Chap­ter 22: Rhys

“THAT MAKES US EVEN.”

I stuck my phone between my ear and shoul­der so I could grab my suit­case out of the over­head bin. “I told you already that it does.”

“I want to make sure it sinks in.” Christian’s drawl seeped over the line, its smooth, lazy veneer hid­ing the razor blades beneath the sur­face. It reflect­ed the man behind the voice, a debonair charmer who could kill you with one hand and a smile on his face. Many a per­son had failed to look beyond the smile until it was too late.

It was what made Chris­t­ian so dan­ger­ous and such an effec­tive CEO of the world’s most elite pri­vate secu­ri­ty agency.

“I didn’t real­ize you’d become so attached to the princess,” he added.

My jaw flexed at the insin­u­a­tion, and I near­ly bowled over an old­er man wear­ing an unfor­tu­nate mud brown jack­et in my haste to get off the plane. “I didn’t become attached. She’s the least annoy­ing client I’ve had, and I’m sick of rotat­ing between ran­dom pop stars and spoiled heiress­es every few months. It’s a prac­ti­cal deci­sion.”

In truth, I knew I’d fucked up less than twen­ty-four hours after I turned down her offer to extend my con­tract. I’d been on the plane back to D.C., and I would’ve forced the pilot to turn back if doing so wouldn’t have land­ed me on the no-fly list and result­ed in a very unpleas­ant deten­tion cour­tesy of the U.S. gov­ern­ment.

But Chris­t­ian didn’t need to know that.

“So you move to Eldor­ra, the coun­try you hate most.” It wasn’t a ques­tion, and he sound­ed less than con­vinced. “Makes sense.”

“I don’t hate Eldor­ra.” The coun­try came with a lot of bag­gage for me, but I had noth­ing against the actu­al place. It was a me prob­lem, not a them problem…for the most part.

The woman walk­ing next to me in an I Heart Eldor­ra T‑shirt stared at me, and I glared back until she blushed and hur­ried past.

“If you say so.” A note of warn­ing crept into Christian’s voice. “I agreed to your request because I trust you, but don’t do any­thing stu­pid, Larsen. Princess Brid­get is a client. The future queen of Eldor­ra, at that.”

“No shit, Sher­lock.” Chris­t­ian was tech­ni­cal­ly my boss, but I’d nev­er been good at kiss­ing ass, not even when I was in the mil­i­tary. It’d got­ten me into my fair share of trou­ble. “And you didn’t do this because you trust me. You did it because I spent the past month deal­ing with your mess.”

If I hadn’t, I would’ve tak­en the next plane back to Eldor­ra after I land­ed in D.C.

Then again, if I hadn’t, Chris­t­ian might not have agreed to pull his many strings for me. He didn’t do any­thing pure­ly out of the good of his heart.

“Either way, remem­ber why you’re there,” he said calm­ly. “You are to pro­tect Princess Brid­get from bod­i­ly harm. That’s it.”

“I’m aware.” I exit­ed the air­port and was imme­di­ate­ly hit with a blast of frigid air. Win­ter in Eldor­ra was cold as shit, but I’d sur­vived cold­er in the Navy. The wind bare­ly fazed me. “Got­ta go.”

I hung up with­out anoth­er word and took my place in the taxi line.

What had Bridget’s reac­tion been when she found out I was return­ing? Hap­py? Angry? Indif­fer­ent? She hadn’t refused my request to be rein­stat­ed as her body­guard, which was a good sign, but I also wasn’t sure the palace gave her a choice.

What­ev­er it was, I’d deal with it. I just want­ed to see her again.

I’d left because I thought it was the right thing to do. We’d agreed what hap­pened in Cos­ta Rica would stay in Cos­ta Rica, and I’d tried my best to dis­tance myself after­ward. To give us both a fight­ing chance. Because if we stayed near each oth­er, we would end up in a place that could destroy her.

Brid­get was a princess, and she deserved a prince. I wasn’t that. Not even close.

But it only took a day away from her for me to real­ize I didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t act on my feel­ings, but I also couldn’t stay away, so here I was. Being by her side with­out actu­al­ly being with her would be a spe­cial form of tor­ture, but it was bet­ter than not being near her at all. The past six weeks were evi­dence of that.

“You dropped this.”

My mus­cles coiled, and I did a quick five-sec­ond assess­ment of the stranger who came up behind me.

He looked to be in his ear­ly to mid-thir­ties. Sandy hair, expen­sive coat, and the soft hands—both in full view—of some­one who’d nev­er done more tax­ing phys­i­cal labor than lift­ing a pen.

Nev­er­the­less, I kept my guard up. He wasn’t a phys­i­cal threat, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a threat in oth­er ways. Plus, I didn’t take well to ran­dom peo­ple approach­ing me.

“That’s not mine.” I flicked my eyes to the cracked black leather wal­let in his hand.

“No?” He frowned. “I thought I saw it fall out of your pock­et, but it’s so crowd­ed. I must’ve seen wrong.” He exam­ined me, his hazel eyes pierc­ing. “Amer­i­can?”

I respond­ed with a curt nod. I hat­ed small talk, and some­thing about the man unset­tled me. My guard inched up fur­ther.

“I thought so.” The man spoke per­fect Eng­lish, but he had the same faint Eldor­ran accent as Brid­get. “Are you here on vaca­tion? Not many Amer­i­cans come in the win­ter.”

“Work.”

“Ah, I came back for work too, in a man­ner of speak­ing. I’m Andreas.” He held out his free hand, but I didn’t move.

I didn’t shake ran­dom strangers’ hands, espe­cial­ly not at the air­port.

If Andreas was fazed by my rude­ness, he didn’t show it.

He slid his hand into his pock­et and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Enjoy your stay. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

To some, it might’ve sound­ed friend­ly or even like a come-on. To me, it sound­ed vague­ly like a threat.

“Maybe.” I hoped not. I didn’t know the guy, but I knew I didn’t trust him.

I reached the head of the taxi line, and I didn’t spare Andreas anoth­er glance as I tossed my suit­case in the trunk and gave the dri­ver the palace’s address.

It took almost an hour to reach the sprawl­ing com­plex thanks to traf­fic, and my body tight­ened with antic­i­pa­tion when the famil­iar gold gates came into view.

Final­ly.

It’d only been six weeks, but it felt like six years.

It was true what peo­ple said about not know­ing what you had until it was gone.

After the entrance guard cleared me, I checked in with Malthe, the head secu­ri­ty chief, then with Silas, the head of the roy­al house­hold, who informed me I would stay in the palace’s guest­house. He showed me to the stone cot­tage, locat­ed fif­teen min­utes from the main build­ing, and ram­bled on about house­hold rules and pro­to­col until I inter­rupt­ed him.

“Is Her High­ness here?” I stayed at the guest­house every time I came to Eldor­ra, and I didn’t need to lis­ten to the whole song and dance again.

Silas heaved a deep sigh. “Yes, Her High­ness is in the palace with Lady Mikaela.”

“Where?”

“The sec­ond-floor draw­ing room. She’s not expect­ing you until tomor­row,” he added point­ed­ly.

“Thank you. I can take it from here.” Trans­la­tion: Go away.

He let out anoth­er huge sigh before leav­ing.

After he left, I took a quick show­er, changed, and head­ed back to the palace. It took a full half hour for me to reach the draw­ing room, and my steps slowed when I heard Bridget’s sil­very laugh through the doors.

God, I’d missed her laugh. I’d missed every­thing about her.

I pushed open the doors and stepped inside, my eyes imme­di­ate­ly zero­ing in on Brid­get.

Gold­en hair. Creamy skin. Grace and sun­shine, clad in her favorite yel­low dress, which she always wore when she want­ed to look pro­fes­sion­al but relaxed.

She stood in front of a giant white­board with what looked like dozens of tiny head­shots taped to it. Her friend Mikaela was wav­ing her hands around and speak­ing ani­mat­ed­ly until she noticed me.

“Rhys!” she exclaimed. She was a petite brunette with a head of curly hair, freck­les, and an unnerv­ing­ly perky per­son­al­i­ty. “Brid­get told me you were com­ing back. It’s so good to see you again!”