled its feath­ers and hopped around its cage before set­tling
into a ner­vous silence.
“Con­grat­u­la­tions,” I said, try­ing to shake off the unset­tling elec-
tric­i­ty from a moment ago. “You might be the first per­son who’s ever
got­ten Leather to stop mid-sen­tence. You should adopt him.”
“Fuck no. I don’t do foul-mouthed ani­mals.”
We stared at each oth­er for a sec­ond before a small gig­gle slipped
from my mouth and the iron cur­tain shield­ing his eyes lift­ed enough
for me to spot anoth­er glim­mer of humor.
We didn’t talk again for the rest of my shift, but the mood be-
tween us had light­ened enough that I’d con­vinced myself Rhys and I
could have a func­tion­al work­ing rela­tion­ship.
I wasn’t sure if it was opti­mism or delu­sion, but my brain always
latched onto the small­est evi­dence things weren’t so bad to cope
with dis­com­fort.
The wind nipped at the bare skin on my face and neck as we
walked home after my shift. Rhys and I had fought over whether to
walk or dri­ve, but in the end, even he had to admit it would be sil­ly
to dri­ve some­where so close.
“Are you excit­ed to vis­it Eldor­ra?” I asked. We were leav­ing for
Athen­berg in a few days for win­ter break, and Rhys had men­tioned
it would be his first time in the coun­try.
I’d hoped to build on our ear­li­er flash of cama­raderie, but I’d
mis­judged because Rhys’s face shut down faster than a house par­ty
raid­ed by cops.
“I’m not going there for vaca­tion, princess.” He said there like I
was forc­ing him to go to a prison camp, not a place Trav­el + Leisure
had named the ninth-best city in the world to vis­it.
“I know you’re not going for vaca­tion.” I tried and failed to keep
the annoy­ance out of my voice. “But you’ll have free ti—”
The high-pitched squeal of tires ripped through the air. My brain
didn’t have time to process the sound before Rhys pushed me into a
near­by alley­way and pressed me tight against the wall with his gun
drawn and his body cov­er­ing mine.
My pulse kicked into high gear, both at the sud­den spike of
adren­a­line and the prox­im­i­ty to him. He radi­at­ed heat and ten­sion
from every inch of his big, mus­cled frame, and it wrapped around
me like a cocoon as a car sped past blast­ing music and leak­ing
laugh­ter out of its half-open win­dows.
Rhys’s heart­beat thumped against my shoul­der blades, and we
stayed frozen in the alley­way long after the music fad­ed and the
only sound left was our heavy breath­ing.
“Mr. Larsen,” I said qui­et­ly. “I think we’re okay.”
He didn’t move. I was trapped between him and the brick, two
immov­able walls shield­ing me from the world. He’d braced one
hand pro­tec­tive­ly against the wall next to my head, and he stood so
close I could feel every sculpt­ed ridge and con­tour of his body
against mine.
Anoth­er long beat passed before Rhys re-hol­stered his gun and
turned his head to look at me.
“You sure you’re okay?” His voice was deep and gruff, and his
eyes searched me for injuries even though noth­ing had hap­pened to
me.
“Yes. The car took a turn too fast. That’s all.” I let out a ner­vous
laugh, my skin too hot for com­fort beneath his fierce perusal. “I was
more star­tled by you throw­ing me into the alley.”
“That’s why we should’ve dri­ven.” He stepped back, tak­ing his
heat with him, and cool air rushed to fill the void. I shiv­ered, wish-
ing I’d worn a thick­er sweater. It was sud­den­ly too cold. “You’re too
open and unpro­tect­ed walk­ing around like this. That could’ve been a
dri­ve-by.”
I almost laughed at the thought. “I don’t think so. Cats will fly
before there’s a dri­ve-by in Hazel­burg.” It was one of the safest
towns in the coun­try, and most of the stu­dents didn’t even own cars.
Rhys didn’t look impressed by my anal­o­gy. “How many times do
I have to tell you? It only takes once. No more walk­ing to and from
the shel­ter from now on.”
“It was lit­er­al­ly noth­ing. You’re over­re­act­ing,” I said, my annoy-
ance return­ing full force.
His expres­sion turned to gran­ite. “It is my job to think of every-
thing that could go wrong. If you don’t like it, fire me. Until then, do