Chap­ter 49: Brid­get

WE SPENT THE REST OF THE DAY AND NIGHT IN MY ROOM, ONLY SURFACING for food, but the next morn­ing, real­i­ty intrud­ed, and I was forced to extri­cate myself from Rhys’s arms.

As high as I was rid­ing from our vic­to­ry, I had one big issue left to deal with. I’d wait­ed until after the vote because I couldn’t afford to be dis­tract­ed before then, but it was time to face it once and for all.

Rhys stayed in the bed­room while I wait­ed for my guest in the sit­ting room.

I heard a knock before Mikaela poked her head in. “You want­ed to see me?”
“Yes. Please, sit.”

She walked in and plopped into the seat next to me. “I’ve been dying to talk to you, but you didn’t answer my calls yes­ter­day. I assume you were…busy, but oh my god, the vote! We have to cel­e­brate! That’s ama—”

“Why did you leak the pho­tos of me to the press?” I skipped the buildup and got straight to the point. I couldn’t stom­ach small talk with the prover­bial black cloud hang­ing over us.

I kept my voice neu­tral, but I dug my nails so deep into the couch cush­ion they left tiny inden­ta­tions.

I hadn’t want­ed to believe it when Rhys told me. Part of me still hoped he was wrong. But Mikaela’s pale face and pan­icked eyes told me all I need­ed to know.

It was true.

Betray­al stabbed at me with sharp talons, punc­tur­ing my pre­vi­ous­ly cold calm.

I didn’t have a lot of friends in Eldor­ra. I had acquain­tances and peo­ple who sucked up to me because of my title, but no real friends. Mikaela had been the one con­stant by my side, and I’d trust­ed her.

“I…I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about,” Mikaela said, avoid­ing my eyes.

“Rhys’s old com­pa­ny traced the pho­tos back to your IP address.” Rhys’s old boss Chris­t­ian was appar­ent­ly a com­put­er genius, and Rhys had asked him to help find the leaker’s iden­ti­ty. I’d known for weeks Mikaela could be the cul­prit, and I’d had to pre­tend noth­ing was wrong until I con­front­ed her.

If the roy­al thing didn’t work out, I might have a sec­ond call­ing as an actress.

Mikaela opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I thought I was help­ing you,” she said weak­ly. “She told me it would help.”

“I know.”

The talons of betray­al dug deep­er.

Chris­t­ian had found some…interesting text mes­sages when he’d looked into Mikaela’s cor­re­spon­dence with The Dai­ly Tea, and they had thrown me for as much of a loop as the dis­cov­ery Mikaela was tech­ni­cal­ly the leak­er.

The fact it hadn’t been Mikaela’s idea didn’t lessen the sting. She should’ve known bet­ter.

I heard anoth­er knock.

“Come in.” I didn’t take my eyes off Mikaela, who looked like she want­ed to sink into the couch and nev­er come back up.

Elin walked in, sleek and pol­ished in her white Esca­da suit and three-inch pumps. Her eyes flicked over Mikaela before set­tling on me. “You request­ed to see me, Your High­ness.”

“Yes. We were dis­cussing the leaked pho­tos of Rhys and me.” I final­ly tore my gaze away from my friend—ex-friend—and met Elin’s cool blue one. “Might you know any­thing about that?”

Elin wasn’t dumb. She picked up on my insin­u­a­tion imme­di­ate­ly, but to her cred­it, she didn’t feign igno­rance or make excus­es.

“I did it to help you, Your High­ness,” she said after only one missed beat.

“By leak­ing pri­vate pho­tos of me? How was that sup­posed to help?”

“They were not pri­vate pho­tos.” Annoy­ance crept into her tone. “They were per­fect­ly inno­cent pho­tos framed in a sug­ges­tive man­ner. I would’ve nev­er leaked tru­ly incrim­i­nat­ing images. But if I hadn’t done that, you and Mr. Larsen would’ve con­tin­ued car­ry­ing on your reck­less actions, and some­thing more scan­dalous would’ve popped up. It was only a mat­ter of time. Don’t think I didn’t notice what you two tried to hide beneath my nose. I didn’t hold this job for so long by being obliv­i­ous.”

Dammit. I should’ve known Elin would catch onto our affair. She was right. We had been reck­less, too caught up in our hon­ey­moon phase to take the usu­al pre­cau­tions. But that didn’t make what she did right.

“And the video?”

I’d final­ly told Rhys about the video from Nikolai’s recep­tion a few weeks ago. He’d been upset I kept it a secret for so long, but since noth­ing had come of it, he’d calmed down after, oh, five days. He had, how­ev­er, also asked Chris­t­ian to look into who’d sent it, and when I learned Elin was behind the video as well, I’d near­ly fall­en out of my seat.

The sur­pris­es nev­er stopped com­ing.

Mikaela’s eyes bounced between me and Elin. “What video?”

We ignored her, too locked in our stare down.

“It’s a crime to plant cam­eras in a pri­vate res­i­dence,” I said. “Espe­cial­ly a pri­vate roy­al res­i­dence.”

“Prince Niko­lai knew about the cam­eras.” Elin didn’t so much as blink. “The secu­ri­ty chief con­vinced him to install secret sur­veil­lance while the house was under ren­o­va­tion. Too many con­trac­tors going in and out. It was a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.”

I paused, absorb­ing the infor­ma­tion, before I said, “Black­mail is also ille­gal.”

“I didn’t black­mail you, nor would I ever do so.” Elin’s brows drew into a tight frown. “I sent you the video hop­ing it would prompt you to break off your rela­tion­ship with Mr. Larsen. When you didn’t, I had to leak the pic­tures.”

“You didn’t have to do any­thing. You could’ve talked to me about it first,” I said cold­ly. “For a com­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­re­tary, you’re not great at com­mu­ni­cat­ing.”

“It wouldn’t have changed a thing. You’re stub­born, Your High­ness. You would’ve told me you were end­ing things and gone right back to him. I had to force your hand. Plus, The Dai­ly Tea reporter we sent the pho­tos to had already been snoop­ing around, hop­ing to find dirt. Secu­ri­ty found him tres­pass­ing on the grounds. He was quite per­sis­tent, that one, almost like he has a per­son­al grudge.” Elin tilt­ed her head. “Hans Nielsen, for­mer­ly of The Nation­al Express. Ring a bell?”

Sev­er­al. Hans was the paparaz­zo whose cam­era Rhys had destroyed in the ceme­tery last year. Appar­ent­ly, he’d moved up the career lad­der and held a grudge.

I flashed back to a few weeks ago, when Rhys told me he sus­pect­ed some­one had snooped around his guest­house while he’d been liv­ing there. I bet it was Hans, con­sid­er­ing it hap­pened before Rhys and I had got­ten togeth­er and Elin hired a pho­tog­ra­ph­er to trail us. I didn’t tell Elin any of that, though.

“Regard­less, the pic­tures sat­is­fied him and kept him from dig­ging fur­ther,” Elin said when I didn’t respond. “I must say, in hind­sight, your press con­fer­ence was inspired, and you and Mr. Larsen made it work. Yesterday’s vote was a big win, so no harm, no foul.”

Fun­ny she called the press con­fer­ence inspired now when she’d thrown a mas­sive fit over it.

“No harm, no foul?” I repeat­ed. “Elin, you went behind my back, cre­at­ed a scan­dal, and dragged Mikaela into it!”

Mikaela, who’d been watch­ing the rapid-fire exchange between us with wide eyes, low­ered her head.

“I need­ed a go-between. I couldn’t have the pho­tos traced back to me.” Elin heaved a deep sigh. “Hon­est­ly, Your High­ness, it all worked out. I fed the press a small­er scan­dal so they wouldn’t stum­ble onto a larg­er one. I was pro­tect­ing the roy­al fam­i­ly. That has always been my num­ber one goal.”

“Per­haps.” I steeled my spine. “I appre­ci­ate your ser­vice to the fam­i­ly over the years, but I’m afraid it’s time we part ways.”

Mikaela squeaked while the col­or leached from Elin’s face.

“You’re fir­ing me? You can’t fire me. His Majesty—”

“Has giv­en me the author­i­ty to make what­ev­er staffing changes I see fit,” I fin­ished. I pressed my hands tight against my thighs to keep from shak­ing. Elin was one of the palace’s longest-serv­ing employ­ees, and I’d always been slight­ly ter­ri­fied of her. But while she was great at the exter­nal part of her job, I need­ed some­one who worked with me, not some­one who snuck around behind my back and tried to dic­tate my actions. “You stepped over the line, and you lost our trust. Mine and the king’s.”

Elin clutched her phone, her knuck­les whiter than her suit. Final­ly, she said, “As you wish. I’ll have my desk cleared out by the end of the week.” A mus­cle twitched beneath her eye, but oth­er­wise, she showed no emo­tion. “Is there any­thing else, Your High­ness?”

Brisk and effi­cient to the end.

“No,” I said, feel­ing strange­ly melan­choly. Elin and I had nev­er been close, but it was the end of an era. “You’re dis­missed.”

She gave me a tight nod and walked out. She wasn’t one for dra­mat­ics, and she knew me well enough to know when I’d set my mind on some­thing.

“You too,” I told Mikaela.

“Brid­get, I swear—”

“I need to think things through.” Maybe I would for­give her one day, but her betray­al was still fresh and noth­ing she said right now would pen­e­trate the hurt. “I don’t know how long that’s going to take, but I need time.”

“Fair enough.” Her chin wob­bled. “I real­ly was try­ing to help. Elin was so con­vinc­ing. I didn’t believe her at first when she said you and Rhys had some­thing going on. But then I thought about the way you looked at each oth­er, and that time you took so long to answer the door at your office…it all made sense. She said you would get in huge trou­ble if—”

“Mikaela, please.” I pressed my fin­gers to my fore­head. It hurt almost as much as my heart. If I were old Brid­get, per­haps I would’ve let what she did slide, but I couldn’t afford to let things slide any­more. I need­ed peo­ple I could trust around me. “Not right now.”

Mikaela swal­lowed hard, her freck­les stark against her pale skin, but she left with­out try­ing to make excus­es again.

I expelled a sharp breath. The con­ver­sa­tion had been short­er but hard­er than I’d expect­ed, even after weeks of men­tal prepa­ra­tion. I sup­posed noth­ing could ful­ly pre­pare some­one for fir­ing one of their longest-serv­ing employ­ees and say­ing good­bye to one of their old­est friends in the span of half an hour.

I heard Rhys come up behind me. He didn’t speak. He just swept his palms over my shoul­ders and mas­saged the mus­cles with his thumbs.

“I’d hoped you were wrong.” I stared at where Mikaela had sat, the sting of betray­al lin­ger­ing on my skin.

“Princess, I’m nev­er wrong.”

I released a half laugh, break­ing some of the ten­sion. “I can think of a few instances when you were.”

“Yeah? Like when?” Rhys chal­lenged, a hint of amuse­ment shin­ing through.

I deep­ened my voice to mim­ic him. “One, I do not become per­son­al­ly involved in my clients’ lives. I am here to safe­guard you from phys­i­cal harm. That is all. I am not here to be your friend, con­fi­dant, or any­thing else. This ensures my judg­ment remains uncom­pro­mised.” I revert­ed to my reg­u­lar voice. “How’d that work out for you, Mr. Larsen?”

He stopped mas­sag­ing my shoul­ders and curled one hand around my throat. My pulse jumped as he low­ered his head until his lips grazed my ear. “Mock­ing me? Do you need a refresh­er les­son already, Your High­ness?”

Anoth­er piece of ten­sion cracked.

“Maybe. You might want to brush up on your teach­ing skills, Mr. Larsen,” I said, play­ing along. “The lessons should last longer than a cou­ple hours.”

Anoth­er laugh escaped when Rhys picked me up and swung me around until we faced each oth­er, and my limbs wrapped around his neck and waist.

“I knew you were trou­ble the moment I saw you.” He squeezed my ass, hard, but those steel-gray eyes were soft as he exam­ined me. “You did what you had to do, princess.”

Despite the gruff deliv­ery, his sin­gle short sen­tence com­fort­ed me more than an entire speech from some­one else could.

“I know.” I rest­ed my fore­head against his, tight­ness bal­loon­ing in my chest. “But there are so few peo­ple I can turn to here, and I just lost two of them in one day.”

Too much was chang­ing too fast. Some of it was good, some of it was nerve-wrack­ing. Either way, I could bare­ly keep up.

“You have me.”

“I know,” I repeat­ed, soft­er this time.

“Good. And for the record…” Rhys’s lips tilt­ed up into a small smile. “I’ve nev­er been hap­pi­er to be wrong. Fuck per­son­al­ly involved. That’s not good enough. I want to be in your mind, in your heart.”