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.

18
BRIDGET
WE SPENT FOUR GLORIOUS, PERFECT DAYS IN COSTA RICA.
I woke up late, went to bed late, and spent my days eat­ing, sun-
bathing, and read­ing a romance nov­el I’d picked up at the air­port.
Buck­et list num­ber two.
On our third day, Rhys drove us two hours to Mon­teverde for zip
lin­ing. He said the com­pa­ny was the best in the area and he’d zip-
lined with them sev­er­al times him­self.
Still, his face was taut with ten­sion as I pre­pared to go down the
longest zip line. We’d only done the short­er cables until now, and
they were fun, but I was ready for more.
The one I was about to get on stretched high above the cloud for-
est, so long I couldn’t see the oth­er end of it. A mix­ture of excite­ment
and nerves twist­ed in my stom­ach.
“Check her again,” Rhys said after our guide gave me the
thumbs up.
No one both­ered argu­ing. Rhys made the guide triple-check my
har­ness before I went down every line, and argu­ing was futile.
“If you get stuck, don’t pan­ic,” Rhys said after the guide okayed
me—again. “We’ll come get you.”
“By ‘we’ll,’ he means me,” the guide joked. “But yes, we will
come get you. Don’t wor­ry, miss.”
“I hadn’t thought about get­ting stuck until now, so thank you for
that,” I said wry­ly.
Rhys’s stern expres­sion didn’t budge, but all thoughts of his
grumpi­ness dis­ap­peared when I got into posi­tion. The guide gave
me a push, and I final­ly raced down the line. The wind whipped
through my hair, and I couldn’t hold back a huge grin.
Ziplin­ing looked scary from the ground, but once I was in the
air? It was exhil­a­rat­ing.
I closed my eyes, savor­ing the wind and the feel­ing of being away
from it all. No wor­ries, no respon­si­bil­i­ties, just me and nature.
When I made it to the next tree­top plat­form, I was still rid­ing
high from the zip line, and I couldn’t resist teas­ing Rhys again when
he land­ed short­ly after me.
“See? I’m fine,” I said. “You didn’t have to pick up pieces of me
from the ground.”
He did not look amused at all, but I didn’t care.
Buck­et list num­ber three, check.
For all his over­pro­tec­tive­ness, Rhys was more relaxed down here.
Not ful­ly relaxed, mind you, but he’d ditched his all-black out­fits for
shorts and—gasp—white T‑shirts, and he agreed to most of the activ-
ities I want­ed to do with min­i­mal com­plaint, includ­ing para­sail­ing
and an ATV tour.
The one thing he refused to do, how­ev­er, was get in the pool with
me, and on our last night, I made a last-ditch effort to change his
mind.
“I’ve nev­er heard of a Navy SEAL who doesn’t swim.” I stepped
onto the ter­race, where Rhys was draw­ing in his sketch­book. He
hadn’t shown me any of his sketch­es yet, and I hadn’t asked. Art
was deeply per­son­al, and I didn’t want to force him to show me any-
thing if he didn’t want to. “Come on. It’s our last day, and you
haven’t tak­en advan­tage of this once.” I swept my arm at the gleam-
ing pool.
“It’s a pool, princess.” Rhys didn’t look up from his book. “I’ve
been in pools before.”
“Prove it.”
No answer.
“Fine. I guess I’ll swim by myself. Again.” I shrugged off my
cov­er-up and let the filmy white mate­r­i­al cas­cade to the floor before I
walked past Rhys toward the water.
I may have walked more slow­ly than nor­mal and added an extra
sway to my hips.
I may also have worn my skimp­i­est, most scan­dalous biki­ni. I
did, after all, have one more buck­et list item to check off.
I’d been drunk when I’d told Rhys about my buck­et list, but I
was sober now, and I still want­ed him to help me ful­fill item num­ber
four.
I was attract­ed to him; he was attract­ed to me. That much was
obvi­ous after what hap­pened in my room post-Bor­gia. He wasn’t go-
ing to be my body­guard much longer, and no one would know un-
less we told them.
One wild, pas­sion­ate hookup with my sexy body­guard before I
took on the duty of a life­time. Was that too much to ask?
I wad­ed into the pool and bit back a smile when I felt the heat of
Rhys’s gaze on my skin, but I didn’t turn around until I’d reached
the far edge of the water. By the time I looked at him, Rhys’s head
was bent over his sketch­book again, but his shoul­ders held a ten­sion
that hadn’t been there before.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join me?” I cajoled. “The water
feels amaz­ing.”
“I’m good,” he said curt­ly.
I sighed and let it go…for now.
While he sketched, I swam laps around the pool, rev­el­ing in the
water against my skin and the sun­shine on my back.
When I final­ly came up for a break, it was near sun­set, and the
warmth of gold­en hour cast a hazy, dream­like glow over the
sur­round­ings.
“Last chance, Mr. Larsen.” I slicked my hair back and blinked the
water out of my eyes. “Swim now or for­ev­er hold your peace.”
It was cheesy, but it made Rhys’s lips curve before they flat­tened
into a stern line again. “You gonna stop bug­ging me if I say no?”
I grinned. “Prob­a­bly not.”
My heart jumped when he closed his book, set it on the table, and
stood.
I hadn’t expect­ed him to give in.
Rhys walked to the pool, pulling his shirt over his head as he did
so, and I lost the abil­i­ty to breathe.
Broad shoul­ders, per­fect­ly sculpt­ed mus­cles, abs one could grate
cheese on. Absolute mas­cu­line per­fec­tion.
My core pulsed as my eyes ate him up. Tat­toos swirled across his
chest, both biceps, and one side of his ribcage, and a deep V cut ar-
rowed toward what—based on what I’d felt when he’d bent me over
my dresser—was a very impres­sive pack­age.
Rhys entered the water and swam toward me, his big, pow­er­ful
body slic­ing through the liq­uid blue as grace­ful­ly as a dol­phin.
“There. I’m in the pool.” He came up beside me, a lock of damp
dark hair falling over his eye, and I resist­ed the urge to push it out of
his face. “Hap­py?”
“Yes. You should go shirt­less more often.”
Rhys’s eye­brows shot up, and my cheeks flamed before I quick­ly
amend­ed, “You seem more relaxed that way. Less intim­i­dat­ing.”
“Princess, it’s my job to be intim­i­dat­ing.”
If I nev­er heard the words it’s my job again, it would be too soon.
“You know what I mean,” I grum­bled. “You’re always so on edge
in the city.”
He shrugged. “That’s what hap­pens when you have C‑PTSD.”
Com­plex PTSD. I’d looked it up after he told me he had it. Symp-
toms includ­ed hyper-vig­i­lance, or being con­stant­ly on guard for
threats. Unlike reg­u­lar PTSD, which was caused by a sin­gu­lar trau-
mat­ic event, com­plex PTSD result­ed from long-last­ing trau­ma that
con­tin­ued for months or even years.
My heart squeezed at the thought of what he must’ve gone
through to be diag­nosed with the con­di­tion. “Does the art help?”
“Kind of.” Rhys’s face was unread­able. “But I haven’t been able
to draw any­thing in months.” He jerked his chin toward the table. “I
was just mess­ing around. See­ing what I came up with.”
“When you do, I want to see it. I love a good secu­ri­ty alarm
sketch,” I joked before I remem­bered we only had one week left
togeth­er.
My smile fad­ed.
Rhys watched me close­ly. “If that’s what you want.”
I want­ed a lot of things, but none of them had to do with art.
“Can I tell you some­thing, Mr. Larsen?”
He dipped his head.
“I’m going to miss you.”
He went still, so still I thought he didn’t hear me. Then, in an un-
char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly, aching­ly soft voice, he said, “I’m going to miss you
too, princess.”
So don’t go. There had to be a way he could stay. He wasn’t part of
the Roy­al Guard, but he’d been with me for two years. I didn’t see
why I had to change guards just because I was mov­ing back to
Eldor­ra.
Except for, of course, the fact Rhys would have to move to Eldor-
ra with me. He may have lived with me all this time, but there was a
dif­fer­ence between live-in pro­tec­tion in the U.S. and mov­ing to a dif-
fer­ent coun­try for an inde­ter­mi­nate length of time. Plus, he’d re-
signed first.
Even if I con­vinced the palace to extend his con­tract, would he be
will­ing to accept the offer?
I’d been too afraid to ask in case he said no, but the clock was
tick­ing.
A loud pop went off in the dis­tance before I could broach the sub-
ject, and Rhys turned sharply to see fire­works explode in the sky.
He relaxed. I didn’t, because I final­ly under­stood why he’d nev­er
tak­en his shirt off around me before.
His back—his strong, beau­ti­ful back—was cov­ered with scars.
They criss­crossed his skin in angry, near-white slash­es, pep­pered
with a few round marks I was pos­i­tive were cig­a­rette burn scars.
Judg­ing by the way Rhys’s shoul­ders tensed, he must’ve real­ized
his mis­take, but he didn’t hide them again. There was no point. I’d
already seen them, and we both knew it.
“What hap­pened?” I whis­pered.
There was a long silence before he respond­ed. “My moth­er liked
her belt,” he said flat­ly.
I sucked in a breath, and my stom­ach lurched with nau­sea. His
moth­er did that to him?
“No one said or did any­thing? Teach­ers, neigh­bors?” I couldn’t
imag­ine abuse of that lev­el going unno­ticed.
Rhys shrugged. “There were plen­ty of kids in bad home situa-
tions where I came from. Some of them had it a lot worse than me.
One kid get­ting ‘dis­ci­plined’ wasn’t going to raise any eye­brows.”
I want­ed to cry at the thought of young Rhys so alone he was
noth­ing more than a sta­tis­tic to those who should’ve looked out for
him.
I didn’t hate a lot of peo­ple, but I sud­den­ly hat­ed every­one who
knew or sus­pect­ed what he’d been going through and didn’t do a
damn thing about it.
“Why would she do this?” I brushed my fin­gers over his back,
my touch so light it was bare­ly a touch. His mus­cles bunched be-
neath my fin­gers, but he didn’t pull away.
“Let me tell you a sto­ry,” he said. “It’s about a beau­ti­ful young
girl who grew up in a small, shit­ty town she’d always dreamed of
escap­ing. One day, she met a man who was in town for a few
months for busi­ness. He was hand­some. Charm­ing. He promised
he’d take her with him when he left, and she believed him. She fell
in love, and they had a pas­sion­ate affair. But then, she got preg­nant.
And when she told this man who’d claimed to love her, he grew an-
gry and accused her of try­ing to trap him. The next day, he was
gone. Just like that. No trace of where he went, and it turned out
even the name he gave her was fake. She was alone, preg­nant, and
broke. No friends and par­ents to help her out. She kept the baby, per-
haps out of hope the man would return for them one day, but he
nev­er did. She turned to drugs and alco­hol for com­fort, and she be-
came a dif­fer­ent per­son. Mean­er. Hard­er. She blamed the kid for ru-
ining her chance at hap­pi­ness, and she took out her anger and frus-
tra­tion on him. Usu­al­ly with a belt.”
As he spoke, his voice so low I could bare­ly hear him, the pieces
fell into place one by one. Why Rhys refused to drink, why he rarely
talked about his fam­i­ly and child­hood, his C‑PTSD…perhaps it was
the result of his child­hood as much as it had been his mil­i­tary
ser­vice.
A small part of me empathized with his moth­er and the pain she
must’ve gone through, but no amount of pain jus­ti­fied tak­ing it out
on an inno­cent child.
“It wasn’t the boy’s fault,” I said. A tear slid down my cheek be-
fore I could stop it. “I hope he knows that.”
“He knows,” Rhys said. He rubbed my tear away with his
thumb. “Don’t cry for him, princess. He’s all right.”
For some rea­son, that made me cry hard­er. It was the first time
I’d cried in front of any­one since my dad died, and I would’ve been
embar­rassed had I not been so heart­bro­ken.
“Shhh.” He wiped away anoth­er tear, his brows drawn into a
deep frown. “I shouldn’t have told you. It’s not the best way to end a
vaca­tion.”
“No. I’m glad you did.” I reached up and cov­ered his hand with
mine before he could pull away. “Thank you for shar­ing it with me.
It means a lot.”
It was the most Rhys had opened up to me since we met, and I
wasn’t tak­ing it for grant­ed.