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.

23
BRIDGET
I WANTED TO DIE.
If the floor opened up and swal­lowed me whole, I’d be the hap-
piest per­son on earth. Or under earth, as the case would be.
Sad­ly, I remained in the draw­ing room with a white­board cov-
ered with pic­tures of Euro­pean bach­e­lors, a stone-faced Rhys, and an
obliv­i­ous Mikaela.
“It’s the event of the sea­son,” she con­tin­ued. “The tim­ing is
rushed, but Elin’s team is work­ing on it around the clock and invites
went out this morn­ing. Dozens of peo­ple already RSVP’d yes.” She
let out a dreamy sigh. “All those hand­some men, all dressed up in
one room. I could sim­ply die.”
Yes, the big idea my grand­fa­ther had allud­ed to the oth­er day in
his office was a thin­ly veiled match­mak­ing gala. I’d protest­ed, hor­ri-
fied at the thought of spend­ing an entire evening—my birth­day, no
less—making small talk and danc­ing with over-inflat­ed egos dis-
guised as humans.
I’d been over­ruled.
Appar­ent­ly, my twen­ty-fourth birth­day was a good excuse to in-
vite every eli­gi­ble bach­e­lor in Europe to the par­ty, and it was com­ing
up in a few weeks, which made for per­fect tim­ing, even if it was, as
Mikaela had said, rushed.
“I didn’t real­ize you were look­ing for a hus­band, Your
High­ness,” Rhys said so cold­ly goose­bumps erupt­ed on my arms.
The cur­rent of elec­tric­i­ty run­ning between us froze, turn­ing to
ice.
At the same time, indig­na­tion kin­dled in my stom­ach. He had no
right to be angry. He was the one who’d left and insist­ed on keep­ing
things between us pro­fes­sion­al after Cos­ta Rica. He couldn’t pos­si­bly
think he could waltz in here again after six weeks because he
changed his mind and expect me to have put my life on hold for
him.
“It’s a pol­i­tics and pub­lic image thing,” Mikaela said before I
could answer. “Any­way, what were we talk­ing about? Right.” She
snapped her fin­gers. “Lord Rafe and Prince Hans. Nev­er mind about
that. Prince Hans ranks high­er, of course.” She moved his head­shot
to the yes side of the board.
“I’ll leave you to it then, Your High­ness. I was just check­ing in.”
Rhys’s face shut down, and frus­tra­tion stabbed at me, join­ing the
cock­tail of emo­tions cours­ing through my veins—excitement and
gid­di­ness at see­ing him again, annoy­ance at his hypocrisy, lin­ger­ing
anger over his ini­tial depar­ture, and a smidge of guilt, even though
we weren’t dat­ing, we’d nev­er dat­ed, and I was free to dance with
every man in Athen­berg if I want­ed.
If we do this, it stays here. This room, this night. We don’t talk about it
again.
That was his rule, so why did I feel guilty at all?
“Mr. Larsen—”
“I’ll see you tomor­row, Your High­ness.”
Rhys left.
Before I knew what I was doing, I fol­lowed him out the door, my
spine hard­en­ing with deter­mi­na­tion.
I would not get drawn into an end­less cycle of what-ifs again. I
had enough to wor­ry about. If Rhys had a prob­lem, he could tell me
to my face.
“Where are you going?” Mikaela called after me. “We still need
to fig­ure out the dance order!”
“Ladies’ room,” I said over my shoul­der. “I trust you. Order them
how you wish.”
I quick­ened my steps and caught up with Rhys around the cor-
ner. “Mr. Larsen.”
This time, he stopped but didn’t turn around.
“The ball was my grandfather’s idea. Not mine.” I didn’t owe
him an expla­na­tion, but I felt com­pelled to give one any­way.
“It’s your birth­day, princess. You can do what­ev­er you want.”
I set my jaw even as my stom­ach flut­tered at the word princess.
“So, you’re okay with me danc­ing with oth­er men all night?”
Rhys final­ly turned, those inscrutable gray eyes flick­er­ing. “Why
wouldn’t I be? It sounds like the per­fect solu­tion. You’ll find a nice
prince, mar­ry, and rule hap­pi­ly ever after.” A mock­ing inflec­tion col-
ored his words. “The life of a princess, exact­ly as it should be.”
Some­thing inside me snapped, just like that.
I was angry. Angry at Niko­lai for abdi­cat­ing and run­ning off to
Cal­i­for­nia with Sab­ri­na after­ward so they could “take some time” for
them­selves. Angry at not hav­ing con­trol over my life. And most of
all, angry at Rhys for turn­ing our reunion into some­thing ugly after
we’d been apart for six weeks.
“You’re right,” I said. “It is the per­fect solu­tion. I can’t wait.
Maybe I’ll do more than dance. Maybe I’ll find some­one to kiss and
take up to—”
Two sec­onds lat­er, I found myself pinned to the wall. Rhys’s eyes
weren’t flick­er­ing any­more. They had dark­ened, turn­ing gray into
near-black thun­der­clouds like the kind drenched the city in spring-
time. “Not a good idea to fin­ish that sen­tence, princess,” he said
soft­ly.
I’d pro­voked him on pur­pose, but I had to fight a shiv­er at the
dan­ger rolling off him.
“Take your hands off me, Mr. Larsen. We’re not in the U.S. any-
more, and you’re over­step­ping your bound­aries.”
Rhys moved in clos­er, and I strug­gled to focus when I was so
con­sumed by him. By his scent, his breath on my skin. By mem­o­ries
of lin­ger­ing looks and stolen laughs and sun­sets in a pool halfway
across the world.
“Fuck my bound­aries.” Every word came out slow and deliber-
ate, like he want­ed to etch them into my skin.
“What a first day back on the job. It’s just like old times.” I
pressed my back tighter against the wall, try­ing to escape the sear­ing
heat from Rhys’s body. “Why are you here, Mr. Larsen? You were
per­fect­ly hap­py to walk away when I asked you to stay.”
“If you think I was any­thing close to hap­py these past six
weeks,” he said grim­ly, “You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“You were hap­py enough to stay away for that long.” I tried and
failed to hide the note of hurt in my voice.
Rhys’s face soft­ened a smidge. “Trust me, princess. If I had a
choice, I would’ve been back far soon­er than that.”
The vel­vety tips of but­ter­fly wings brushed my heart.
Stop it. Stay strong.
“Which brings me back to my ques­tion,” I said. “Why are you
here?”
A mus­cle jumped in his jaw. He hadn’t shaved that day, and
thick­er stub­ble pep­pered his face than I was used to.
I curled my hands into loose fists, resist­ing the urge to run them
over the short black hairs on his cheek and the scar on his eye­brow.
Just so I could reas­sure myself he was actu­al­ly there.
Angry and infu­ri­at­ing, but there.
“Because I—”
“Am I inter­rupt­ing some­thing?”
Rhys moved off me so fast it took me a few sec­onds to process
what hap­pened. Once I did, and I saw who had inter­rupt­ed us, my
stom­ach sank.
Because stand­ing at the end of the hall, wear­ing a half curi­ous,
half smirk­ing expres­sion, was none oth­er than my cousin Andreas.
“I was on my way to my room when I heard some­thing and came
to inves­ti­gate,” he drawled. “Apolo­gies if I…intruded.”
Rhys spoke up before I could. “What the hell are you doing
here?”
“I’m Bridget’s cousin.” Andreas smiled. “I guess I will see you
around after all. Small world.”
My head whipped between them. “You know each oth­er?” How
was that pos­si­ble?
“We met at the air­port,” Andreas said casu­al­ly. “I thought he
dropped his wal­let but, alas, I was mis­tak­en. We had a nice lit­tle
chat, though I nev­er caught your name.” He direct­ed the last part at
Rhys, who wait­ed a few beats before answer­ing.
“Rhys Larsen.”
“Mr. Larsen is my body­guard,” I said. “He was…helping me get
some­thing out of my eye.”
Secret­ly, I kicked myself for being so care­less. We were in a side
hall­way of a qui­eter part of the palace, but there were eyes and ears
every­where. I should’ve known bet­ter than to get into it with Rhys
where any­one could pass by and over­hear.
Judg­ing from Rhys’s expres­sion, he thought the same thing.
“Real­ly? How con­sid­er­ate of him.” Andreas didn’t sound con-
vinced, and I didn’t like the way he was siz­ing us up.
I drew myself up to my full height and stared him down. I
wouldn’t let him intim­i­date me. Not in my own home.
“You men­tioned you were on your way to your room,” I said
point­ed­ly. “Don’t let us stop you.”
“First time we’ve seen each oth­er in years, and this is the greet­ing
I get.” Andreas sighed, pulling off his gloves with delib­er­ate slow-
ness before slip­ping them in his pock­et. “You’re dif­fer­ent now that
you’re crown princess, dear cousin.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I am dif­fer­ent. I’m your future queen.”
Andreas’s smile slipped, and I saw Rhys smirk out of the cor­ner
of my eye.
“I’m glad you made it here safe­ly.” I extend­ed a small olive
branch, if only because I had no desire to engage in overt hos­til­i­ties
with my cousin for the next month or how­ev­er long he planned on
stay­ing here. “But I have a meet­ing I need to return to. We can chat
lat­er.”
By lat­er, I meant nev­er, hope­ful­ly.
“Of course.” Andreas tipped his head and cast one last glance at
me and Rhys before dis­ap­pear­ing down the hall.
I wait­ed a good two min­utes before I allowed myself to relax.
“Your cousin seems like a shit­head,” Rhys said.
I laughed, and the mood between us final­ly light­ened.
“Not seems. He is. But he’s also fam­i­ly, so we’re stuck with him.”
I twist­ed my ring around my fin­ger, try­ing to find a tact­ful way to
bring us back to our ear­li­er con­ver­sa­tion. “About what hap­pened be-
fore Andreas inter­rupt­ed…”
“I came back because I want­ed to come back,” Rhys said.
“And…” He paused, like he was debat­ing whether to say what he
was about to say. “I didn’t want you to be alone while you’re deal­ing
with all this shit.” He ges­tured toward our lav­ish sur­round­ings.
Alone.
It was the sec­ond time he’d said it. First on my grad­u­a­tion night,
and now. He was right both times.
I’d tried and failed to name the emp­ty, gnaw­ing feel­ing that’d
haunt­ed me since Rhys left. The one that crept up on me when I lay
in bed at night and tried to think of some­thing I looked for­ward to
the next day. The one that washed through me at the odd­est mo-