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.

32
BRIDGET
PROBLEM: I COULDN’T REPEAL THE LAW ON MY OWN. I NEEDED BACKUP,
and I had lim­it­ed options. I didn’t want to tell Rhys until I had a
more con­crete plan, and I cer­tain­ly couldn’t tell my fam­i­ly or any of
the palace han­dlers. My friends in D.C. were too far away and re-
moved from Eldor­ran pol­i­tics to help.
There was only one per­son left I could trust.
“You want to what?” Mikaela’s mouth hung open as she stared at
me like I’d sprout­ed a sec­ond head. “Brid­get, the Roy­al Mar­riages
Law is almost as old as the coun­try itself. It’s impos­si­ble to over­turn,
espe­cial­ly with those fud­dy-dud­dies in Par­lia­ment.”
“It’s not impos­si­ble, it’s improb­a­ble,” I cor­rect­ed. “There’s a dif-
fer­ence. And improb­a­ble things can become prob­a­ble with the right
strat­e­gy.”
“Okay. What’s the strat­e­gy?”
“I don’t know yet.”
She groaned. “Bridge, this is crazy. Why are you going to all the
trou­ble to over­turn the law? I thought every­thing was going well
with Stef­fan. I mean, he was gone for a while, but he’s back and as
deli­cious as ever. And he’s your date to Nikolai’s wed­ding.” She
sipped her tea and set it on the table. “Am I miss­ing some­thing?”
I bit my lip. Should I spill the beans about Rhys? I trust­ed
Mikaela, but I didn’t quite trust her reac­tion to the news, giv­en what
she’d said in my office about dat­ing the staff.
“The law is archa­ic,” I said. “It’s not just for me. It’s for all the
kings and queens after me. If it wasn’t for the law, Niko­lai would
still be crown prince and hap­pi­ly engaged to Sab­ri­na.”
“Okay, but laws can’t be repealed unless the Speak­er brings the
motion to the floor and a three-fourths major­i­ty of Par­lia­ment votes
in favor,” Mikaela point­ed out. “When was the last time they re-
pealed a law?”
Fif­teen years ago, when they repealed a law pro­hibit­ing speed
lim­its of high­er than fifty-five miles per hour through­out the
coun­try.
The odds weren’t in my favor.
“I’ll fig­ure it out.” Erhall would be dif­fi­cult, but I would think of
a way to per­suade him. “Will you help?”
“You’re crazy. This is crazy.”
But for all her grum­bling, Mikaela reluc­tant­ly agreed, and for the
next week, I threw all my ener­gy into cre­at­ing a work­able plan. I an-
alyzed every repealed law in Eldor­ran history—there weren’t many
—and stud­ied the dif­fer­ent min­is­ters in Par­lia­ment, divid­ing them
up based on how like­ly they were to pass the motion. I hadn’t fig-
ured out a strat­e­gy for Erhall yet, so I left him for last.
How­ev­er, it wasn’t until my next check-in with Elin that some-
thing clicked. Some­thing so sim­ple I felt like an idiot for not think­ing
of it before.
“His Majesty is delight­ed you’re attend­ing Prince Nikolai’s wed-
ding with Stef­fan,” Elin said with an approv­ing nod. “Cov­er­age has
been pos­i­tive with the good­will tour and wed­ding, but we want to
keep the momen­tum going. Plus, we want to make sure every­thing
is in place for when you even­tu­al­ly take the crown. Noth­ing says sta-
bil­i­ty like a good mar­riage with a good, sol­id con­sort, and Lord
knows we need some sta­bil­i­ty after the abdi­ca­tion.”
“I don’t see how mar­riage affects the abil­i­ty to rule,” I said, sti-
fling a yawn. I stayed up late last night doing research, and I was
pay­ing the price today.
“It affects pub­lic opin­ion, Your High­ness,” Elin said in a tone that
sug­gest­ed I should know this already. “No one is immune to pub­lic
opin­ion. Not even the roy­al fam­i­ly.”
I froze. “What did you just say?”
She raised a ques­tion­ing brow. “No one is immune to pub­lic
opin­ion, not even the roy­al fam­i­ly.”
A light­bulb went off in my head, and I almost jumped out of my
chair in excite­ment. “Elin, you’re a genius,” I breathed. “An absolute
genius. You deserve a raise imme­di­ate­ly.”
“Excel­lent. Please tell His Majesty the next time you speak with
him.” She checked her watch. “That’s all I have for today unless—”
“No.” I was already up and halfway to the door. “This was a
love­ly meet­ing. I’ll see you next week.”
I prac­ti­cal­ly ran into the hall.
“Your High­ness, please remem­ber, princess­es don’t run!” Elin
called after me.
I ignored her. The ideas rushed in so fast I couldn’t keep up.
Some were more devi­ous than oth­ers, but at least one had to work. It
had to.
Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions were com­ing up in the fall, and I was still
rid­ing high from the good­will tour. If I could get the pub­lic to back a
repeal—
I slammed into a brick wall.
“Whoa. Where are you off to in such a hur­ry?” Rhys’s amused
voice cut through the chat­ter in my brain as he gripped my arms and
stead­ied me.
I smiled, my heart skip­ping at the sight of him. “What are you
doing here?”
We didn’t have a meet­up sched­uled, but sched­ules were over­rat-
ed, any­way.
“Thought I’d explore. See if any­thing inter­est­ing is hap­pen­ing, or
if any princess­es need pro­tect­ing.” His mouth formed a small, teas-
ing grin.
“Hmm.” I adopt­ed a thought­ful expres­sion. “I don’t know about
pro­tect­ing, but I can think of a few things that might inter­est you.”
There was no one else in the hall, even so, we kept our voic­es
low. Inti­mate.
Heat turned Rhys’s eyes into molten sil­ver. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like a tour of the throne room.” I slow­ly walked back­ward until
I reached the door lead­ing into the cer­e­mo­ni­al space, and we cast a
quick look around before slip­ping inside.
I’d planned to brain­storm ways I could get the pub­lic to sup­port
a repeal, but that could wait. I hadn’t seen Rhys all day.
“So, this is a throne room.” Rhys looked around the lav­ish space.
With its mas­sive crys­tal chan­de­liers, thick crim­son car­pet and wall
cov­er­ings, and gold trim, it was the most over-the-top room in the
palace, but we only used it for the occa­sion­al knight­ing cer­e­mo­ny or
offi­cial func­tion. No one came in here unless they had to. “Looks ex-
act­ly the way I pic­tured a throne room would look.”
“Don’t act like you haven’t stud­ied every inch of every room in
the palace already.”
Rhys gave me a slow smile, and my stom­ach flipped. “You think
you know me so well.”
“I do.”
“Hmm.” He walked clos­er to me until we were mere inch­es
apart. “Then do you know what I’m going to do right now?”
I held my breath. “What?”
He leaned down and whis­pered, “I’m going to sit you on that
nice lit­tle throne over there and eat your pret­ty cunt out until you
beg me to stop.”
I gasped out a laugh as he picked me up and tossed me over his
shoul­der with the ease of some­one pick­ing up a rag doll. “You can’t!
No one sits on the throne except the monarch.”
Rhys set me down on the gold and vel­vet chair.
“It’s going to be yours one day. Might as well get used to it,” he
said. “How does it feel?”
“I…” I looked around. The room seemed dif­fer­ent from this van-
tage point. Big­ger, more intim­i­dat­ing. “Strange. And scary. But…not
as scary as I thought.”
In my mind, the throne was so large I’d nev­er grow into it, but
now that I was actu­al­ly sit­ting in it? It seemed man­age­able.
“Because you’re ready for it.” Rhys said it like it wasn’t even a
ques­tion. “You’re a fuck­ing queen, and don’t let any­one tell you oth-
erwise. Includ­ing your­self.”
My mouth tipped up while my heart melt­ed into a pud­dle. “If
you ever give up on the body­guard gig, you could make a killing as
a moti­va­tion­al speak­er.”
He chuck­led. “Not moti­va­tion, just the truth. The throne suits
you. Now…” He knelt before me and spread my thighs. “How can I
serve you, Your High­ness?”
Heat con­sumed my body as he pulled my under­wear down.
“Rhys,” I hissed, my pulse rac­ing with a mix of lust and anx­i­ety.
“Some­one will catch us.”
The odds were slim, but they weren’t zero.
His wolfish smile caused my toes to curl. “Then we bet­ter make it
worth it. Hmm, princess?”