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.

16
BRIDGET
WAS IT POSSIBLE TO DIE OF HUMILIATION?
Forty-eight hours ago, I would’ve said no, but as I ate break­fast
across the table from Rhys, I found myself firm­ly in the yes camp. I
would either explode from how red my face was or melt into a pud-
dle of mor­ti­fi­ca­tion, whichev­er came first.
“More bacon?” He pushed the plate in my direc­tion.
I shook my head, unable to meet his eye.
I woke up that morn­ing with a pound­ing headache, throb­bing
heat between my legs, and a hor­rif­i­cal­ly clear mem­o­ry of the things
I’d done—and said—last night.
Fuck me the way you just promised.
Four, have an orgasm I didn’t give myself. It’s been a while.
I choked on my toast and broke into a cough­ing fit.
Rhys’s eye­brows rose. “You okay?” He’d been cool and calm all
morn­ing, like noth­ing had hap­pened, and I wasn’t sure whether I
was relieved or offend­ed.
“Yes,” I gasped. I grabbed my water and downed half of it until
the coughs sub­sided.
“You should eat more carbs,” he said mild­ly. “Might help with
the hang­over.”
“How do you know I have a hang­over?”
“You had five shots last night, all con­tain­ing dif­fer­ent liquors. It’s
a safe guess.”
His acknowl­edg­ment that any part of last night hap­pened only
inten­si­fied my embar­rass­ment. I wished I could wipe all the events
post-Bor­gia from both our minds.
Since I couldn’t, I was tempt­ed to play it off and pre­tend I didn’t
remem­ber what hap­pened, but I did remem­ber, and if I didn’t ad-
dress it, it would haunt me for­ev­er.
“Lis­ten. About last night…” I forced myself to look at Rhys. “I
was drunk and not think­ing clear­ly, and I said some things I
shouldn’t have said. I’m sor­ry if it made you uncom­fort­able.”
Some­thing akin to dis­ap­point­ment flick­ered across Rhys’s face
before it dis­ap­peared. “So did I,” he said. “Call it even.”
I don’t want to kiss or make love to you. I want to fuck you. I want to
pun­ish you for mouthing off and let­ting anoth­er man put his hands on you.
I want to yank up that tiny fuck­ing dress of yours and pound into you so
hard you won’t be able to walk for days.
A bead of sweat popped out on my brow. I shift­ed on my stool,
try­ing to ease the throb­bing in my clit, but it only made things
worse.
I shouldn’t have said the things I’d said, but that didn’t mean I
hadn’t meant them. When Rhys had me bent over the dress­er with
his cock pressed against me…
I gulped down the rest of my water to ease the heat flam­ing
across my skin.
“In that case, the best path for­ward is to pre­tend last night didn’t
hap­pen and nev­er speak of it again.”
I real­ly need­ed more water. And air con­di­tion­ing. And pos­si­bly
an ice bath.
“Fine by me.” Rhys leaned against the counter and rest­ed one
hand on the coun­ter­top while sip­ping cof­fee from the mug in his
oth­er hand. It was a casu­al, every­day move­ment that had no busi-
ness being as hot as it was. “Except for one thing.”
Oh, God. “And that would be…?”
“Your buck­et list.” Those gun­metal eyes drilled into me. “You re-
ally want to do all those things before going back to Eldor­ra?”
Not what I’d expect­ed him to say.
I breathed a sigh of relief before I remem­bered buck­et list num­ber
four and blushed all over again. “Yes, but most of it prob­a­bly isn’t
pos­si­ble.”
It was more a fan­ta­sy list than a buck­et list. I knew that when I
came up with the items, but a girl could hope.
“What if I told you they were?” Rhys placed his mug in the sink
before turn­ing to face me again.