Chap­ter 9: Brid­get real­ized some­thing had shift­ed the night of her grad­u­a­tion. Whether it was the bond forged through shared vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty or the moment Rhys trust­ed her enough to reveal part of his painful past, the ani­mos­i­ty that once defined their rela­tion­ship had mor­phed into some­thing more com­pli­cat­ed. It wasn’t a sim­ple crush; it felt deep­er, tan­gled with curios­i­ty and a kind of fas­ci­na­tion that gnawed at the edges of her resolve. Busy days and end­less social events filled her time in New York, giv­ing her lit­tle space to dwell on the con­fus­ing feel­ings build­ing inside her. Yet no mat­ter how busy she stayed, every encounter, every stolen glance with Rhys left a lin­ger­ing warmth she could­n’t explain. She knew get­ting emo­tion­al­ly attached to her body­guard ranked at the top of dis­as­trous ideas, but know­ing didn’t stop the emo­tions from bloom­ing any­way.

Chap­ter 9: Brid­get con­tin­ued nav­i­gat­ing the hec­tic whirl­wind of Man­hat­tan life, attend­ing char­i­ty galas and com­mit­tee meet­ings, all with Rhys silent­ly anchor­ing her side. His brood­ing pres­ence was both a com­fort and a curse—steady and depend­able, yet an ever-present reminder of the bound­ary she should­n’t cross. A rare qui­et evening between them, filled with sim­ple con­ver­sa­tion and the glow of autumn dec­o­ra­tions, cracked open a door she had tried hard to keep closed. In those small, unguard­ed moments, Brid­get saw glimpses of a man beyond the stern protector—the man who noticed her slip­ping smiles and cher­ished her unfil­tered laugh­ter. It made resist­ing her feel­ings even hard­er, forc­ing her to con­front how much space Rhys had tak­en up in her mind and heart with­out her per­mis­sion. The attrac­tion was no longer some­thing she could ignore; it pulsed between them, strong and unspo­ken.

Chap­ter 9: Brid­get’s attempt to move on led her to accept a date with Louis, the pol­ished son of a French diplo­mat. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, what was meant to be a step for­ward turned into a dis­as­ter, thanks to Rhys’s intim­i­dat­ing pres­ence loom­ing near­by. Though Louis arrived with a bou­quet and a gen­uine smile, he stood no chance against Rhys’s pro­tec­tive glare, which quick­ly drained the fun from the evening. While Brid­get strug­gled to engage in con­ver­sa­tion about lux­u­ry yachts and sum­mer escapades, it became painful­ly clear that Louis lacked the spark she sought. More trou­bling was her aware­ness of Rhys at every moment—the man who was­n’t her date, yet whose opin­ion mat­tered far too much. Even when Brid­get tried to dis­tance her­self emo­tion­al­ly, Rhys’s dis­ap­proval still found a way under her skin, leav­ing her both frus­trat­ed and bewil­dered.

Chap­ter 9: After the dis­as­trous date, ten­sion sim­mered between Brid­get and Rhys as they clashed over his heavy-hand­ed behav­ior. Their sharp exchange unearthed buried truths: nei­ther had tru­ly moved on from the com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions sim­mer­ing beneath their pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ship. Rhys’s admis­sion that he didn’t date—and his point­ed ques­tions about Bridget’s own experiences—only stirred the pot fur­ther, expos­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties both had tried to keep hid­den. Brid­get, remem­ber­ing the palace train­ing drilled into her, attempt­ed to reclaim con­trol of the con­ver­sa­tion but found her­self emo­tion­al­ly rat­tled. The way Rhys looked at her, the way he called out the walls she tried to erect, left her feel­ing raw and seen in a way that few ever man­aged. Despite the anger flar­ing between them, the mag­net­ic pull refused to weak­en; if any­thing, it grew stronger, feed­ing the ten­sion that thick­ened the air around them.

Chap­ter 9: Just as emo­tions reached a boil­ing point, an urgent call from Niko­lai shat­tered the frag­ile truce between them. Hear­ing that her grand­fa­ther, the king, had fall­en seri­ous­ly ill tore Brid­get out of her spi­ral­ing frus­tra­tion and thrust her into a well of fear and help­less­ness. In that moment, all the noise of pet­ty argu­ments and for­bid­den feel­ings fad­ed away, replaced by a pri­mal need for fam­i­ly and sta­bil­i­ty. Rhys, sens­ing her dis­tress, stood ready to offer his sup­port, though Brid­get still tried to car­ry the bur­den alone. The real­i­ty that she might lose the only parental fig­ure she had left felt unbear­able, and even the strength she’d honed over years of roy­al life wavered under the weight of the news. Pan­ic, grief, and uncer­tain­ty con­sumed her, but some­where in the cor­ner of her mind, she knew Rhys would not let her face it alone.

Chap­ter 9: In the after­math of the call, Brid­get strug­gled to pull her­self togeth­er, know­ing that pan­ic wouldn’t change real­i­ty. The ache in her chest deep­ened as she replayed Nikolai’s words over and over, each one carv­ing fresh fear into her heart. Every­thing she had depend­ed on—her care­ful­ly bal­anced life, her hopes for a future slight­ly removed from roy­al expectations—suddenly felt frag­ile. She hat­ed feel­ing help­less, yet beneath the sur­face anger at fate and fear for her grand­fa­ther, there was a stub­born ember of resolve. No mat­ter how over­whelm­ing the pres­sure became, Brid­get vowed she would step up if need­ed, even if it cost her the life she had qui­et­ly built for her­self. She just had­n’t expect­ed that the biggest bat­tles she would face would not be fought against the pub­lic or politicians—but against her own heart, her own desires, and the impos­si­ble choic­es wait­ing ahead.