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.

18
BRIDGET
WE SPENT FOUR GLORIOUS, PERFECT DAYS IN COSTA RICA.
I woke up late, went to bed late, and spent my days eating, sun-
bathing, and reading a romance novel I’d picked up at the airport.
Bucket list number two.
On our third day, Rhys drove us two hours to Monteverde for zip
lining. He said the company was the best in the area and he’d zip-
lined with them several times himself.
Still, his face was taut with tension as I prepared to go down the
longest zip line. We’d only done the shorter cables until now, and
they were fun, but I was ready for more.
The one I was about to get on stretched high above the cloud for-
est, so long I couldn’t see the other end of it. A mixture of excitement
and nerves twisted in my stomach.
“Check her again,” Rhys said after our guide gave me the
thumbs up.
No one bothered arguing. Rhys made the guide triple-check my
harness before I went down every line, and arguing was futile.
“If you get stuck, don’t panic,” Rhys said after the guide okayed
me—again. “We’ll come get you.”
“By ‘we’ll,’ he means me,” the guide joked. “But yes, we will
come get you. Don’t worry, miss.”
“I hadn’t thought about getting stuck until now, so thank you for
that,” I said wryly.
Rhys’s stern expression didn’t budge, but all thoughts of his
grumpiness disappeared when I got into position. The guide gave
me a push, and I finally raced down the line. The wind whipped
through my hair, and I couldn’t hold back a huge grin.
Ziplining looked scary from the ground, but once I was in the
air? It was exhilarating.
I closed my eyes, savoring the wind and the feeling of being away
from it all. No worries, no responsibilities, just me and nature.
When I made it to the next treetop platform, I was still riding
high from the zip line, and I couldn’t resist teasing Rhys again when
he landed shortly after me.
“See? I’m fine,” I said. “You didn’t have to pick up pieces of me
from the ground.”
He did not look amused at all, but I didn’t care.
Bucket list number three, check.
For all his overprotectiveness, Rhys was more relaxed down here.
Not fully relaxed, mind you, but he’d ditched his all-black outfits for
shorts and—gasp—white T-shirts, and he agreed to most of the activ-
ities I wanted to do with minimal complaint, including parasailing
and an ATV tour.
The one thing he refused to do, however, was get in the pool with
me, and on our last night, I made a last-ditch effort to change his
mind.
“I’ve never heard of a Navy SEAL who doesn’t swim.” I stepped
onto the terrace, where Rhys was drawing in his sketchbook. He
hadn’t shown me any of his sketches yet, and I hadn’t asked. Art
was deeply personal, and I didn’t want to force him to show me any-
thing if he didn’t want to. “Come on. It’s our last day, and you
haven’t taken advantage of this once.” I swept my arm at the gleam-
ing pool.
“It’s a pool, princess.” Rhys didn’t look up from his book. “I’ve
been in pools before.”
“Prove it.”
No answer.
“Fine. I guess I’ll swim by myself. Again.” I shrugged off my
cover-up and let the filmy white material cascade to the floor before I
walked past Rhys toward the water.
I may have walked more slowly than normal and added an extra
sway to my hips.
I may also have worn my skimpiest, most scandalous bikini. I
did, after all, have one more bucket list item to check off.
I’d been drunk when I’d told Rhys about my bucket list, but I
was sober now, and I still wanted him to help me fulfill item number
four.
I was attracted to him; he was attracted to me. That much was
obvious after what happened in my room post-Borgia. He wasn’t go-
ing to be my bodyguard much longer, and no one would know un-
less we told them.
One wild, passionate hookup with my sexy bodyguard before I
took on the duty of a lifetime. Was that too much to ask?
I waded into the pool and bit back a smile when I felt the heat of
Rhys’s gaze on my skin, but I didn’t turn around until I’d reached
the far edge of the water. By the time I looked at him, Rhys’s head
was bent over his sketchbook again, but his shoulders held a tension
that hadn’t been there before.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join me?” I cajoled. “The water
feels amazing.”
“I’m good,” he said curtly.
I sighed and let it go…for now.
While he sketched, I swam laps around the pool, reveling in the
water against my skin and the sunshine on my back.
When I finally came up for a break, it was near sunset, and the
warmth of golden hour cast a hazy, dreamlike glow over the
surroundings.
“Last chance, Mr. Larsen.” I slicked my hair back and blinked the
water out of my eyes. “Swim now or forever hold your peace.”
It was cheesy, but it made Rhys’s lips curve before they flattened
into a stern line again. “You gonna stop bugging me if I say no?”
I grinned. “Probably not.”
My heart jumped when he closed his book, set it on the table, and
stood.
I hadn’t expected him to give in.
Rhys walked to the pool, pulling his shirt over his head as he did
so, and I lost the ability to breathe.
Broad shoulders, perfectly sculpted muscles, abs one could grate
cheese on. Absolute masculine perfection.
My core pulsed as my eyes ate him up. Tattoos swirled across his
chest, both biceps, and one side of his ribcage, and a deep V cut ar-
rowed toward what—based on what I’d felt when he’d bent me over
my dresser—was a very impressive package.
Rhys entered the water and swam toward me, his big, powerful
body slicing through the liquid blue as gracefully as a dolphin.
“There. I’m in the pool.” He came up beside me, a lock of damp
dark hair falling over his eye, and I resisted the urge to push it out of
his face. “Happy?”
“Yes. You should go shirtless more often.”
Rhys’s eyebrows shot up, and my cheeks flamed before I quickly
amended, “You seem more relaxed that way. Less intimidating.”
“Princess, it’s my job to be intimidating.”
If I never heard the words it’s my job again, it would be too soon.
“You know what I mean,” I grumbled. “You’re always so on edge
in the city.”
He shrugged. “That’s what happens when you have C-PTSD.”
Complex PTSD. I’d looked it up after he told me he had it. Symp-
toms included hyper-vigilance, or being constantly on guard for
threats. Unlike regular PTSD, which was caused by a singular trau-
matic event, complex PTSD resulted from long-lasting trauma that
continued for months or even years.
My heart squeezed at the thought of what he must’ve gone
through to be diagnosed with the condition. “Does the art help?”
“Kind of.” Rhys’s face was unreadable. “But I haven’t been able
to draw anything in months.” He jerked his chin toward the table. “I
was just messing around. Seeing what I came up with.”
“When you do, I want to see it. I love a good security alarm
sketch,” I joked before I remembered we only had one week left
together.
My smile faded.
Rhys watched me closely. “If that’s what you want.”
I wanted a lot of things, but none of them had to do with art.
“Can I tell you something, Mr. Larsen?”
He dipped his head.
“I’m going to miss you.”
He went still, so still I thought he didn’t hear me. Then, in an un-
characteristically, achingly soft voice, he said, “I’m going to miss you
too, princess.”
So don’t go. There had to be a way he could stay. He wasn’t part of
the Royal Guard, but he’d been with me for two years. I didn’t see
why I had to change guards just because I was moving back to
Eldorra.
Except for, of course, the fact Rhys would have to move to Eldor-
ra with me. He may have lived with me all this time, but there was a
difference between live-in protection in the U.S. and moving to a dif-
ferent country for an indeterminate length of time. Plus, he’d re-
signed first.
Even if I convinced the palace to extend his contract, would he be
willing to accept the offer?
I’d been too afraid to ask in case he said no, but the clock was
ticking.
A loud pop went off in the distance before I could broach the sub-
ject, and Rhys turned sharply to see fireworks explode in the sky.
He relaxed. I didn’t, because I finally understood why he’d never
taken his shirt off around me before.
His back—his strong, beautiful back—was covered with scars.
They crisscrossed his skin in angry, near-white slashes, peppered
with a few round marks I was positive were cigarette burn scars.
Judging by the way Rhys’s shoulders tensed, he must’ve realized
his mistake, but he didn’t hide them again. There was no point. I’d
already seen them, and we both knew it.
“What happened?” I whispered.
There was a long silence before he responded. “My mother liked
her belt,” he said flatly.
I sucked in a breath, and my stomach lurched with nausea. His
mother did that to him?
“No one said or did anything? Teachers, neighbors?” I couldn’t
imagine abuse of that level going unnoticed.
Rhys shrugged. “There were plenty of kids in bad home situa-
tions where I came from. Some of them had it a lot worse than me.
One kid getting ‘disciplined’ wasn’t going to raise any eyebrows.”
I wanted to cry at the thought of young Rhys so alone he was
nothing more than a statistic to those who should’ve looked out for
him.
I didn’t hate a lot of people, but I suddenly hated everyone who
knew or suspected what he’d been going through and didn’t do a
damn thing about it.
“Why would she do this?” I brushed my fingers over his back,
my touch so light it was barely a touch. His muscles bunched be-
neath my fingers, but he didn’t pull away.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “It’s about a beautiful young
girl who grew up in a small, shitty town she’d always dreamed of
escaping. One day, she met a man who was in town for a few
months for business. He was handsome. Charming. He promised
he’d take her with him when he left, and she believed him. She fell
in love, and they had a passionate affair. But then, she got pregnant.
And when she told this man who’d claimed to love her, he grew an-
gry and accused her of trying to trap him. The next day, he was
gone. Just like that. No trace of where he went, and it turned out
even the name he gave her was fake. She was alone, pregnant, and
broke. No friends and parents to help her out. She kept the baby, per-
haps out of hope the man would return for them one day, but he
never did. She turned to drugs and alcohol for comfort, and she be-
came a different person. Meaner. Harder. She blamed the kid for ru-
ining her chance at happiness, and she took out her anger and frus-
tration on him. Usually with a belt.”
As he spoke, his voice so low I could barely hear him, the pieces
fell into place one by one. Why Rhys refused to drink, why he rarely
talked about his family and childhood, his C-PTSD…perhaps it was
the result of his childhood as much as it had been his military
service.
A small part of me empathized with his mother and the pain she
must’ve gone through, but no amount of pain justified taking it out
on an innocent child.
“It wasn’t the boy’s fault,” I said. A tear slid down my cheek be-
fore I could stop it. “I hope he knows that.”
“He knows,” Rhys said. He rubbed my tear away with his
thumb. “Don’t cry for him, princess. He’s all right.”
For some reason, that made me cry harder. It was the first time
I’d cried in front of anyone since my dad died, and I would’ve been
embarrassed had I not been so heartbroken.
“Shhh.” He wiped away another tear, his brows drawn into a
deep frown. “I shouldn’t have told you. It’s not the best way to end a
vacation.”
“No. I’m glad you did.” I reached up and covered his hand with
mine before he could pull away. “Thank you for sharing it with me.
It means a lot.”
It was the most Rhys had opened up to me since we met, and I
wasn’t taking it for granted.