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.

26
BRIDGET
MY GRANDFATHER WANTED TO KNOW HOW MY DATE WITH STEFFAN
went.
That was right. The rea­son the king sum­moned me to his office
imme­di­ate­ly after I returned to the palace was so I could give him a
detailed break­down of my first date with the future Duke of Hol-
stein—and poten­tial future Prince Con­sort. He did also apol­o­gize for
not includ­ing me in the “emer­gency” tax reform meet­ing, which Er-
hall called at the last minute. I was con­vinced Erhall did so know­ing
I wouldn’t be able to attend because of my date with Stef­fan, but I
couldn’t prove it.
Edvard, mean­while, was con­vinced Stef­fan was the one. Based on
what, I wasn’t sure, but I imag­ined Steffan’s title, pho­to­genic looks,
and diplo­mat­ic demeanor had some­thing to do with it.
My grand­fa­ther wasn’t the only one. The press and pub­lic went
wild for the pho­tos of us at the ice-skat­ing rink, and every­one was
already buzzing about our “bur­geon­ing rela­tion­ship” even though
I’d spo­ken to Stef­fan twice in my life.
Still, Elin insist­ed I cap­i­tal­ize on the atten­tion with anoth­er date.
It would be a “pri­vate” one with no reporters—to give the illu­sion of
intimacy—but would lat­er “leak” to the press. I agreed, if only be-
cause she was right. The Part-Time Princess head­lines had dis­ap-
peared, replaced by breath­less spec­u­la­tion over the new “love” in
my life.
If only they knew.
On paper, Stef­fan would make the per­fect hus­band. He was
good-look­ing, intel­li­gent, kind, and fun­ny, and he was by far the best
option out of the so-called eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors who’d attend­ed my
birth­day ball.
There was only one prob­lem: no chem­istry.
None. Zip. Nada.
I had as much roman­tic inter­est in Stef­fan as I did the suc­cu­lent
plant in my room.
“It’s because you haven’t kissed him yet,” Mikaela said when I
told her about my dilem­ma. “At least kiss the man. You can tell
every­thing based on one kiss.”
She may be right.
So, at the end of my sec­ond date with Stef­fan, I worked up the
nerve to kiss him, even though it seemed far too soon. But he was
leav­ing for Preo­ria tomor­row, and I need­ed to know if this would go
any­where. I couldn’t spend weeks won­der­ing.
“I must admit, I was sur­prised you want­ed to meet again so soon
after our first date.” He gave me a shy smile. “Pleas­ant­ly sur­prised,
that is.”
We walked through the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens’ large, heat­ed
green­house. Lush flow­ers bloomed around every cor­ner, scent­ing
the air with their sweet per­fume, and strings of lights twin­kled over-
head like tiny stars. It was as roman­tic a set­ting as one could hope
for, and I tried to focus on Stef­fan instead of the scowl­ing body­guard
shad­ow­ing our every move.
If looks could kill, Rhys would’ve put Stef­fan six feet in the
ground by now.
That was anoth­er rea­son I was hes­i­tant to kiss Stef­fan. It
seemed…wrong to do that in front of Rhys.
God, I wished I’d thought this through before­hand.
“I had fun,” I said when I real­ized I hadn’t respond­ed yet.
“Thanks for agree­ing even though I’m sure you’re busy prepar­ing
for your trip tomor­row.”
“Of course.”
Stef­fan smiled.
I smiled.
My palms slicked with sweat.
Just do it. One tiny kiss. You have noth­ing to feel guilty about. You and
Rhys aren’t dat­ing.
“I’m not sure why, but I have the strangest desire to give a run-
down of all the fun facts I know about flow­ers,” Stef­fan said. “Did
you know tulips were worth more than gold in sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry
Hol­land? Lit­er­al­ly.”
That’s what hap­pens when I’m ner­vous. I start spout­ing all sorts of use-
less facts.
A sub­tle hint from Stef­fan he want­ed a kiss too. He had no rea­son
to be ner­vous oth­er­wise.
I dis­creet­ly wiped my palms on my skirt. Don’t look at Rhys. If I
did, I would nev­er go through with it.
“That’s fas­ci­nat­ing.” I winced when I real­ized that was the sort of
answer some­one gave when they found the sub­ject any­thing but in-
ter­est­ing. “Tru­ly.”
Stef­fan laughed. “I’m afraid there’s only one way to stop me from
bor­ing you death with my flo­ral knowl­edge, Your High­ness,” he
said somber­ly.
“What’s that?” I asked, dis­tract­ed by the sen­sa­tion of Rhys’s gaze
burn­ing a hole in my side.
“This.” Before I could react, Steffan’s lips were on mine, and even
though I knew the kiss was com­ing, I was still so stunned I could
only stand there.
He tast­ed faint­ly of mint, and his lips were soft as they brushed
against mine. It was a nice, sweet kiss, the kind cam­eras zoomed in
on in movies and most women swooned over.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I wasn’t one of them. I might as well be kiss­ing
my pil­low.
Dis­ap­point­ment crashed into me. I’d hoped a kiss would change
things, but it only con­firmed what I already knew. Stef­fan, for all his
won­der­ful traits, wasn’t for me.
Maybe I was naïve for think­ing I could find a fiancé to whom I
was attract­ed to and whose com­pa­ny I enjoyed, but I was only in my
twen­ties. No mat­ter how much every­one tried to rush me, I wasn’t
ready to give up on my hope for love yet.
I final­ly gath­ered enough of my wits to pull back, but before I
could, a loud crash shat­tered the silence in the green­house.
Stef­fan and I jumped apart, and my eyes fell on Rhys, who stood
next to a bro­ken pot of lilies.
“My hand slipped.” His voice held not an ounce of apol­o­gy.
That was, for lack of a bet­ter term, utter crap. Rhys didn’t slip. He
may be larg­er than the aver­age per­son, but he moved with the lethal
grace of a pan­ther.
That was what he remind­ed me of right now—a pan­ther pre-
par­ing to pounce on unwit­ting prey. Taut face, coiled mus­cles, and
eyes trained with laser inten­si­ty on Stef­fan, who shift­ed with dis-
com­fort beneath his stare.
“Atten­tion all guests, the gar­dens are clos­ing in fif­teen min­utes.” The
announce­ment blared over the PA sys­tem, sav­ings from the most
awk­ward moment of my life. “Please make your way to the exits. The
gar­dens are clos­ing in fif­teen min­utes. Vis­i­tors in the gift shop, please final-
ize your pur­chas­es.”
“I guess that’s our cue.” Stef­fan held out his arm with a smile,
though he kept a wary eye on Rhys. “Shall we, Your High­ness?”
We’d booked the green­house for our­selves, though the rest of the
gar­dens remained open to the pub­lic. We could prob­a­bly stay longer
if we want­ed, but I had no desire to drag out the night.
I took Steffan’s arm and walked to the exit, where we said good-
bye with a stilt­ed half-hug, half-kiss on the cheek and promis­es to
meet up again when he returned to Athen­berg.
Rhys and I didn’t speak until we reached our car.
“You’re pay­ing for the flow­er­pot,” I said.
“I’ll take care of it.”
The park­ing lot was emp­ty except for a hand­ful of cars in the dis-
tance, and ten­sion rolled between us, so thick I could prac­ti­cal­ly
taste it.
“I know he fits the image of Prince Charm­ing, but you might
want to keep look­ing.” Rhys unlocked the car doors. “I’ve seen you
kiss a cat with more pas­sion.”
“Is that why you knocked over the lilies?”
“My. Hand. Slipped,” he bit out.
Maybe it was the wine I’d had at din­ner, or the stress was get­ting
to me. What­ev­er it was, I couldn’t help it—I burst into laugh­ter.
Wild, hys­ter­i­cal laugh­ter that left me gasp­ing for breath and clutch-
ing my stom­ach right there in the mid­dle of the park­ing lot.
“What the hell is so fun­ny?” Rhys’s grumpy tone only made me
laugh hard­er.
“You. Me. Us.” I wiped tears of mirth from my eyes. “You’re an
ex-Navy SEAL and I’m roy­al­ty, and we’re in such denial we might as
well apply for Egypt­ian cit­i­zen­ship.”
He didn’t crack a smile at my admit­ted­ly lame attempt at a joke.
“I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”
“Stop it.” I was tired of fight­ing. “I asked you before, and I’m
ask­ing you again. Why did you come back, Mr. Larsen? The real an-
swer this time.”
“I gave you the real answer.”
“The oth­er real answer.”
Rhys’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know what you want me to say,
princess.”
“I want you to say the truth.”
I knew my truth. I need­ed to hear his.
My truth? There was only one man who’d ever giv­en me but­ter-
flies with a kiss. One man whose touch set me on fire and made me
believe in all the fan­tas­ti­cal things I’d dreamed about since I was a
child.
Love, pas­sion, desire.
“Truth?”
Rhys took a step toward me, the hard steel in his eyes giv­ing way
to tur­bu­lent thun­der­storms.
I took an instinc­tive step back until my back hit the side of our
SUV. There was anoth­er car next to us, and the two vehi­cles formed
a makeshift cocoon that crack­led with elec­tric­i­ty as he plant­ed his
hands on either side of my head.
“The truth, princess, is I came back know­ing this was what I
signed up for. To see you every day and not be able to touch you.
Kiss you. Claim you.” Rhys’s breath was hot against my skin as he
low­ered one hand and slid it up my thigh. It seared through the
thick lay­ers of my skirt and tights until my pussy clenched and my
nip­ples tight­ened into hard points. “I came back despite know­ing
the tor­ture I’d have to go through because I can’t stay away from
you. Even when you’re not there, you’re every­where. In my head, in
my lungs, in my fuck­ing soul. And I’m try­ing very hard not to lose
my shit right now, sweet­heart, because all I want is to cut off that
fucker’s head and serve it on a plat­ter for dar­ing to touch you. Then
bend you over the hood and spank your ass raw for let­ting him.” He
cupped me between my legs and squeezed. I whim­pered with a mix-
ture of pain and plea­sure. “So don’t. Push. Me.”
A thou­sand emo­tions ran through my veins, turn­ing me light-
head­ed with arousal and dan­ger.
Because what Rhys just said was dan­ger­ous. What we were do-
ing, feel­ing, was dan­ger­ous.