Chap­ter 43: Brid­get

THE PALACE ASSIGNED BOOTH AS MY BODYGUARD AGAIN. I’D BEEN IN A ter­ri­ble mood since Rhys left, and the palace han­dlers assumed it would help if some­one I knew and liked replaced him.

Booth took the role after Edvard left the hos­pi­tal two weeks ago, and while no one could replace Rhys, it was nice to see Booth’s smil­ing face again.

“Just like old times, huh, Your High­ness?” he said as we wait­ed for Elin and Stef­fan in my office. I usu­al­ly didn’t have a guard in the palace, but meet­ings with exter­nal guests were an excep­tion.

I forced a smile. “Yes.”

Booth hes­i­tat­ed, then added, “A lot has changed over the years. I’m no Mr. Larsen, but I’ll try my best.”

A fierce ache gripped my chest at Rhys’s name. “I know. I’m glad to have you back. Tru­ly.”

And yet, thoughts of dark hair and gun­metal eyes, scars and hard-won smiles still con­sumed me.

There was a time when I would’ve giv­en any­thing to have Booth as my body­guard again. In the imme­di­ate weeks after his depar­ture, I’d cursed him every day for leav­ing me alone with Rhys.

Insuf­fer­able, dom­i­neer­ing, arro­gant Rhys, who refused to let me walk on the out­side of side­walks and treat­ed every vis­it to a bar like a mis­sion into a war zone. Who scowled more than he laughed and argued more than he talked.

Rhys, who’d planned a last-minute trip for me so I could ful­fill my buck­et list, even though it must’ve gone against his every instinct as a body­guard, and who kissed me like the world was end­ing and I was his last chance at sal­va­tion.

The ache inten­si­fied and spread to my throat, my eyes, my soul.

He was every­where. In the chair where we’d kissed, the desk where we’d fucked, the paint­ing where we’d laughed over how the artist had drawn one of the subject’s eye­brows a lit­tle high­er and more crooked than the oth­er, giv­ing her a per­ma­nent expres­sion of sur­prise.

Even if I left the office, he would still be there, haunt­ing me.

The door opened, and I curled my hand around my knee to steady myself as Elin and Stef­fan walked in.

“Thank you for com­ing,” I said as Stef­fan took the seat oppo­site me. It was my first time see­ing him in per­son since he’d agreed to the engage­ment.

He gave me a smile that looked almost as forced as mine felt. “Of course, Your High­ness. We are going to be engaged, after all.”

The way he said it, I won­dered if I hadn’t been the only one forced into this arrange­ment. He’d seemed eager enough on our first two dates, but he’d been dis­tant and dis­tract­ed since he returned from Preo­ria.

My mind flashed back to the ten­sion I’d picked up on between him and Malin.

An awk­ward silence fell before Elin cleared her throat and pulled out her pen and note­book. “Excel­lent. Shall we start the meet­ing then, Your High­ness? Top of the agen­da is the tim­ing and venue for the pro­pos­als. Lord Hol­stein will pro­pose in three weeks at the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens. It’ll be a good call­back to your sec­ond date. We’ll tell the press you’ve been in reg­u­lar cor­re­spon­dence while he was in Preo­ria so it doesn’t seem like the pro­pos­al came out of nowhere…”

The meet­ing dragged on. Elin’s voice blurred into a run­ning stream of noise, and Stef­fan sat straight-backed in his chair with a glassy look in his eyes. I felt like I was attend­ing a busi­ness merg­er nego­ti­a­tion, which I was, in a way.

Just the fairy­tale girls dream of.

“…your hon­ey­moon,” Elin said. “Thoughts?”

Her expec­tant gaze yanked me out of the place I’d men­tal­ly escaped to while she droned on about media inter­views and out­fit options for the pro­pos­al.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“We need to decide on a hon­ey­moon loca­tion,” she repeat­ed. “Paris is clas­sic, if cliché. The Mal­dives are pop­u­lar but get­ting too trendy. We could choose some­where more unique, maybe in Cen­tral or South Amer­i­ca. Brazil, Belize, Cos­ta Rica…”

“No!”

Every­one jumped at my unchar­ac­ter­is­tic shout. Booth’s eyes grew round, and Elin’s brow creased with dis­ap­proval. Only Steffan’s expres­sion remained neu­tral.

“No, not Cos­ta Rica,” I repeat­ed more calm­ly, my heart pound­ing. “Any­where but there.”

I would rather hon­ey­moon in Antarc­ti­ca wear­ing noth­ing but a biki­ni.

Cos­ta Rica belonged to me and Rhys. No one else.

Buck­et list num­ber four.

Have you ever been in love?
No. But I hope to be one day.

Look up, princess.

A now-famil­iar burn pulsed behind my eyes, and I forced myself to breathe through it until it passed.

“It’s too soon to talk about the hon­ey­moon any­way.” My voice sound­ed far away, like that of one speak­ing in a dream. “We’re not offi­cial­ly engaged yet.”

“We want to iron out the details as soon as pos­si­ble. Plan­ning a roy­al mar­riage and coro­na­tion in the same year is no small feat,” Elin said. “The press will want to know.”

“Let’s get through the pro­pos­al first.” My tone brooked no oppo­si­tion. “The press can wait.”

She sighed, her mouth so pinched I wor­ried it would freeze that way. “Yes, Your High­ness.”

After an hour, the meet­ing final­ly end­ed, and Elin rushed off to anoth­er meet­ing with my grand­fa­ther. Edvard had been doing well after his hos­pi­tal­iza­tion, but we hadn’t dis­cussed Rhys or what hap­pened in his office before his heart attack yet.

I had no issues with that. I wasn’t ready for those dis­cus­sions.

Mean­while, Stef­fan remained in his chair. His fin­gers tapped out a rhythm on his thighs, and the glassy look in his eyes gave way to some­thing more somber. “May I speak with you, Your High­ness? Alone?” He glanced at Booth, who looked at me.

I nod­ded, and Booth slipped out of the room.

Once the door shut, I said, “You can call me Brid­get. It would be odd if we were engaged and you still called me Your High­ness.”

“Apolo­gies. Force of habit, Your—Bridget.” Dis­com­fort crossed his face before he said, “I hope this doesn’t make things too awk­ward, but I want­ed to speak with you regard­ing, er, Mr. Larsen.”

Every mus­cle tight­ened. If there was one per­son I want­ed to dis­cuss Rhys with less than my grand­fa­ther, it was my future fiancé.

“I won’t ask you whether the, uh, news is true,” Stef­fan added hasti­ly. He knew it was. Rhys’s glow­er through­out our first date, the cracked flow­er­pot at the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens, the day he ran into us at the hotel…I could see the pieces click­ing togeth­er in his head.

“It’s not my busi­ness what you did before our…engagement, and I know I’m not your first choice for a hus­band.”

Guilt warmed my cheeks. If we mar­ried, I wouldn’t be the only one trapped in a love­less union. “Stef­fan—”

“No, it’s fine.” He shook his head. “This is the life we were born into. My par­ents mar­ried for polit­i­cal con­ve­nience, and so did yours.”

True. But my par­ents had loved each oth­er. They’d been lucky, until they hadn’t.

“You don’t love me, and I don’t expect you to. We…well, we’ve only spo­ken a few times, haven’t we? But I enjoy your com­pa­ny, and I’ll try my best to be a good con­sort. Per­haps this isn’t the fairy­tale love you may have dreamed of, but we could have a good life togeth­er. Our fam­i­lies, at least, will be hap­py.” Oth­er than the twinge of bit­ter­ness col­or­ing his last sen­tence, Stef­fan sound­ed like he was recit­ing from a teleprompter.

I stud­ied him while he stared at the desk, his face taut and his hands grip­ping his knees with white-knuck­led hands.

I more than rec­og­nized that expres­sion and stance. These days, I lived them.

“Is it Malin?”

Steffan’s head jerked up, his expres­sion resem­bling that of a deer in head­lights. “Par­don?”

“The woman you’re in love with,” I said. “Is it Malin?”

Steffan’s throat flexed with a hard swal­low. “It doesn’t mat­ter.”

Three words. One con­fir­ma­tion of some­thing we both already knew.

Nei­ther of us want­ed this. Our hearts belonged to oth­er peo­ple, and if we mar­ried, it would be com­fort­able. Pleas­ant. Sec­ond best. But it wouldn’t be love. It would nev­er be love.

“I think it mat­ters quite a lot,” I said gen­tly.

Stef­fan released a long breath. “When I met you at your birth­day ball, I had every inten­tion of pur­su­ing you,” he said. “You are love­ly, but then in Preoria…she was my mother’s aide while she was recov­er­ing. It was only us in the house besides my moth­er, and slow­ly, with­out me even real­iz­ing it…”

“You fell in love,” I fin­ished.

He cracked a small smile. “Nei­ther of us expect­ed it. We couldn’t stand each oth­er at first. But yes, I fell in love.” The smile fad­ed. “My father found out and threat­ened not only to cut me off if I didn’t end the rela­tion­ship, but to ensure Malin nev­er worked again in Eldor­ra. He doesn’t bluff. Not when a rela­tion­ship with the roy­al fam­i­ly is at stake.” Stef­fan rubbed a hand over his face. “Apolo­gies, Your H— Brid­get. I real­ize this is extreme­ly inap­pro­pri­ate for me to share, con­sid­er­ing our arrange­ment.”

“It’s all right. I under­stand.” More than most peo­ple would.

“I had a feel­ing you might.”

I brought up some­thing that had been nag­ging me since our hotel encounter. “If you were togeth­er, why did she push you to ask me out?”

Sad­ness flick­ered in his eyes. “The hotel was our last time togeth­er,” he said. “My father had returned to Preo­ria and dis­missed her as my mother’s aide, so we had to go some­where where we wouldn’t… where we could be alone. She knew about you and what my father expect­ed of me. It was her way of let­ting us go.”

I tried to imag­ine myself push­ing anoth­er woman into Rhys’s arms and recoiled at the thought.

I bare­ly knew Malin, but I hurt for her.

“I’m sor­ry.”

“Me too.”

Silence lapsed for a beat before Stef­fan cleared his throat and straight­ened. “But I do enjoy your com­pa­ny, Brid­get. We shall make a suit­able match.”

A sad smile curved my lips. “Yes, we shall. Thank you, Stef­fan.”

I stayed in my office after he left, star­ing at the let­ters on my desk, the roy­al seal, and the cal­en­dar mount­ed on my wall.

Three weeks until my pro­pos­al.

Six months until my wed­ding.

Nine months until my coro­na­tion.

I could pic­ture it all already. The dress, the church, the Coro­na­tion Oath, the heavy weight of the crown on my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut. The walls pressed in from all sides, and the roar of blood pound­ed in my ears, block­ing out every oth­er sound.

I’d grown accus­tomed to the idea of being queen. Part of me was actu­al­ly excit­ed to take the role and bring it into the twen­ty-first cen­tu­ry. The monar­chy had so many out­dat­ed cus­toms that no longer made sense.

But I hadn’t expect­ed it to hap­pen so soon, nor had I expect­ed it to hap­pen with­out Rhys by my side, even if it was only as my body­guard.

Stern and steady, grumpy and pro­tec­tive. My rock and anchor in the storm.

Breathe, princess. You are the future queen. Don’t let them intim­i­date you.

I won­dered if Rhys had left Eldor­ra yet, and if he’d remem­ber us ten, twen­ty, thir­ty years from now.

I won­dered if, when he saw me on TV or in a mag­a­zine, he would think about Cos­ta Rica and storms in a gaze­bo and lazy after­noons in a hotel room, or if he’d flip past with noth­ing more than a spark of nos­tal­gia.

I won­dered if I would haunt him as much as he haunt­ed me.

“I wish you were here,” I whis­pered.

My wish bounced off the walls and drift­ed through the room, lin­ger­ing, before it final­ly fad­ed into noth­ing.

HOURS LATER, I WAS STILL IN MY OFFICE WHEN MY GRANDFATHER showed up.

“Brid­get, I’d like to speak with you.”

I looked up from my pile of cit­i­zen let­ters, my eyes bleary. I’d been work­ing since my meet­ing with Elin and Stef­fan, and I’d dis­missed Booth long ago.

Work was the only thing keep­ing me going, but I hadn’t real­ized how late it’d got­ten. The late after­noon sun slant­ed through the win­dows and cast long shad­ows on the floor, and my stom­ach rum­bled with anger. I hadn’t eat­en since my yogurt and apple—I checked the clock—seven hours ago.

Edvard stood in the door­way, his face tired but his col­or marked­ly bet­ter than it had been a few days ago.

“Grand­fa­ther!” I jumped out of my seat. “You shouldn’t be up so late.”

“It’s not even din­ner­time yet,” he grum­bled, walk­ing in and sit­ting across from me.

“The doc­tors said you need rest.”

“Yes, and I’ve had enough the past two weeks to last me a life­time.” His chin jut­ted out at a stub­born angle, and I sighed. There was no argu­ing with him when he was like this.

If there was one thing Edvard hat­ed, it was idle hands. He’d cut back on work as the doc­tors had instruct­ed, but since his duties as king had pre­vent­ed him from pick­ing up any hob­bies over the years, he was going out of his mind with boredom—a fact he nev­er failed to men­tion when­ev­er he saw me or Niko­lai.

“Cit­i­zen Let­ters pro­gram?” He exam­ined the doc­u­ments on my desk.

“Yes, I’m fin­ish­ing up this week’s batch.” I didn’t men­tion the back­log of emails in the offi­cial inbox. Even with two assis­tants help­ing me, we were swamped. It turned out the cit­i­zens of Eldor­ra had a lot to say.

I was over the moon about the program’s suc­cess, but we need­ed to hire more staff soon. Pro­fes­sion­al­ize it instead of treat­ing it as a side project.

“There are a few items I’d like to bring up at the next Speaker’s meet­ing,” I said. “I imag­ine Erhall will be thrilled.”

“Erhall hasn’t been thrilled since he was first elect­ed Speak­er ten years ago.” Edvard steepled his fin­gers beneath his chin and stud­ied me. “You’re doing well. Hold­ing your ground, even when he tries to under­mine you. You’ve real­ly come into your own these past few months.”

I swal­lowed hard. “Thank you. But I’m no you.”

“Of course not, but you shouldn’t try to be. None of us should strive to be any­one except our­selves, and you are no less than me or any­one else.” Edvard’s expres­sion gen­tled. “I know it’s over­whelm­ing, the prospect of becom­ing queen. Did you know, I was a wreck for months before my coro­na­tion?”

“Real­ly?” I couldn’t imag­ine my proud, regal grand­fa­ther being ner­vous about any­thing.

“Yes.” He chuck­led. “The night before the cer­e­mo­ny, I threw up in the Dowa­ger Queen’s favorite pot­ted plant. You should’ve heard her scream when she dis­cov­ered the, ah, gift I left.”

A small laugh bub­bled in my throat at the men­tal image his words cre­at­ed. My great-grand­moth­er had died before I was born, but I’d heard she’d been a force to be reck­oned with.

“The point is, it’s nor­mal to feel that way, but I have faith in you.” Edvard tapped the roy­al seal on my desk. “Your coro­na­tion is com­ing soon­er than any of us expect­ed, but you will be a good queen. I don’t doubt that for a sec­ond.”

“I haven’t even fin­ished my train­ing,” I said. “Nik trained all his life to take over, and I’ve only been at it for a few months. What if I mess things up?”

Cold inched down my spine, and I pressed my hand against my knee again to keep it from bounc­ing.

“No one expects you to be per­fect, even if it may seem that way,” Edvard said. “I admit, there’s less lee­way for a king or queen to make mis­takes, but you can make them, as long as you learn from them. Being a leader is not about tech­ni­cal knowl­edge. It is about you, as a per­son. Your com­pas­sion, your strength, your empa­thy. You have all that in spades. Besides…” His eyes crin­kled into a smile. “There’s no bet­ter way to learn than on the job.”

“With mil­lions of peo­ple watch­ing.”

“It’s a job for those who thrive under pres­sure,” he acknowl­edged.

My laugh sound­ed rusty after a week of non-use.

“Do you real­ly think I can do it?” Uncer­tain­ty gnawed at me, and I tried not to think of what my moth­er would’ve done in my place. How much more grace­ful­ly she would’ve han­dled all this.

“I know it. You’re already tak­ing charge in the Speaker’s meet­ings, going head-to-head with Erhall, and the peo­ple love you.” Edvard radi­at­ed such con­fi­dence it remind­ed me of Rhys, who had nev­er once doubt­ed my abil­i­ty to do any­thing.

You don’t need a crown to be queen, princess.

God, I missed him. More than I thought I could ever miss some­one.

“I’m always here if you want to talk about any­thing per­tain­ing to the Crown, but that’s not why I came today.” Edvard exam­ined me, his eyes inci­sive despite his recent hos­pi­tal­iza­tion. “I want to talk about you, Brid­get. Not the princess.”

Wari­ness crept into my veins. “What about me?”

“You are deeply unhap­py, my dear. You have been since I left the hos­pi­tal.” A wry smile quirked his lips. “For my own sake, I’ll assume it’s not because you’re dev­as­tat­ed I made it out alive. But it just so hap­pens the time frame coin­cides with a cer­tain upcom­ing pro­pos­al and the depar­ture of a cer­tain body­guard.”

The desk blurred before I blinked and my vision cleared. “I’m fine. You were right. It was time to end things, and Stef­fan would make a fine con­sort.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Edvard’s voice deep­ened with regal author­i­ty, and I flinched. “You are my grand­daugh­ter. I know when you are lying, and I know when you’re mis­er­able. Right now, you’re both.”

I wise­ly chose not to reply.

“I was—and still am—quite upset about your rela­tion­ship with Mr. Larsen. It was reck­less, and the press is still hav­ing a field day over it. But…” He heaved a sigh, filled with sad­ness and sym­pa­thy. “You are, first and fore­most, my grand­daugh­ter. I want you to be hap­py above all else. I thought what you had was a casu­al affair but judg­ing by the way you’ve been walk­ing around like a heart­bro­ken zom­bie, I assume that wasn’t the case.”

I pinched myself beneath the desk to make sure I wasn’t dream­ing. The sharp sting con­firmed the phrase “heart­bro­ken zom­bie” real­ly had left my grandfather’s mouth.

But as out of char­ac­ter as the phrase was, he wasn’t wrong.

“It doesn’t mat­ter,” I said, echo­ing Steffan’s sen­ti­ment ear­li­er that day. “It’s too late. I was try­ing to repeal the Roy­al Mar­riages Law before it became an issue, but there’s not enough time.”

“Nine months, if I remem­ber cor­rect­ly.”

“Three weeks till the pro­pos­al,” I point­ed out.

“Hmm.” The sound came out loaded with mean­ing.

He couldn’t be say­ing what I thought he was say­ing. “Grand­pa, you want­ed me to break up with Rhys. You’ve been push­ing me to mar­ry Stef­fan all this time and…” A messy ball of emo­tion tan­gled in my throat. “You had a heart attack when I refused.”

Hor­ror drenched his expres­sion. “Is that what you think?” Edvard straight­ened, his eyes sud­den­ly fierce. “Brid­get, it wasn’t because of you or any one thing. It was because of an accu­mu­la­tion of stress. If any­thing, it was my fault for not lis­ten­ing to you and Niko­lai.” He gri­maced. “I should’ve cut back on my work­load, and I didn’t. My heart attack was unfor­tu­nate tim­ing, but it was not your fault. Do you under­stand?”

I nod­ded, the ball of emo­tion expand­ing until it filled my nose and ears. My chest felt too tight, my skin too hot, then too cold.

“I don’t blame you for what hap­pened. Not one bit,” he said. “And by roy­al decree, I order you to stop blam­ing your­self.”

I cracked a small smile at the same time a hot tear scald­ed my cheek.

“Oh, sweet­heart.” Edvard let out anoth­er, heav­ier sigh. “Come here.”

He opened his arms, and I walked around the desk and hugged him, breath­ing in his famil­iar, com­fort­ing scent of leather and Creed cologne. Some of the tight­ness I’d car­ried around since his heart attack eased.

I hadn’t real­ized how much I’d need­ed his implic­it for­give­ness until now.

“You are my grand­daugh­ter, and I want you to be hap­py.” Edvard squeezed me tight. “We can’t break the law, but you’re a smart girl, and you have nine months. Do what you have to do. Do you under­stand what I’m say­ing?”

“I think so,” I whis­pered.

“Good.” He pulled back and kissed me on the fore­head. “Think like a queen. And remem­ber, the best rulers are those who can wield both the car­rot and the stick in equal mea­sure.”

The best rulers are those who can wield both the car­rot and the stick in equal mea­sure.

Edvard’s words lin­gered long after he’d left and the late after­noon sun mor­phed into the cool blues of twi­light.

I picked up my phone, my mind rac­ing with the impli­ca­tions of what I want­ed to do.

I had one card left up my sleeve, but I hadn’t enter­tained the notion until now because it was manip­u­la­tive, under­hand­ed, and went.