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.

35
RHYS
AS EXPECTED, PRINCE NIKOLAI AND SABRINA’S WEDDING WAS A MAD-
house. Half the city’s roads were closed, heli­copters buzzed over-
head cap­tur­ing aer­i­al footage of the pro­ces­sion, and thou­sands of
peo­ple crowd­ed the streets, eager for a glimpse of the fairy­tale un-
fold­ing in real life. Press flew in from all over the world, breath­less­ly
cov­er­ing every detail from the length of Sabrina’s wed­ding dress
train to the star-stud­ded guest list. The only reporters allowed inside
the actu­al cer­e­mo­ny were those from Eldorra’s nation­al news­pa­per
and broad­cast­er, who’d received exclu­sive first cov­er­age rights, but
that didn’t stop the oth­ers from fight­ing for the best view out­side the
church.
Brid­get spent the day run­ning around doing what­ev­er brides-
maids did. While they got ready in the bridal suite, I kept watch in
the hall with Sabrina’s body­guard Joseph, who was also an Ameri-
can con­trac­tor since Niko­lai had giv­en up his rights to the Roy­al
Guard when he abdi­cat­ed.
While Joseph ram­bled on about the exploits of his pre­vi­ous client
—unpro­fes­sion­al as hell, but I wasn’t the man’s boss—I mon­i­tored
the sur­round­ings. There was all sorts of poten­tial for a big day like
today to go wrong.
Luck­i­ly, all seemed qui­et, and before long, the door opened and
Sab­ri­na stepped out, beam­ing in her fan­cy white gown and veil. The
brides­maids filed out after her, with Brid­get round­ing up the rear.
She wore the same pale green dress as the oth­er brides­maids, but
she glowed in a way no one else could. My eyes lin­gered on the
shad­ow of her cleav­age and the way the dress hugged her hips be-
fore I dragged them up to her face, where my breath got stuck in my
throat.
Half the time, I couldn’t believe she was real.
Brid­get flashed me a secre­tive smile as she passed by, her gaze
sweep­ing over my suit and tie with appre­ci­a­tion. “You clean up nice,
Mr. Larsen,” she mur­mured.
“So do you.” I fell into step behind her and low­ered my voice un-
til it was bare­ly audi­ble. “Can’t wait to tear that dress off you lat­er,
princess.”
She didn’t respond, but I saw enough of her pro­file to spot the
rosy glow on her cheeks.
I grinned, but my good mood didn’t last long, because when we
entered the wed­ding hall, the first per­son I saw was Stef­fan fuck­ing
Hol­stein sit­ting in one of the front pews. Shiny shoes, hair coiffed,
and eyes fixed on Brid­get.
I was con­vinced he was fuck­ing the woman we saw him with at
the hotel, but if he didn’t stop look­ing at Brid­get like that, I was go-
ing to rip his tongue out and choke him to death with it.
I forced myself to focus on the cer­e­mo­ny and not the vio­lent
thoughts swarm­ing through my head. It hadn’t been includ­ed in
Elin’s instruc­tions, but I assumed mur­der­ing a high-rank­ing guest in
the mid­dle of a roy­al wed­ding was frowned upon.
Brid­get took her place at the altar while I remained in the side
shad­ows, drink­ing her in. She stood on the side fac­ing me, and as
Niko­lai and Sab­ri­na recit­ed their vows, she caught my eye and gave
me anoth­er one of her lit­tle smiles, the kind so sub­tle one would
miss it unless they were attuned to her every micro expres­sion.
My shoul­ders relaxed, and my mouth tipped up in its own ghost
of a smile.
A moment just for us, stolen beneath the noses of hun­dreds of
peo­ple in Athenberg’s grand­est church.
After the cer­e­mo­ny end­ed, every­one drove to the palace’s ball-
room for the grand first recep­tion. The sec­ond, more inti­mate
evening recep­tion took place at Tolose House, Niko­lai and Sabrina’s
new res­i­dence, which was locat­ed only a ten-minute walk from the
palace. Only two hun­dred of the family’s clos­est friends and rela-
tives received invites, no press allowed.
It was where the guests real­ly let loose…and where I had to
watch Brid­get and Stef­fan dance togeth­er. One of his hands rest­ed on
her low­er back, and she smiled at some­thing he said.
Jeal­ousy clawed at me, sharp and ruth­less.
“They make a nice-look­ing cou­ple,” Joseph said, fol­low­ing my
gaze. “The princess and the duke. Fairy­tale shit.” He shook his head
and chuck­led. “Too bad she’d nev­er go for an aver­age Joe like you or
me, huh? I would fuck—”
“Be care­ful what you say next.” Lethal qui­et razored my words.
“Or it’ll be the last thing you say.”
Stef­fan may be untouch­able, but Joseph? I could tear him apart
and use his bones to pick my teeth.
He must’ve known it too, because he fell silent and moved an
inch away from me. “It was a joke,” he mut­tered. “Take your job a
bit too seri­ous­ly, don’t you?”
“Show some respect. That’s the crown princess.” And you’re not
wor­thy of scrap­ing the dirt off her shoes.
How the hell had Sab­ri­na end­ed up with Joseph as her body-
guard? The man had the social tact of a brick, and that was com­ing
from me, some­one who couldn’t—and wouldn’t—kiss ass if some-
one glued my lips to one.
Joseph was smart enough not to talk again. He stood a few feet
away with a surly expres­sion, but I didn’t give a crap if he was of-
fend­ed. I had oth­er things to wor­ry about.
The song changed, but Stef­fan and Brid­get remained on the
dance floor. I knew she was stay­ing out of social oblig­a­tion, but it
didn’t suck any less to see them togeth­er, espe­cial­ly since Joseph was
right. They did make a well-matched cou­ple. Brid­get, angel­ic and re-
gal. Stef­fan, clean-cut and debonair in his fan­cy tuxe­do.
Then there was me, tat­tooed and scarred, haunt­ed by the things
I’d done and the blood on my hands.
By all accounts, Stef­fan was the bet­ter, and eas­i­er, option for Brid-
get. Her grand­fa­ther, the palace, the press…they were all sali­vat­ing
for a Princess and the Duke love sto­ry.
I didn’t give a fly­ing fuck.
Brid­get was mine.
She wasn’t mine to take, but I was tak­ing her any­way. Her
laughs, her fears, her joy and her pain. Every inch of her body and
beat of her heart. All mine.
And I’d had enough of watch­ing her in anoth­er man’s arms.
I left my post and stalked across the dance floor, ignor­ing
Joseph’s noise of protest. I was break­ing every rule of pro­to­col, but it
was late and most guests were already too drunk to pay atten­tion to
me. I was an employ­ee, beneath most of their notice, and in that in-
stance, it worked in my favor.
“Your High­ness.” A dark edge bled through my oth­er­wise even
voice. “Sor­ry to inter­rupt, but Jules called. There’s an emer­gency.”
I was hold­ing Bridget’s phone while she danced, so the excuse
made sense.
Alarm crossed her face. “Oh, no. It must be seri­ous. She nev­er
calls for emer­gen­cies.” She glanced at Stef­fan. “Would you mind ter-
ribly if I—”
“Of course not,” he said. There was no trace of the awk­ward, un-
com­fort­able Stef­fan from the hotel. “I under­stand. Please, take the
call. I’ll be here.”
I bet you will. Maybe I could bribe a serv­er to slip some­thing into
his drink. Not enough to kill him, but enough to inca­pac­i­tate him for
the rest of the night.
I hand­ed Brid­get her phone to keep up the ruse as we exit­ed the
recep­tion room, but I said, “Jules didn’t call.”
“What?” Her brow knit in con­fu­sion. “Then why did you—”
“He was get­ting too close.” I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw
hurt.
A beat passed before Bridget’s face cleared. She glanced around
before whis­per­ing, “You know I had to dance with him.”
“You danced with him twice.”
“Rhys, he’s tech­ni­cal­ly my date.”
It was the wrong thing to say, and judg­ing by the way Brid­get
winced, she knew it.
I stopped in front of what I knew was the library from my pre-
wed­ding advance work. “Get in,” I said curt­ly.
A hard swal­low dis­turbed the del­i­cate lines of Bridget’s throat,
but she obeyed with­out argu­ment.
I fol­lowed her inside and locked the door behind us with a soft
click. The room wasn’t ful­ly fur­nished yet, and it was emp­ty save for
a rug, a table, and a large mir­ror. The lights were off, but there was
enough moon­light stream­ing through the cur­tains for me to spot
Bridget’s wary expres­sion.