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.

11
BRIDGET
RHYS AND I DIDN’T TALK AGAIN ON THE PLANE, BUT HE’D TAKEN MY
mind off my grandfather’s situation enough I crashed after he left. I
hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and I was out like a light for
most of the flight.
When we landed, though, all my nerves came rushing back, and
it was all I could do not to snap at the driver to go faster as we sped
through downtown toward the hospital. Every second we spent at a
red light felt like a second I was losing with my grandfather.
What if I missed seeing him alive by a minute, or two, or three?
A wave of lightheadedness hit me, and I had to close my eyes
and force myself to take deep breaths so I didn’t drown beneath my
anxiety.
When we finally arrived at the hospital, we found Markus, my
grandfather’s Private Secretary and right-hand man, waiting for us
by the secret entrance they used for high-profile patients. I’d spotted
the crush of reporters outside the main entrance from the car, and
the sight made my anxiety triple.
“His Majesty is fine,” Markus said when he saw me. He looked
more disheveled than usual, which in Markus’s world meant one of
his hairs was out of place and there was a small, barely noticeable
crease in his shirt. “He woke up just before I came down.”
“Oh, thank God.” I breathed a sigh of relief. If my grandfather
was awake, things couldn’t be too bad. Right?
We took the elevator to my grandfather’s private suite, where I
found Nikolai pacing the hall outside with a frown.
“He kicked me out,” he said by way of explanation. “He said I
was hovering too much.”
I cracked a smile. “Typical.” If there was one thing Edvard von
Ascheberg III hated, it was being fussed over.
“Yeah.” Nikolai let out a half-resigned, half-relieved laugh before
he swept me into a hug. “It’s good to see you, Bridge.”
We didn’t see or talk to each other often. We lived different lives
—Nikolai as crown prince in Eldorra, me as a princess trying her
best to pretend she wasn’t one in the U.S.—but nothing bonded two
people like a shared tragedy.
Then again, if that were true, we should be thick as thieves since
our parents’ deaths. But things hadn’t quite worked out that way.
“It’s good to see you too.” I squeezed him tight before greeting
his girlfriend. “Hi, Sabrina.”
“Hi.” She gave me a quick hug, her face warm with sympathy.
Sabrina was an American flight attendant Nikolai met during a
flight to the U.S. They’d been dating for two years, and their rela-
tionship had generated a media firestorm when it first came to light.
A prince dating a commoner? Tabloid heaven. Coverage had died
down since then, partly because Nikolai and Sabrina kept their rela-
tionship under such tight wraps, but their pairing was still very
much gossiped about in Athenberg society.
Perhaps that was why I felt such pressure to date someone “ap-
propriate.” I didn’t want to disappoint my grandfather, too. He’d
warmed up to Sabrina, but he’d had a conniption when he first
found out about her.
“He’s waiting for you inside.” Nikolai flashed a lopsided grin.
“Just don’t hover or he’ll kick you out too.”
I managed a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I’ll wait here,” Rhys said. He usually insisted on following me
everywhere, but he seemed to know I needed alone time with my
grandfather.
I gave him a grateful smile before I stepped into the hospital
room.
Edvard was, as promised, awake and sitting up in bed, but the
sight of him in a hospital gown and hooked up to machines brought
back an onslaught of memories.
“Daddy, wake up! Please wake up!” I sobbed, trying to break out of
Elin’s grasp and run to his aside.“Daddy!”
But no matter how loud I screamed or how hard I cried, he remained
pale and unmoving. The machine next to his bed let out a flat, steady
whine, and everyone in the room was yelling and running around except
for my grandfather, who sat with his head lowered and shoulders shaking.
They’d forced Nikolai to leave the room earlier, and now they were trying to
get me to leave too, but I wouldn’t.
Not until Daddy woke up.
“Daddy, please.” I’d screamed myself hoarse, and my last plea came out
as a whisper.
I didn’t understand. He’d been okay a few hours ago. He went out to
buy popcorn and candy because the palace kitchen ran out and he said it
was silly to ask someone to fetch something he could easily get himself. He
said when he got back, we would eat the popcorn and watch Frozen
together.
But he never came back.
I overheard the doctors and nurses talking earlier. Something about his
car and sudden impact. I didn’t know what it all meant, but I knew it
wasn’t good.
And I knew Daddy was never, ever coming back.
I felt the burn of tears behind my eyes and a familiar tightening
in my chest, but I pasted on a smile and tried not to let my worry
show.
“Grandpa.” I rushed to Edvard’s side. I’d called him Grandpa
when I was a kid and never grew out of it, but now, I could only say
it when we were alone because the address was too “informal” for a
king.
“Bridget.” He looked pale and tired, but he mustered a weak
smile. “You didn’t have to fly all the way back here. I’m fine.”
“I’ll believe it when the doctor tells me so.” I squeezed his hand,
the gesture as much reassurance for myself as it was for him.
“I’m the king,” he harrumphed. “What I say, goes.”
“Not for medical matters.”
Edvard sighed and grumbled, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he
asked about New York, and I caught him up on everything I’d been
doing since I saw him last Christmas until he got tired and dozed off
in the middle of my story about Louis’s unfortunate wine spill.
He’d refused to tell me how he ended up in the hospital, but
Nikolai and the doctors filled me in. Apparently, my grandfather
had a rare, previously undiagnosed heart condition that was usually
latent in patients until extreme stress or anxiety triggered it. In such
cases, the condition could lead to sudden cardiac arrest and death.
I nearly had cardiac arrest myself when I heard that, but the doc-
tors assured me my grandfather’s case had been mild. He’d fainted
and had been unconscious for a while, but he didn’t need surgery,
which was a good thing. However, the condition didn’t have a cure
and he would need to make major lifestyle changes to reduce his
stress levels if he didn’t want a more serious incident in the future.
I could only imagine Edvard’s response to that. He was a worka-
holic if there ever was one.
The doctors kept him in the hospital another three days for moni-
toring. They’d wanted to keep him a week, but he refused. He said it
would be bad for public morale, and he needed to get back to work.
And when the king wanted something, no one refused him.
After he returned home, Nikolai and I tried our best to convince
him to offload some responsibilities to his advisors, but he kept
brushing us off.
Three weeks later, we were still at an impasse, and I was at my
wits’ end.
“He’s being stubborn.” I couldn’t keep the frustration out of my
voice as I guided my horse toward the back of the palace grounds.
Edvard, sick of both Nikolai and I nagging him to heed the doctor’s
warnings, had all but kicked us out of the palace for the afternoon.
Get some sun, he said. And leave me to stress in peace. Nikolai and I had
not been amused. “He should at least cut back on the late-night
calls.”
“You know how Grandfather is.” Nikolai came up beside me on
his own horse, his hair tousled from the wind. “He’s more stubborn
than you are.”
“You, calling me stubborn? That’s rich,” I scoffed. “If I recall cor-
rectly, you’re the one who went on a hunger strike for three days be-
cause Grandfather wouldn’t let you skydive with your friends.”
Nikolai grinned. “It worked, didn’t it? He caved before day three
was over.” My brother was the spitting image of our father—wheat-
colored hair, blue eyes, square jaw—and sometimes, the resemblance
was so strong it made my heart hurt. “Besides, that was nothing
compared to your insistence on living in America. Is our home coun-
try really that abhorrent?”
There it is. Nothing like a beautiful fall day with a side of guilt.
“You know that’s not why.”
“Bridget, I can count the number of times you’ve been home in
the past five years on one hand. I don’t see any other explanation.”
“You know I miss you and Grandfather. It’s just…every time I’m
home…” I tried to think of the best way to phrase it. “I’m under a
microscope. Every single thing I do, wear, and say is dissected. I
swear, the tabloids could turn me breathing wrong into a story. But in
the U.S., no one cares as long as I don’t do anything crazy. I can just
be normal. Or as normal as someone like me can get.”
I can’t breathe here, Nik.
“I know it’s a lot,” Nikolai said, his face softening. “But we were
born for this, and you grew up here. You didn’t have an issue with
the attention before.”
Yes, I did. I just never showed it.
“I was young.” We came to a stop on our horses, and I stroked
my horse’s mane, taking comfort in the familiar feel of its silky hair
beneath my hand. “People weren’t as vicious when I was young, and
that was before I went to college and experienced what being a nor-
mal girl feels like. It feels…good.”
Nikolai stared at me with a strange expression. If I didn’t know
better, I would’ve sworn it was guilt, but that made no sense. What
could he be guilty about?
“Bridge…”
“What?” My heart pounded faster. His tone, his expression, the
tight set of his shoulders. Whatever he had to say, I wouldn’t like it.
He looked down. “You’re going to hate me for this.”
I tightened my grip on my reins. “Just tell me.”
“Before I do, I want you to know I didn’t plan for this to
happen,” Nikolai said. “I never expected to meet Sabrina and fall in
love with her, nor did I expect this is where we’d be two years later.”
Confusion mingled with my apprehension. What does Sabrina have
to do with this?
“I wanted to tell you earlier,” he added. “But then Grandfather
got hospitalized and everything was so crazy…” His throat bobbed
with a hard swallow. “Bridge, I asked Sabrina to marry me. And she
said yes.”
Of everything I’d expected him to say, that wasn’t it. Not by a
long shot.
I didn’t know Sabrina well, but I liked her. She was sweet and
funny and made my brother happy. That was enough for me. I
didn’t understand why he would be nervous about telling me. “Nik,
that’s amazing. Congratulations! Did you tell Grandfather already?”
“Yes.” Nikolai was still watching me with a guilty look in his
eyes.
My smile faded. “Was he upset? I know he wasn’t happy when
you started dating because—” I stopped. Icy fingers crawled down
my spine as the pieces finally clicked. “Wait,” I said slowly. “You
can’t marry Sabrina. She’s not of noble blood.”
That was the law talking, not me. Eldorra’s Royal Marriages Law
stipulated the monarch must marry someone of noble birth. It was
archaic but ironclad, and as the future king, Nikolai fell under the
law’s jurisdiction.
“No,” Nikolai said. “She’s not.”
I stared at him. It was so quiet I could hear the leaves rustle as
they fluttered to the ground. “What are you saying?”
Dread ballooned in my stomach, growing and growing until it
squeezed all the air from my lungs.
“Bridget, I’m abdicating.”
The balloon popped, leaving pieces of dread scattered through-
out my body. My heart, my throat, my eyes and fingers and toes. I
was so consumed by it I couldn’t speak for a good minute.
“No.” I blinked, hoping it would wake me up from my night-
mare. It didn’t. “You’re not. You’re going to be king. You’ve been
training for it all your life. You can’t just throw that away.”
“Bridget—”
“Don’t.” Everything around me blurred, the colors of the leaves
and sky and grass blending into one crazy, multicolored hellscape.
“Nik, how could you?”
Normally, I could reason my way out of anything, but reason had
fled, leaving me with nothing except pure emotion and a sickening
sensation in my stomach.
I can’t be queen. Icanticanticant.
“You think I want to do this?” Nikolai’s face tightened. “I know
what a big deal it is. I’ve been agonizing over it for months, trying to
find loopholes and reasons I should walk away from Sabrina. But
you know what Parliament is like. How traditional it is. They would
never overturn the law, and I…” He sighed, suddenly looking much
older than his twenty-seven years. “I can’t walk away from her,
Bridge. I love her.”
I closed my eyes. Of all the reasons Nikolai could’ve chosen for
abdicating, he’d picked the one I couldn’t fault him for.
I’d never been in love, but I’d dreamt of it all my life. To find that
grand, sweeping love, the kind worth giving up a kingdom for.
Nikolai had found his. How could I begrudge him something I
would myself give up my soul for?
When I opened my eyes again, he was still there, sitting tall and
proud on his horse. Looking every inch the king he would never be.
“When?” I asked in a resigned tone.
A smidge of relief softened his expression. He’d probably expect-
ed more of a fight, but the stress of the past month had drained all
the fight out of me. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Once my
brother set his mind on something, he didn’t back down.
Stubbornness ran in our entire family.
“We’ll wait until the furor’s died down over Grandfather’s hospi-
talization. Maybe another month or two. You know how the news
cycle is these days. It’ll be old news by then. We’ll keep the engage-
ment a secret until then too. Elin’s already working on a press state-
ment and plan, and—”
“Wait.” I held up one hand. “Elin already knows?”
A pink flush stole over Nikolai’s cheekbones when he realized
his mistake. “I had to—”
“Who else knows?” Thud. Thud. Thud. My heart sounded abnor-
mally loud to my ears. I wondered if I had a heart condition too, like
my grandfather. I also wondered what would happen if Nikolai ab-
dicated and I died right there in the saddle. “Who else did you tell
before me?”
I bit out the words. Each one tasted bitter, coated with betrayal.
“Just Elin, Grandfather, and Markus. I had to tell them.” Nikolai
didn’t back down from my glare. “Elin and Markus have to get out
in front of this, politically and press-wise. They need time.”
A wild laugh emerged from my throat. I’d never made such a fer-
al sound in my life, and my brother flinched at the sound.
“They need time? I need time, Nik!” Freedom. Love. Choice. Things
I’d already had so little of, gone forever. Or they would be after
Nikolai officially announced his abdication. “I need the two-and-a-
half decades you’ve already had, preparing you for the throne. I