Chap­ter 10: Rhys

BRIDGET WANTED TO LEAVE FOR ELDORRA RIGHT AWAY, BUT I FORCED her to get some sleep first. We’d had a long day, and while I oper­at­ed fine on min­i­mal shut­eye, Brid­get got…cranky.

She insist­ed she didn’t, but she did. I would know. I was often the one on the receiv­ing end of her crank­i­ness. Besides, there wasn’t much we could do about the sit­u­a­tion at eleven at night.

While she slept or tried to sleep, I packed the neces­si­ties, booked a plane using her usu­al char­ter company’s twen­ty-four-hour VIP hot­line, and crashed for a few hours before I woke up in time to fetch us cof­fee and break­fast from the clos­est bode­ga.

We left the house just as the sun peeked over the hori­zon and rode to Teter­boro Air­port in silence. By the time we board­ed the char­ter jet, Brid­get was prac­ti­cal­ly vibrat­ing with rest­less ener­gy.

“Thank you for arrang­ing every­thing.” She fid­dled with her neck­lace and shook her head when the flight atten­dant offered her a glass of juice. “You didn’t have to.”

“It’s not a big deal. It was just a call.” Noth­ing made me more uncom­fort­able than overt grat­i­tude. In an ide­al world, peo­ple would accept a nice ges­ture and nev­er men­tion it again. Made things less awk­ward all around.

“It wasn’t just a call. It was pack­ing and break­fast and…being here, I guess.”

“It’s my job to be here, princess.”

Hurt flashed across her face, and I imme­di­ate­ly felt like the world’s biggest jack­ass. Way to kick some­one when they’re down, Larsen.

If I were any­one but me and she were any­one but her, I would try to apol­o­gize, but as it stood, I’d prob­a­bly make things worse. Pret­ty words weren’t my strong suit, espe­cial­ly not with Brid­get. Every­thing came out the wrong way when I talked to her.

I switched sub­jects. “You look like you could use more sleep.”

She winced. “That bad, huh?”

And that’s why I need to keep my mouth shut. I rubbed a hand over my face, embar­rassed and irri­tat­ed with myself. “That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s okay. I know I look hor­ri­ble,” Brid­get said. “Elin, our com­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­re­tary, would pitch a fit if she saw me like this.”

I snort­ed. “Princess, you couldn’t look hor­ri­ble if you tried.”

Even though she looked more tired than usu­al, with pur­ple smudges beneath her eyes and her skin lack­ing its usu­al glow, she still blew oth­er women out of the water.

Bridget’s eye­brows shot up. “Was that anoth­er com­pli­ment, Mr. Larsen? Two in two years. Care­ful, or I’ll think you like me.”

“Take it how­ev­er you want,” I drawled. “But I’ll like you the day you like me.”

Brid­get cracked a gen­uine smile, and I almost smiled back. Despite my words, we got along fine these days, aside from the occa­sion­al argu­ment. Our ini­tial tran­si­tion had been rough, but we’d learned to adapt and compromise…except when it came to her dates.

Not a sin­gle one of those fuck­ers had been worth her time, and they were lucky I hadn’t gouged their eyes out for the way they’d ogled her.

If I hadn’t been with her on the dates, they would’ve tried some­thing for sure, and the thought made my blood boil.

I noticed Bridget’s eyes stray to the in-flight phone every few min­utes until I final­ly said, “It’s best if it doesn’t ring.”

Prince Niko­lai had promised to call her with any updates. There’d been none so far, but in this sit­u­a­tion, no update was a good update.

She sighed. “I know. It’s just dri­ving me crazy, not know­ing what’s going on. I should’ve been there. I should’ve moved back after grad­u­a­tion instead of insist­ing on stay­ing in the U.S.” Guilt washed over her face. “What if I nev­er see him again? What if he…”

“Don’t think that way. We’ll be there soon.”

It was a sev­en-hour flight to Athen­berg. A lot could hap­pen in sev­en hours, but I kept that part to myself.

“He raised us, you know.” Brid­get stared out the win­dow with a far-off expres­sion. “After my father died, my grand­fa­ther stepped in and tried his best to fill the parental role for Nik and me. Even though he’s the king and has a ton on his plate, he made time for us when­ev­er he could. He ate break­fast with us every morn­ing he wasn’t away trav­el­ing, and he attend­ed all our school activ­i­ties, even the stu­pid lit­tle ones that didn’t real­ly mat­ter.” A small smile touched her lips. “Once, he resched­uled a meet­ing with the Japan­ese prime min­is­ter so he could watch me play Sun­flower Num­ber Three in my fifth-grade school play. I was a ter­ri­ble actress, and even my roy­al sta­tus wasn’t enough to land me a speak­ing role.”

My lips quirked at the men­tal image of lit­tle Brid­get dressed up as a sun­flower. “Start­ing an inter­na­tion­al inci­dent at age ten. Why am I not sur­prised?”

She shot me a mock affront­ed look. “For the record, I was eleven, and the prime min­is­ter was quite under­stand­ing. He’s a grand­fa­ther him­self.” Her smile fad­ed. “I don’t know what I’d do if some­thing hap­pened to him,” she whis­pered.

We were no longer talk­ing about the prime min­is­ter.

“Things always work them­selves out.” Not quite true, but I couldn’t think of any­thing else to say.

I real­ly was crap at this whole com­fort­ing thing. That was why I was a body­guard, not a nurse.

“You’re right. Of course.” Brid­get took a deep breath. “I’m sor­ry. I don’t know what’s come over me. I don’t usu­al­ly go on like this.”

She twist­ed her ring around her fin­ger. “Enough about me. Tell me some­thing about you I don’t know.”

Trans­la­tion? Dis­tract me from the fact my grand­fa­ther may or may not be dying.

“Like what?”

“Like…” She thought about it. “Your favorite piz­za top­ping.”

It was a ques­tion she hadn’t asked dur­ing our impromp­tu Q&A ses­sion dur­ing her grad­u­a­tion din­ner.

“Don’t eat piz­za.” A grin slipped through at the shock on her face. “Kid­ding. Work on the gulli­bil­i­ty, princess.”

“In two years, I’ve nev­er seen you eat one. It’s pos­si­ble,” she said defen­sive­ly.

My grin widened a frac­tion of an inch. “It’s not my favorite food, but I’m a pep­per­oni guy. Sim­ple is best.”

“I can see that.” Brid­get flicked her eyes over my plain black T‑shirt, pants, and boots. Some clients pre­ferred their body­guards to dress up—suit, tie, ear­piece, the whole shebang—but Brid­get want­ed me to blend in, hence the casu­al get­up.

Her perusal wasn’t sex­u­al, but that didn’t stop my groin from tight­en­ing as her gaze slid from my shoul­ders to my stom­ach and thighs. The num­ber of spon­ta­neous bon­ers I’d popped around her was embar­rass­ing con­sid­er­ing I was a grown-ass man, not a hor­mone-rid­dled school­boy.

But Brid­get was the kind of stun­ning that came along once in a life­time, and her per­son­al­i­ty made things worse, because she actu­al­ly had one. A good one, at that, at least when she wasn’t dri­ving me nuts with her hard-head­ed­ness.

I took this job think­ing she would be spoiled and stuck up like the oth­er princess­es I’d guard­ed, but she turned out to be smart, kind, and down to earth, with just enough fire shin­ing through her cool facade to make me want to strip every lay­er off her until she was bared to me and me alone.

Bridget’s gaze lin­gered on the region below my belt. My cock swelled fur­ther, and I gripped my arm­rests with white-knuck­led hands. This was so messed up. She was wor­ried about her grand­fa­ther dying, and I was fan­ta­siz­ing about fuck­ing her ten ways to Sun­day in the mid­dle of the god­damn cab­in.

I have seri­ous issues. The least of which was a case of blue balls.

“I sug­gest you stop lookin’ at me like that, princess,” I said, my voice lethal­ly soft. “Unless you plan on doing some­thing about it.”

It was per­haps the most inap­pro­pri­ate thing I’d ever said to her, and way out of the bounds of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, but I was tee­ter­ing on the edge of san­i­ty.

Despite what I’d implied yes­ter­day, I hadn’t touched a woman since I took this job, and I was slow­ly going crazy because of it. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to. I went to bars, I flirt­ed, and I got plen­ty of offers, but I felt noth­ing every time. No sparks, no lust, no desire. I would’ve wor­ried about my boy down there had it not been for my vis­cer­al reac­tions to Brid­get.

The only per­son who made my cock hard these days was my client.

I have the worst fuck­ing luck on the plan­et.

Brid­get jerked her head up, her eyes wide. “I’m not…I wasn’t—”

“Ask me anoth­er ques­tion.”

“What?”

“You said you want­ed to know more about me. Ask me anoth­er ques­tion,” I said through grit­ted teeth. Any­thing to get my mind off how much I want to hike up that skirt of yours and find out just how wet you are for me.

Because she was. My long, recent dry spell aside, I had enough expe­ri­ence with the oppo­site sex to spot the signs of female arousal from a mile away.

Dilat­ed pupils, flushed cheeks, shal­low breath­ing.

Check, check, and fuck­ing check.

“Oh, um.” Brid­get cleared her throat, look­ing more flus­tered than I’d ever seen her. “Tell me…tell me about your fam­i­ly.”

Talk about splash­ing a buck­et of cold water over my libido.

I stiff­ened, my desire drain­ing away as I tried to fig­ure out how to respond.

Of course she wants to know about the one thing I hate dis­cussing.

“Not much to tell,” I final­ly said. “No sib­lings. Moth­er died when I was a kid. Nev­er knew my father. Grand­par­ents also gone.”

Maybe I should’ve left the last part out, con­sid­er­ing her grandfather’s sit­u­a­tion, but Brid­get didn’t appear put off. Instead, her eyes flick­ered with sym­pa­thy. “What hap­pened?”

No need to clar­i­fy who she was ask­ing about. Moth­er dear­est.

“Drug over­dose,” I said curt­ly. “Cocaine. I was eleven, and I found her when I came home from school. She was sit­ting in front of the TV, and her favorite talk show was on. There was a half-eat­en plate of pas­ta on the cof­fee table. I thought she fell asleep—she did that some­times when she was watch­ing TV—but when I walked over…”

I swal­lowed hard. “Her eyes were wide open. Unsee­ing. And I knew she was gone.”

Brid­get sucked in a breath. My sto­ry nev­er failed to elic­it pity from those who heard it, which was why I hat­ed telling it. I didn’t want anyone’s pity.

“You know what the fun­ny thing was? I picked up the plate of pas­ta and washed it like she’d wake up and yell at me if I didn’t. Then I did the rest of the dish­es in the sink. Turned off the TV. Wiped down the cof­fee table. Only after all that did I call 911.” I let out a humor­less laugh while Brid­get stared at me with an unbear­ably soft expres­sion. “She was already dead, but in my mind, she wouldn’t real­ly be dead till the ambu­lance showed up and made it offi­cial. Kid log­ic.”

Those were the most words I’d spo­ken about my moth­er in over two decades.

“I’m so sor­ry,” Brid­get said qui­et­ly. “Los­ing a par­ent is nev­er easy.”

She would know bet­ter than any­one. She’d lost both her par­ents, one of whom she’d nev­er met. Just like me, except there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty the one I hadn’t met was still alive while hers had died in child­birth.

“Don’t feel too sor­ry for me, princess.” I rolled my water glass between my fin­gers, wish­ing it con­tained some­thing stronger. I didn’t drink alco­hol, but some­times I wished I did. “My moth­er was a bitch.”

Bridget’s eyes widened with shock. Not many peo­ple talked about their mother’s death, then turned around and called said moth­er a bitch in the same breath.

If any­one deserved the title, though, Deirdre Larsen did.

“But she was still my moth­er,” I con­tin­ued. “The only rel­a­tive I had left. I had no clue who my father was, and even if I did, it was clear he want­ed noth­ing to do with me. So yeah, I was sad about her death, but I wasn’t dev­as­tat­ed.”

Hell, I’d been relieved. It was sick and twist­ed, but liv­ing with my moth­er had been a night­mare. I’d con­sid­ered run­ning away mul­ti­ple times before her over­dose, but a mis­guid­ed sense of loy­al­ty held me back each time.

Dei­dre may have been an abu­sive, alco­holic junkie, but I was all she’d had in the world, and she was all I’d had. That count­ed for some­thing, I sup­posed.

Brid­get leaned for­ward and squeezed my hand. I tensed as an unex­pect­ed jolt of elec­tric­i­ty rock­et­ed up my arm, but I kept my face sto­ic.

“Your father has no idea what he’s miss­ing out on.” Her voice rang with sin­cer­i­ty, and my chest tight­ened.

I stared down at the con­trast of her soft, warm hand against my rough, cal­loused one.

Clean ver­sus blood­stained. Inno­cence ver­sus dark­ness.