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.

14
RHYS
3 WEEKS LATER
Some peo­ple have shit­ty days or shit­ty weeks. I’d had a shit­ty
month.
Things between me and Brid­get had been chilly since she told me
she was mov­ing back to Eldor­ra, and I hat­ed that was how we were
spend­ing our last days togeth­er.
Our last days togeth­er.
My chest clenched at the thought, but I forced myself to ignore it
and focus on the task at hand. I was still on the clock. We had a week
left in New York. After that, I would accom­pa­ny her back to Athen-
berg, where I would stay anoth­er week until her new guard ful­ly
tran­si­tioned into the role.
We didn’t know who the new guy would be yet, but I already
hat­ed him…though not as much as I hat­ed the guy Brid­get was
danc­ing with right now.
We were in the VIP room of Bor­gia, a fan­cy night­club in down-
town Man­hat­tan, and Brid­get had her arms wrapped around the
pret­ty-boy douche who’d been ogling her all night. I rec­og­nized him
—Vin­cent Hauz, an elec­tron­ics heir and noto­ri­ous wom­an­iz­er who
spent the major­i­ty of his days drink­ing, par­ty­ing, and keep­ing the
city’s drug deal­ers flush with cash. He and Brid­get had attend­ed a
few of the same events in the past.
I’d nev­er want­ed to rip his arms off until now.
A per­son only had to look at his face to know what kind of
thoughts were run­ning through his mind, and they had noth­ing to
do with danc­ing. At least, not the ver­ti­cal kind.
My blood burned as Brid­get laughed at some­thing Vin­cent said. I
was pos­i­tive he wasn’t capa­ble of say­ing any­thing wit­ty even if
some­one threat­ened to take his inher­i­tance away, but Brid­get was
also drunk. She’d already downed two cock­tails and five shots—I’d
counted—and I could spot the alco­hol-induced flush on her cheeks
from across the room.
She wore a sparkling sil­ver dress that bare­ly cov­ered her bot­tom
and a pair of lethal-look­ing heels that trans­formed her from tall to
Ama­zon­ian. Tou­sled gold­en hair, long legs, skin gleam­ing with a
faint sheen of sweat—she was mag­nif­i­cent. And not her­self.
Nor­mal Brid­get would’ve nev­er worn a dress like that—not be-
cause she couldn’t, but because it wasn’t her style—but she’d been
act­ing strange since that night on the rooftop. Wilder, less inhib­it­ed,
and more prone to ques­tion­able deci­sions.
Case in point: Vin­cent Hauz. She didn’t like the guy. She’d said
so her­self one time, and yet there she was, cozy­ing up to him.
He pulled her clos­er and slid his hand down her back to cup her
ass.
Before I knew what I was doing, I’d shoved my way across the
dance floor and clamped my hand on Vincent’s shoul­der tight
enough he flinched and pulled back from Brid­get to see who the in-
ter­lop­er was.
“Can I help you?” His tone dripped with dis­dain as he looked me
over, obvi­ous­ly unim­pressed by my lack of design­er clothes and fan-
cy acces­sories.
Tough shit. Maybe he’d be more impressed by my fist in his face.
“Yes.” I bared my teeth in a sem­blance of a smile. “Remove your
hands from her before I remove them for you.”
“And who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?” Vin­cent
sneered.
The man who’s about to pum­mel your face into a pulp.
Before I could respond, Brid­get cut in. “No one.” She glared at
me. “I’m fine. Go back to your post.”
The hell I will.
If Brid­get were any­one but my client, I’d drag her into the bath-
room, bend her over, and spank her ass raw for her inso­lent tone.
Instead, I glared back at her, striv­ing to keep my tem­per under
con­trol.
She want­ed to par­ty? Fine. She want­ed to give me the cold shoul-
der? Fine. But over my dead body would she have any­thing to do
with Vin­cent fuck­ing Hauz. The man must be crawl­ing with STDs.
Vincent’s eyes ping-ponged between us before real­iza­tion
dawned. “You’re the body­guard!” He snapped his fin­gers. “Dude,
you should’ve said so. Don’t wor­ry.” He wrapped an arm around
Bridget’s waist and pulled her clos­er with a leer­ing smile. “I’ll take
good care of her.”
Fuck pum­mel­ing his face. I want­ed to knock all his teeth out.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, that would cause a scene, and rule num­ber one of
body­guard­ing, as Brid­get called it, was not to cause a scene. So, I did
the next best thing. I tight­ened the grip I still had on his shoul­der un-
til I heard a small crack above the music.
Vin­cent yelped and released Brid­get, his face awash with pain.
“What the fuck, man?”
“What did I say about remov­ing your hands from her?” I asked
calm­ly.
“You’re insane,” he sput­tered. “Brid­get, who is this guy? Fire
him!”
I ignored him and turned to Brid­get. “It’s time to go, Your High-
ness.” We were attract­ing atten­tion, which was the last thing I want-
ed, but fuck if I was going to let this creep take advan­tage of her.
“You have an ear­ly morn­ing tomor­row.”
She didn’t. I was giv­ing her an out—one she didn’t take.
“Good idea.” Brid­get brushed off my warn­ing stare and placed a
hand on Vincent’s chest. My pulse beat an angry drum­beat beneath
my col­lar. “I’ll leave with Vin­cent. You can take the rest of the night
off.”
“You heard her.” Vin­cent wrenched him­self from my grasp and
took a step behind Brid­get. Cow­ard. “Get out­ta here. I’ll bring her
home in the morn­ing.” He ran his eyes over Bridget’s chest and bare
legs, his gaze lech­er­ous.
The man didn’t have a sin­gle brain cell in his over-inflat­ed head.
If he did, he would be run­ning for his life right now.
“Wrong. This is what you’re going to do.” I kept my voice friend-
ly. Con­ver­sa­tion­al. But beneath the polite veneer ran a razor-sharp
blade of steel. “You’re going to turn around, walk away, and nev­er
speak, touch, or so much as look in her direc­tion again. Con­sid­er this
your first and final warn­ing, Mr. Hauz.”
I knew his name. He knew I knew his name. And if he was stu-
pid enough to ignore my warn­ing, I would hunt him down, rip off
his balls, and feed them to him.
Vincent’s face flushed a mot­tled pur­ple. “Are you threat­en­ing
me?”
I loomed over him, rel­ish­ing the fear that skit­tered through his
eyes. “Yes.”
“Don’t lis­ten to him,” Brid­get said through grit­ted teeth. “He
doesn’t know what he’s talk­ing about.”
Vin­cent took anoth­er step back, ooz­ing hatred, but the fear in his
eyes remained. “What­ev­er. I’m over this shit.” He stormed away and
dis­ap­peared into the crowd of drunk­en par­ty­go­ers.
Brid­get spun toward me. “What is your prob­lem?”
“My prob­lem is you’re act­ing like a drunk, spoiled brat,” I
snapped. “You’re so shit-faced you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“I know exact­ly what I’m doing.” She stared up at me, all fire and
defi­ance, and heat curled inside me. I didn’t know what it was about
her anger that turned me on so much. Maybe it was because it was
one of the few times I could see her and not the mask she showed the
world. “I’m hav­ing fun, and I’m leav­ing with a guy at the end of the
night. You can’t stop me.”
I smiled cold­ly. “You’re right. You are leav­ing with a guy. Me.”
“No, I’m not.” Brid­get crossed her arms over her chest.
“You have two options.” I leaned in close enough to smell her
per­fume. “You can either walk out of here with me like an adult, or I
can throw you over my shoul­der and car­ry you out of here like a
child. Which one will it be, princess?”
She wasn’t the only one pissed tonight.
I was pissed she’d spent the last half hour let­ting a weasel­ly fuck-
er put his hands all over her. I was pissed we were fight­ing when we
had two weeks left togeth­er. Most of all, I was pissed at how much I
want­ed her when I couldn’t have her.
If there was one thing her move back to Eldor­ra made clear, it
was that our rela­tion­ship was a tem­po­rary one. It always had been,
but it hadn’t hit close to home until now.
At the end of the day, she was a princess, and I was the guy
they’d hired until they didn’t need me any­more.
Crim­son stained Bridget’s high cheek­bones. “You wouldn’t
dare.”
“Try me.”
“You for­get you’re not the boss here, Mr. Larsen.”
The tem­per­a­ture of my smile dropped anoth­er ten degrees. “You
want to test that the­o­ry?”
Her lips thinned. For a sec­ond, I thought she might stay just to
spite me. Then, with­out say­ing a word or so much as look­ing at me,
she pushed past me and walked toward the exit, her shoul­ders stiff. I
fol­lowed her, my scowl dark enough to make the oth­er club­bers scat-
ter like mar­bles before me.
We took the first cab we found back to Bridget’s town­house, and
it bare­ly stopped before Brid­get jumped out and sped walk to the
front door. I paid the dri­ver and caught up with her in four strides.
We entered the house, our foot­steps echo­ing on the wood floors.
When we reached the sec­ond floor, Brid­get opened her bed­room
door and tried to slam it in my face, but I wedged my arm in the gap
before she could do so.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“I don’t want to talk. You’ve already ruined my night. Now leave
me alone.”
“Not until you tell me what the hell’s going on.” My gaze burned
into hers, search­ing for a hint as to what was going on in that beau­ti-
ful head of hers. “You’ve been act­ing strange for weeks. Something’s
wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Brid­get gave up try­ing to bar me from her
room and released the door. I pushed it all the way open but re-
mained in the door­way, watch­ing. Wait­ing. “I’m twen­ty-three, Mr.
Larsen. Twen­ty-three-year-olds go out and drink and sleep with
guys.”
A mus­cle ticked in my jaw. “Not the way you’ve been doing
since we got back to New York.”
Not the sleep­ing with guys part, thank God, but the going out
and drink­ing.
“Maybe I’m tired of liv­ing life the way I should and want to live
life the way I could.” Brid­get removed her jew­el­ry and placed it on
her dress­er. “My grand­fa­ther almost died. One minute he was stand-
ing, the next he col­lapsed. What’s to say the same thing won’t hap-
pen to me?”
Her words held a ring of truth, but not the full truth. I knew
every inflec­tion of her voice, every mean­ing behind every move-
ment. There was some­thing she wasn’t telling me.
“So, you decid­ed you want to spend your poten­tial last moment
with Vin­cent fuck­ing Hauz?” I scoffed.
“You don’t even know him.”
“I know enough.”
“Please.” Brid­get spun toward me, fury and some­thing infi­nite­ly
sad­der glit­ter­ing in her eyes. “Every time I so much as smile at a man,
you bull­doze your way between us like a ter­ri­to­r­i­al bear. Why is
that, Mr. Larsen? Espe­cial­ly when you told me in no uncer­tain terms
when we first met that you don’t get involved in your clients’ per-
son­al lives.”
I didn’t answer, but my jaw con­tin­ued to tick in rhythm with my
pulse. Tick. Tick. Tick. A bomb wait­ing to go off and blow up our lives
as knew it.
“Maybe…” Bridget’s expres­sion turned con­tem­pla­tive as she
took a step toward me. Mis­take num­ber one. “You want to be in their
place.” She smiled, but the haunt­ed look remained in her eyes. “Do
you want me, Mr. Larsen? The princess and the body­guard. It would
make a nice sto­ry for your bud­dies.”
Mis­take num­ber two.
“You want to stop talk­ing now, Your High­ness,” I said soft­ly.
“And be very, very care­ful what you do next.”
“Why?” Brid­get took anoth­er step toward me, then anoth­er, until
she was less than a foot away. “I’m not afraid of you. Every­one else
is, but I’m not.” She placed her hand on my chest.
Mis­take num­ber three.
Her gasp hadn’t ful­ly left her throat before I spun her around and
bent her over the near­by dress­er, one hand grip­ping her chin and
forc­ing her head back while the oth­er closed around her throat. My
cock pressed into her ass, hard and angry.
I’d been on edge all night. Hell, I’d been on edge for two years.
The moment Brid­get von Ascheberg entered my life, I’d been on a
count­down to destruc­tion, and tonight might just be the night every-
thing went to hell.
“You should be, princess. You wan­na know why?” I growled.
“Because you’re right. I do want you. But I don’t want to kiss or
make love to you. I want to fuck you. I want to pun­ish you for
mouthing off and let­ting anoth­er man put his hands on you. I want
to yank up that tiny fuck­ing dress of yours and pound into you so