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.

21
BRIDGET
SIX WEEKS LATER
“His Majesty is ready to see you.” Markus stepped out of my
grandfather’s office, his face so pinched he looked like he’d just
swal­lowed a lemon whole.
“Thank you, Markus.” I smiled. He didn’t smile back. He mere­ly
gave a quick nod of cour­tesy before he spun on his heels and
marched down the hall.
I sighed. If I thought my becom­ing crown princess would im-
prove my rela­tion­ship with Edvard’s clos­est advi­sor, I was sad­ly
mis­tak­en. Markus seemed more dis­pleased than ever, maybe be-
cause the press cov­er­age after my brother’s abdi­ca­tion had…not
been great.
Also not great? My nick­name: Part-Time Princess. Appar­ent­ly,
the tabloids did not appre­ci­ate all the time their future queen had
spent away from Eldor­ra, and they delight­ed in ques­tion­ing my
com­mit­ment to the coun­try and gen­er­al suit­abil­i­ty for the throne
every chance they got.
The worst part was, they weren’t com­plete­ly wrong.
“I’ll see you tomor­row for the rib­bon-cut­ting,” I told Mikaela,
who’d accom­pa­nied me to my meet­ing with Elin ear­li­er regard­ing
image dam­age con­trol.
“Sounds good.” Mikaela snuck a peek at Edvard’s half-open
door. “Good luck,” she whis­pered.
We didn’t know why my grand­fa­ther want­ed to speak to me, but
we knew it wasn’t good. He didn’t sum­mon me to his office unless it
was seri­ous.
“Thanks.” I mus­tered a weak smile.
Mikaela had been my best friend grow­ing up and was cur­rent­ly
my right-hand woman dur­ing my train­ing to be queen. The daugh-
ter of Baron and Baroness Bra­he, she knew every­thing about every-
one in Eldor­ran high soci­ety, and I’d recruit­ed her to help me tran­si-
tion back into Athen­berg soci­ety. I hadn’t lived here in so long I was
com­plete­ly out of the loop, which was unac­cept­able for the future
queen.
I hadn’t expect­ed her to say yes to such a big task, but to my sur-
prise, she’d agreed.
Mikaela gave my arm a quick squeeze before leav­ing, and I
steeled myself as I entered Edvard’s office. It was a huge, mahogany-
pan­eled room with dou­ble-height ceil­ings, win­dows over­look­ing the
palace gar­dens, and a desk large enough to nap on.
Edvard’s face crin­kled into a smile when he saw me. He looked
far health­i­er than he had in the weeks fol­low­ing his col­lapse, and he
hadn’t shown any symp­toms since the big scare, but I still wor­ried
about him. The doc­tors said his con­di­tion was unpre­dictable, and
every day I woke up won­der­ing if that would be the last day I’d see
my grand­fa­ther alive.
“How’s train­ing going?” he asked after I slipped into the seat op-
posite him.
“It’s going well.” I slid my hands beneath my thighs to tamp
down my nerves. “Though some of the par­lia­men­tary ses­sions are
quite…” Tedious. Snooze wor­thy. So bor­ing I would rather watch paint
dry. “Ver­bose.”
Nobody liked hear­ing them­selves talk more than a min­is­ter who
had the floor. It was amaz­ing how lit­tle one could say using so many
words.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, a monarch’s duties includ­ed attend­ing par­lia­men-
tary ses­sions at least once a week, and my grand­fa­ther thought it
would be use­ful for me to get acquaint­ed with the process now.
Ever since I returned to Eldor­ra, my days had been jam-packed
with meet­ings, events, and “queen lessons” from the moment I woke
up to the moment I went to sleep. I didn’t mind, though. It kept my
mind off Rhys.
Dammit. My chest squeezed, and I forced myself to push aside all
thoughts of my old body­guard.
Edvard’s chuck­le brought me back to the present. “A diplo­mat­ic
way of putting it. Par­lia­ment is a dif­fer­ent beast than what you’re
used to, but it is an essen­tial part of gov­ern­ment, and as Queen,
you’ll need a good rela­tion­ship with them…which brings me to why
I asked you here today.” He paused, then said, “Actu­al­ly, there are
three things I want­ed to dis­cuss, start­ing with Andreas.”
Con­fu­sion min­gled with my wari­ness. “My cousin Andreas?”
“Yes.” A small gri­mace crossed Edvard’s face. “He’ll be stay­ing
in the palace for a few months. He’s due to arrive on Tues­day.”
“What?” I quick­ly com­posed myself, but not before my grand­fa-
ther frowned at the breach of pro­pri­ety. “Why is he com­ing here?” I
asked in a calmer voice, though I was any­thing but calm. “He has his
own house in the city.”
Andreas, the son of my grandfather’s late broth­er Prince Alfred,
was—how should I put this tactfully—a com­plete and utter ass. If
enti­tle­ment, misog­y­ny, and gen­er­al ass­hole-ness could walk and
talk, they would come in the form of one Andreas von Ascheberg.
Luck­i­ly, he’d moved to Lon­don for uni­ver­si­ty and stayed there. I
hadn’t seen him in years, and I didn’t miss him one bit.
Except now, he was not only return­ing to Eldor­ra but stay­ing in
the palace with us.
Kill me now.
“He would like to return to Eldor­ra per­ma­nent­ly,” Edvard said
care­ful­ly. “Become more involved in pol­i­tics. As for why he’s stay­ing
here, he said he would like to recon­nect with you since you haven’t
seen each oth­er in so long.”
I didn’t believe that excuse for a sec­ond. Andreas and I had nev­er
got­ten along, and the thought of him any­where near pol­i­tics made
me want to run for the hills.
Unlike most con­sti­tu­tion­al monar­chies, where the roy­al fam­i­ly
stayed polit­i­cal­ly neu­tral, Eldor­ra wel­comed roy­al par­tic­i­pa­tion in
pol­i­tics on a lim­it­ed basis. I wished it didn’t if it meant Andreas
would have a hand in any­thing that might affect people’s lives.
“Why now?” I asked. “I thought he was busy liv­ing the par­ty life
in Lon­don.”
Andreas had always talked a big game, brag­ging about his
grades and sub­tly hint­ing at what a good king he would make—
some­times to Nikolai’s face, back when Niko­lai had been first in line
to the throne—but that was all it’d been. Talk. The clos­est he’d got-
ten to actu­al­ly tak­ing part in pol­i­tics was major­ing in it.
Edvard raised one thick, gray brow. “He’s next in line for the
throne after you.”
I stared at him. He couldn’t be imply­ing what I thought he was
imply­ing.
Since my moth­er had been an only child and I didn’t have any
chil­dren, Andreas was indeed sec­ond in the line of suc­ces­sion now
that Niko­lai had abdi­cat­ed. I tried to pic­ture him as king and
shud­dered.
“I’ll be frank,” Edvard said. “Andreas has hint­ed at certain…am-
bitions regard­ing the crown, and he does not believe a woman is up
for the job.”
Oh, how I wished Andreas was in the room right now so I could
tell him where to shove his ambi­tions. “Per­haps he should tell
Queen Eliz­a­beth that the next time we vis­it Buck­ing­ham Palace,” I
said cool­ly.
“You know I dis­agree with him. But Eldor­ra is not Britain or Den-
mark. The coun­try is more…traditional, and I’m afraid many mem-
bers of Par­lia­ment secret­ly hold the same sen­ti­ment as Andreas.”
I curled my fin­gers around the edge of my chair. “It’s a good
thing Par­lia­ment doesn’t appoint the monarch then.”
I may not want to rule, but I wouldn’t stand for any­one telling me
I couldn’t rule because of my gen­der. Nev­er mind the fact the monar-
chy was mere­ly sym­bol­ic. We were the face of the nation, and there
was no way in hell I’d let some­one like Andreas rep­re­sent us.
Edvard hes­i­tat­ed. “That’s the oth­er rea­son I want­ed to speak with
you. Par­lia­ment may not appoint the monarch, but there is the mat-
ter of the Roy­al Mar­riages Law.”
A tight coil of dread formed in my stom­ach. The Roy­al Mar­riages
Law, enact­ed in 1732, was the archa­ic law requir­ing mon­archs to
mar­ry some­one of noble blood. It was the rea­son Niko­lai abdi­cat­ed,
and I’d avoid­ed think­ing about it as much as pos­si­ble because it
meant my chances of mar­ry­ing for love were slim to none.
It wasn’t sim­ply a mat­ter of find­ing a noble­man I liked. Poten­tial
mar­riage part­ners were cho­sen for max­i­mum polit­i­cal gain, and I
wasn’t naïve enough to hope for a love match.
“I don’t have to mar­ry yet.” I fought to keep the trem­ble out of
my voice. “I have time—”
“I wish that were true.” Edvard’s face creased with a mix­ture of
guilt and trep­i­da­tion. “But my con­di­tion is unpre­dictable. I could
col­lapse again any minute, and the next time, I might not be so
lucky. Now that Niko­lai has abdi­cat­ed, there’s even more pres­sure to
ensure you’re ready for the throne as soon as pos­si­ble. That includes
find­ing an accept­able hus­band.”
Mar­riage tech­ni­cal­ly wasn’t a require­ment for the monarch, but
Eldor­ra hadn’t had an unmar­ried ruler in…well, ever.
Bile rose in my throat, both at the pos­si­bil­i­ty I might lose my
grand­fa­ther at any minute and at the prospect of liv­ing out the rest
of my life with a man I didn’t love.
“I’m sor­ry, dear, but it’s the truth,” Edvard said gen­tly. “I wish I
could shield you from the harsh truths of life the way I used to, but
you’re going to be queen one day, and the time for sug­ar­coat­ing is
over. You are the last per­son in our direct line of suc­ces­sion, the only
one who stands between Andreas and the crown”—we shud­dered in
unison—“and mar­riage to a respectable aris­to­crat, ide­al­ly with­in the
next year, is the only way to ensure the throne and the coun­try re-
mains in good hands.”
I dropped my head, res­ig­na­tion fill­ing me. I could abdi­cate the
way Niko­lai had, but I wouldn’t. As much as I resent­ed him for
putting me in this posi­tion, he’d done it for love. If I did it, it would
be out of pure self­ish­ness.
Besides, the coun­try wouldn’t sur­vive two abdi­ca­tions so close to
each oth­er. We would be the laugh­ing­stock of the world, and I
would nev­er tar­nish our fam­i­ly name or the crown by pass­ing it on
to Andreas.
“How am I sup­posed to find a hus­band so soon? My sched­ule is
already so full I hard­ly have time to sleep, much less date.”
My grandfather’s eyes crin­kled, and he sud­den­ly looked more
like a mis­chie­vous youth than a king who’d ruled for decades.
“Leave that to me. I have an idea, but before we get into it, there’s
one last thing we need to dis­cuss. Your body­guard.”
The word body­guard made my heart twist. “What about him?”
I was still get­ting used to my new body­guard, Elias. He was fine.
Nice, com­pe­tent, polite.
But he wasn’t Rhys.
Rhys, who’d reject­ed my offer to extend his con­tract.
Rhys, who’d walked away a month ago with­out look­ing back.