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.

1
BRIDGET
“SPANK ME! MASTER, SPANK ME!”
I sti­fled a laugh at my body­guard Booth’s face as Leather the par-
rot squawked in his cage. The parrot’s name said all you need­ed to
know about its pre­vi­ous owner’s sex life, and while some found him
amus­ing, Booth did not. He hat­ed birds. He said they remind­ed him
of giant fly­ing rats.
“One day, he and Leather are going to get into it.” Emma, the di-
rec­tor of Wags & Whiskers, clucked her tongue. “Poor Booth.”
I held back anoth­er laugh even as I felt a small pang in my heart.
“Prob­a­bly not. Booth’s leav­ing soon.”
I tried not to think about it. Booth had been with me for four
years, but he was leav­ing for pater­ni­ty leave next week and stay­ing
in Eldor­ra after to be clos­er to his wife and new­born. I was hap­py for
him, but I would miss him. He was not only my body­guard but a
friend, and I could only hope his replace­ment and I had the same
rap­port.
“Ah, yes, I for­got.” Emma’s face soft­ened. She was in her ear­ly
six­ties, with short, gray-streaked hair and warm brown eyes. “Lots
of changes for you in a short time, my dear.”
She knew how much I hat­ed good­byes.
I’d been vol­un­teer­ing at Wags & Whiskers, a local pet res­cue
shel­ter, since my sopho­more year of col­lege, and Emma had become
a close friend and men­tor. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, she, too, was leav­ing.
She’d still be in Hazel­burg, but she was retir­ing as the shel­ter direc-
tor, which meant I would no longer see her every week.
“One of them doesn’t have to hap­pen,” I said, only half-jok­ing.
“You could stay.”
She shook her head. “I’ve run the shel­ter for almost a decade, and
it’s time for new blood. Some­one who can clean the cages with­out her
back and hips act­ing up.”
“That’s what vol­un­teers are for.” I ges­tured toward myself. I was
bela­bor­ing the point, but I couldn’t help it. Between Emma, Booth,
and my impend­ing grad­u­a­tion from Thay­er Uni­ver­si­ty, where I was
major­ing in inter­na­tion­al relations—as expect­ed of a princess—I had
enough good­byes to last me for the next five years.
“You are a sweet­heart. Don’t tell the oth­ers, but…” She low­ered
her voice to a con­spir­a­to­r­i­al whis­per. “You’re my favorite vol­un­teer.
It’s rare to find some­one of your stature who does char­i­ty because
she wants to, not because she’s putting on a show for the cam­eras.”
My cheeks tint­ed pink at the com­pli­ment. “It’s my plea­sure. I
adore ani­mals.” I took after my moth­er in that regard. It was one of
the few pieces of her I had left.
In anoth­er life, I would’ve been a vet­eri­nar­i­an, but in this life?
My path had been laid out for me since before I was born.
“You would make a great queen.” Emma stepped aside to allow a
staff mem­ber with a wrig­gling pup­py in his arms to pass. “Tru­ly.”
I laughed at the thought. “Thank you, but I have no inter­est in
being queen. Even if I did, the chances of me wear­ing the crown are
slim.”
As the princess of Eldor­ra, a small Euro­pean king­dom, I came
clos­er to rul­ing than most peo­ple. My par­ents died when I was a kid
—my moth­er at child­birth, my father in a car acci­dent a few years
later—so I was sec­ond in line to the throne. My broth­er Niko­lai, who
was four years my senior, had been train­ing to take over for our
grand­fa­ther King Edvard since he was old enough to walk. Once
Niko­lai had chil­dren, I would be bumped fur­ther down the line of
suc­ces­sion, some­thing I had zero com­plaints about. I want­ed to be
queen as much as I want­ed to bathe in a vat of acid.
Emma frowned in dis­ap­point­ment. “Ah, well, the sen­ti­ment is
the same.”
“Emma!” one of the oth­er staff mem­bers called out. “We’ve got a
sit­u­a­tion with the cats.”
She sighed. “It’s always the cats,” she mut­tered. “Any­way, I
want­ed to tell you about my retire­ment before you heard it from
any­one else. I’ll still be here until the end of next week, so I’ll see you
on Tues­day.”
“Sounds good.” I hugged her good­bye and watched her rush off
to deal with a lit­er­al cat­fight, the pang in my chest grow­ing.
I was glad Emma hadn’t told me about her retire­ment until the
end of my shift, or it would’ve been in my head the whole time.
“Are you ready, Your High­ness?” Booth asked, clear­ly eager to
get away from Leather.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s go!” Leather squawked as we exit­ed. “Spank me!”
My laugh final­ly broke free at Booth’s gri­mace. “I’ll miss you,
and so will Leather.” I stuffed my hands in my coat pock­ets to pro-
tect them against the sharp autumn chill. “Tell me about the new
body­guard. What’s he like?”
The leaves crunched beneath my boots as we walked toward my
off-cam­pus house, which was only fif­teen min­utes away. I adored
fall and every­thing that came with it—the cozy clothes, the riot of
earthy col­ors on the trees, the hint of cin­na­mon and smoke in the air.
In Athen­berg, I wouldn’t be able to walk down the street with­out
get­ting mobbed, but that was the great thing about Thay­er. Its stu-
dent pop­u­la­tion boast­ed so many roy­als and celebri­ty off­spring, a
princess was no big deal. I could live my life like a rel­a­tive­ly nor­mal
col­lege girl.
“I don’t know much about the new guard,” Booth admit­ted.
“He’s a con­trac­tor.”
My eye­brows shot up. “Real­ly?”
The Crown some­times hired pri­vate secu­ri­ty con­trac­tors to serve
along­side the Roy­al Guard, but it was rare. In my twen­ty-one years,
I’d nev­er had a body­guard who was a con­trac­tor.
“He’s sup­posed to be the best,” Booth said, mis­tak­ing my sur-
prise for wari­ness. “Ex-Navy SEAL, top-notch rec­om­men­da­tions, ex-
peri­ence guard­ing high-pro­file per­son­al­i­ties. He’s his company’s
most sought-after pro­fes­sion­al.”
“Hmm.” An Amer­i­can guard. Inter­est­ing. “I do hope we get along.”
When two peo­ple were around each oth­er twen­ty-four-sev­en,
com­pat­i­bil­i­ty mat­tered. A lot. I knew peo­ple who hadn’t meshed
with their secu­ri­ty details, and those arrange­ments nev­er last­ed
long.
“I’m sure you will. You’re easy to get along with, Your
High­ness.”
“You’re only say­ing that because I’m your boss.”
Booth grinned. “Tech­ni­cal­ly, the Direc­tor of the Roy­al Guard is
my boss.”
I wagged a play­ful fin­ger at him. “Back­talk­ing already? I’m
dis­ap­point­ed.”
He laughed. Despite his insis­tence on call­ing me Your High­ness,
we’d set­tled into a casu­al cama­raderie over the years that I appre­ci-
ated. Exces­sive for­mal­i­ty exhaust­ed me.
We chat­ted about Booth’s impend­ing father­hood and move back
to Eldor­ra for the rest of our walk. He was near burst­ing with pride
over his unborn child, and I couldn’t help a small stab of envy. I was
nowhere near ready for mar­riage and kids, but I want­ed what Booth
and his wife had.
Love. Pas­sion. Choice. Things no amount of mon­ey could buy.
A sar­don­ic smile touched my lips. No doubt I’d sound like an un-
grate­ful brat to any­one who could hear my thoughts. I could get any
mate­r­i­al thing I desired with a snap of my fin­gers, and I was whin-
ing about love.
But peo­ple were peo­ple, no mat­ter their title, and some desires
were uni­ver­sal. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the abil­i­ty to ful­fill them was not.
Maybe I would fall in love with a prince who’d sweep me off my
feet, but I doubt­ed it. Most like­ly, I’d end up in a bor­ing, social­ly ac-
cept­able mar­riage with a bor­ing, social­ly accept­able man who only
had sex mis­sion­ary style and vaca­tioned in the same two places
every year.
I pushed the depress­ing thought aside. I had a long way to go be-
fore I even thought about mar­riage, and I’d cross that bridge when I
got there.
My house came into sight, and my eyes latched onto the unfamil-
iar black BMW idling in the dri­ve­way. I assumed it belonged to my
new body­guard.
“He’s ear­ly.” Booth raised a sur­prised brow. “He’s not sup­posed
to arrive until five.”
“Punc­tu­al­i­ty is a good sign, I sup­pose.” Though half an hour ear-
ly might be overkill.
The car door opened, and a large black boot plant­ed itself on the
dri­ve­way. A sec­ond lat­er, the biggest man I’d ever seen in real life
unfold­ed him­self from the front seat, and my mouth turned bone
dry.
Holy. Hot­ness.
My new body­guard had to be at least six foot four, maybe even
six-five, with sol­id, sculpt­ed mus­cle packed onto every inch of his
pow­er­ful frame. Longish black hair grazed his col­lar and fell over
one gun­metal-gray eye, and his legs were so long he ate up the dis-
tance between us in three strides.
For some­one so large, he moved with sur­pris­ing stealth. If I
hadn’t been look­ing at him, I wouldn’t have noticed him approach at
all.
He stopped in front of me, and I swore my body tilt­ed for­ward a
cen­time­ter, unable to resist his grav­i­ta­tion­al pull. I was also strange­ly
tempt­ed to run my hand through his thick dark locks. Most vet­er­ans
kept their hair mil­i­tary-style short even after leav­ing the ser­vice, but
clear­ly, he wasn’t one of them.
“Rhys Larsen.” His deep, grav­el­ly voice rolled over me like a vel-
vety caress. Now that he was clos­er, I spot­ted a thin scar slash­ing
through his left eye­brow, adding a hint of men­ace to his dark good
looks. Stub­ble dark­ened his jaw, and a hint of a tat­too peeked out
from both sleeves of his shirt.
He was the oppo­site of the prep­py, clean-shaven types I usu­al­ly
went for, but that didn’t stop a swarm of but­ter­flies from tak­ing
flight in my stom­ach.
I was so flus­tered by their appear­ance I for­got to respond until
Booth let out a small cough.
“I’m Brid­get. It’s nice to meet you.” I hoped nei­ther man noticed
the flush creep­ing over my cheeks.
I omit­ted the Princess title on pur­pose. It seemed too pre­ten­tious
for casu­al, one-on-one set­tings.
I did, how­ev­er, notice Rhys didn’t address me as Your High­ness
the way Booth did. I didn’t mind—I’d been try­ing to get Booth to
call me by my first name for years—but it was anoth­er sign my new
guard would be noth­ing like my old one.
“You have to move.”
I blinked. “I beg your par­don?”
“Your house.” Rhys tilt­ed his head toward my spa­cious but cozy
two-bed­room abode. “It’s a secu­ri­ty night­mare. I don’t know who
signed off on the loca­tion, but you have to move.”
The but­ter­flies screeched to a halt.
We’d met less than two min­utes ago, and he was already order-
ing me around like he was the boss. Who does he think he is? “I’ve
lived here for two years. I’ve nev­er had an issue.”
“It only takes one time.”
“I’m not mov­ing.” I punc­tu­at­ed my words with a sharp­ness I
rarely used, but Rhys’s con­de­scend­ing tone grat­ed on my nerves.
Any attrac­tion I’d felt toward him crum­bled into ash, dying the
quick­est death in my his­to­ry with the oppo­site sex.
Not that it would’ve gone any­where. He was, after all, my body-
guard, but it would’ve been nice to have eye can­dy with­out want­i­ng
to drop-kick him into the next cen­tu­ry.
Men. They always ruined it by open­ing their mouths.
“You’re the secu­ri­ty expert,” I added cool­ly. “Fig­ure it out.”
Rhys glow­ered at me beneath thick, dark brows. I couldn’t re-
mem­ber the last time any­one had glow­ered at me.
“Yes, Your High­ness.” His inflec­tion on the last two words made a
mock­ery of the title, and the embers of indig­na­tion in my stom­ach
stoked brighter.
I opened my mouth to respond—with what, I wasn’t sure, be-
cause he hadn’t been out­right hostile—but Booth cut in before I said
some­thing I would regret.
“Why don’t we go inside? It looks like it’s about to rain,” he said
quick­ly.
Rhys and I looked up. The clear blue sky winked back at us.
Booth cleared his throat. “You nev­er know. Rain show­ers come
out of nowhere,” he mut­tered. “After you, Your High­ness.”
We entered the house in silence.
I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the brass tree by the door
before mak­ing anoth­er stab at civil­i­ty. “Would you like some­thing to
drink?”
Irri­ta­tion still stabbed at me, but I hat­ed con­fronta­tion, and I
didn’t want my rela­tion­ship with my new body­guard to start on
such a sour note.
“No.” Rhys scanned the liv­ing room, which I’d dec­o­rat­ed in
shades of jade green and cream. A house­keep­er came by twice a
month to deep clean, but I kept the place tidy myself for the most
part.
“Why don’t we get to know each oth­er?” Booth said in a jovial,
too-loud voice. “Er, I mean you and Rhys, Your High­ness. We can
talk needs, expec­ta­tions, sched­ules…”
“Excel­lent idea.” I mus­tered a strained smile and ges­tured Rhys
toward the couch. “Please. Sit.”
For the next forty-five min­utes, we ran through logis­tics for the
tran­si­tion. Booth would remain my body­guard until Mon­day, but
Rhys would shad­ow him until then so he could get a feel for how
things worked.
“This is all fine.” Rhys closed the file con­tain­ing a detailed break-
down of my class and week­ly sched­ules, upcom­ing pub­lic events,
and expect­ed trav­el. “Let me be frank, Princess Brid­get. You are not
my first, nor will you be the last, roy­al I’ve guard­ed. I’ve worked
with Harp­er Secu­ri­ty for five years, and I’ve nev­er had a client
harmed while under my pro­tec­tion. Do you want to know why?”
“Let me guess. Your daz­zling charm stunned the would-be at-
tack­ers into com­pla­cen­cy,” I said.
Booth choked out a laugh, which he quick­ly turned into a cough.
Rhys’s mouth didn’t so much as twitch. Of course it didn’t. My
joke wasn’t Com­e­dy Cen­tral wor­thy, but I imag­ined find­ing a water-
fall in the Sahara would be eas­i­er than find­ing a drop of humor in
that big, infu­ri­at­ing­ly sculpt­ed body.
“The rea­son is twofold,” Rhys said calm­ly, as if I hadn’t spo­ken at
all. “One, I do not become involved in my clients’ per­son­al 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. Two, my clients under­stand the
way things must work if they are to remain safe.”
“And how is that?” My polite smile car­ried a warn­ing he either
didn’t notice or ignored.
“They do what I say, when I say it for any­thing secu­ri­ty-relat­ed.”
Rhys’s gray eyes locked onto mine. It was like star­ing at an unyield-
ing steel wall. “Under­stand, Your High­ness?”
For­get love and pas­sion. What I want­ed most was to slap the ar-
rogant expres­sion off his face and knee him in the fam­i­ly jew­els
while I was at it.
I pressed the pads of my fin­gers into my thighs and forced myself
to count to three before I respond­ed.