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.

4
RHYS/BRIDGET
RHYS
Brid­get and I arrived in Athen­berg, Eldorra’s cap­i­tal, four days
after my no-more-walk­ing decree opened a sec­ond front in our on-
going cold war. The plane ride had been chill­i­er than a win­ter dip in
a Russ­ian riv­er, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t need her to like me to do my job.
I scanned the city’s near-emp­ty Nation­al Ceme­tery, lis­ten­ing to
the eerie howl of the wind whis­tle through the bare trees. A deep
chill swept through the ceme­tery, bur­row­ing past my lay­ers of cloth-
ing and sink­ing deep into my bones.
Today was the first semi-free day on Bridget’s sched­ule since we
land­ed, and she’d shocked the hell out of me when she insist­ed on
spend­ing it at the ceme­tery.
When I saw why, though, I under­stood.
I main­tained a respect­ful dis­tance from where she kneeled before
two tomb­stones, but I was still close enough to see the names en-
graved on them.
Jose­fine von Ascheberg. Fred­erik von Ascheberg.
Her par­ents.
I’d been ten when Crown Princess Jose­fine died dur­ing child-
birth. I remem­bered see­ing pho­tos of the late princess splashed
across mag­a­zines and TV screens for weeks. Prince Fred­erik had
died a few years lat­er in a car crash.
Brid­get and I weren’t friends. Hell, we weren’t even friend­ly
most of the time. That didn’t stop the strange tug at my heart when I
saw the sad­ness on her face as she mur­mured some­thing to her par-
ents’ graves.
Brid­get brushed a strand of hair out of her face, her sad expres-
sion melt­ing into a small smile as she said some­thing else. I rarely
gave a damn what peo­ple did and said in their per­son­al lives, but I
almost wished I were close enough to hear what made her smile.
My phone pinged, and I wel­comed the dis­trac­tion from my un-
set­tling thoughts until I saw the mes­sage.
Chris­t­ian: I can get you the name in less than ten min­utes.
Me: No. Drop it.
Anoth­er mes­sage popped up, but I pock­et­ed my phone with­out
read­ing it.
Irri­ta­tion spiked through me.
Chris­t­ian was a per­sis­tent bas­tard who rev­eled in dig­ging into
the skele­tons of oth­er people’s pasts. He’d been bug­ging me since he
found out I was spend­ing the hol­i­days in Eldorra—he knew my
hang-ups about the country—and if he weren’t my boss and the
clos­est thing I had to a friend, his face would’ve met my fist by now.
I told him I didn’t want the name, and I meant it. I’d sur­vived
thir­ty-one years with­out know­ing. I could sur­vive thir­ty-one more,
or how­ev­er long it took before I kicked the buck­et.
I returned my atten­tion to Brid­get just as a twig snapped near­by,
fol­lowed by the soft click of a cam­era shut­ter.
My head jerked up, and a low growl rum­bled from my throat
when I spot­ted a tell­tale pouf of blond hair peek­ing from the top of a
near­by tomb­stone.
Fuck­ing paparazzi.
The ass­hole squeaked and tried to flee when he real­ized he’d
been caught, but I stormed over and grabbed the back of his jack­et
before he could take more than a few steps.
I saw Brid­get stand up out of the cor­ner of my eye, her expres-
sion con­cerned.
“Give me your cam­era,” I said, my calm voice bely­ing my anger.
Paparazzi were an inescapable evil when guard­ing high-pro­file peo-
ple, but there was a dif­fer­ence between snap­ping pho­tos of some­one
eat­ing and shop­ping ver­sus snap­ping pho­tos of them in a pri­vate
moment.
Brid­get was vis­it­ing her par­ents’ graves, for fuck’s sake, and this
piece of shit had the nerve to intrude.
“No way,” the paparaz­zo blus­tered. “This is a free coun­try, and
Princess Brid­get is a pub­lic fig­ure. I can—”
I didn’t wait for him to fin­ish his sen­tence before I yanked the
cam­era from his hand, dropped it on the ground, and smashed it
into smithereens with my boot.
I didn’t like ask­ing twice.
He howled in protest. “That was a five-thou­sand-dol­lar cam­era!”
“Con­sid­er your­self lucky that’s all that got bro­ken.” I released his
jack­et and straight­ened it for him, the move­ment more a threat than
a cour­tesy. “You have five sec­onds to get out of my sight before that
changes.”
The paparaz­zo was indig­nant, but he wasn’t stu­pid. Two sec­onds
lat­er, he’d dis­ap­peared through the trees, leav­ing the pieces of his
now use­less cam­era behind. A minute after that, I heard an engine
turn over and a car peel out of the park­ing lot.
“I rec­og­nize him. He’s from the Nation­al Express.” Brid­get came
up beside me, look­ing not at all sur­prised by the turn of events. “The
trashiest of the tabloids. They’ll prob­a­bly run a sto­ry about me join-
ing a Satan­ic ring or some­thing after what you did to his cam­era.”
I snort­ed. “He deserved it. I can’t stand peo­ple who don’t respect
oth­ers’ pri­va­cy.”
A small smile flit­ted across her face, the first she’d giv­en me in
days, and the ear­li­er chill abat­ed. “He’s paparazzi. It’s his job to in-
vade oth­ers’ pri­va­cy.”
“Not when peo­ple are at the fuck­ing ceme­tery.”
“I’m used to it. Unless I’m in the palace, there’s always a chance
what I do will end up in the papers.” Brid­get sound­ed resigned.
“Thank you for tak­ing care of that, even if your method was more…
aggres­sive than I would’ve advised.” A hint of sad­ness remained in
her eyes, and I felt that strange tug in my chest again. Maybe it was
because I relat­ed to the source of her sadness—the feel­ing I was all
alone in the world, with­out the two peo­ple who were sup­posed to
love me most by my side.
I’d nev­er had that parental love, so despite the hole it left, I didn’t
under­stand what I was miss­ing. Brid­get had expe­ri­enced it, at least
on her father’s side, so I imag­ined the loss was even greater for her.
You’re not here to relate to her, ass­hole. You’re here to guard her. That’s
it. No mat­ter how beau­ti­ful or sad she looked, or how much I want-
ed to erase the melan­choly cloak­ing her.
It wasn’t my job to make her feel bet­ter.
I stepped back. “You ready? We can stay longer if you want, but
you have an event in an hour.”
“No, I’m ready. I just want­ed to wish my par­ents a Mer­ry Christ-
mas and catch them up on my life.” Brid­get tucked a strand of hair
behind her ear, look­ing self-con­scious. “It sounds sil­ly, but it’s tra­di-
tion, and I feel like they’re lis­ten­ing…” She trailed off. “Like I said,
it’s sil­ly.”
“It’s not sil­ly.” A tight­ness formed in my chest and spread until it
choked me with mem­o­ries best left for­got­ten. “I do the same with
my old mil­i­tary bud­dies.” The ones buried in the D.C. area, any­way,
though I tried to make it out to the oth­er places when I could.
I was the rea­son they were dead. The least I could do was pay my
respects.
“Do you stay in touch with your friends from the Navy?” Brid­get
asked as we walked toward the exit.
I kept an eye out for any more paparazzi or ne’er-do-wells, but
there was no one else around except for us and ghosts from the past.
“A cou­ple. Not as often as I’d like.”
My unit had been my fam­i­ly, but after what hap­pened, it became
too hard for the sur­vivors to keep in touch. We remind­ed each oth­er
too much of what we’d lost.
The only per­son I kept in reg­u­lar touch with was my old com-
man­der from my ear­ly days in the Navy.
“What made you leave?” Brid­get tucked her hands deep­er into
her coat pock­ets, and I resist­ed the urge to draw her clos­er so I could
share some of my body heat. It was damn cold, and her coat didn’t
look thick enough to pro­tect her from the wind.
“It got too much. The deploy­ments, the uncer­tain­ty, the funer­als.
Watch­ing the men I served with die right in front of me.” The tight-
ness squeezed, and I forced myself to breathe through it before con-
tin­u­ing. “It fucked me up, and if I hadn’t left when I did…” I would’ve
lost what was left of myself. I shook my head. “It’s the same sto­ry as a
lot of vets. I’m no one spe­cial.”
We reached the car, but when I opened the door for Brid­get to get
in, she rest­ed her hand on my arm instead.
I stiff­ened, her touch burn­ing through my clothes more effec­tive-
ly than any chill or flame.
“I’m sor­ry,” she said. “Both for what hap­pened and for pry­ing.”
“I got out years ago. If I didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t.
It’s not a big deal.” I pulled my arm away and opened the car door
wider, but the imprint of her touch lin­gered. “I don’t regret my time
in the Navy. The guys in my unit were like broth­ers to me, the clos-
est I ever had to a real fam­i­ly, and I wouldn’t give that up for the
world. But the front­line stuff? Yeah, I was over that shit.”
I’d nev­er shared that with any­one before. Then again, I’d had no
one to share it with except my old ther­a­pist, and I’d had enough is-
sues to work through with her with­out delv­ing into why I left the
mil­i­tary.
“Yet you chose to be a body­guard after,” Brid­get not­ed. “Not ex-
act­ly a dan­ger-free occu­pa­tion.”
“I have the skills to be a good body­guard.” A lot of for­mer SEALs
went the pri­vate secu­ri­ty route, and Chris­t­ian may have been a bas-
tard, but he was a per­sua­sive bas­tard. He’d con­vinced me to sign on
the dot­ted line less than a day after I returned to U.S. soil. “Don’t
think I’ve ever been in as much dan­ger as since you became my
client, though.”
Her brow scrunched in con­fu­sion, and I almost smiled.
Almost.
“My risk of rup­tur­ing an artery increased ten­fold.”
Bridget’s con­fu­sion cleared, replaced with an odd com­bi­na­tion of
delight and exas­per­a­tion. “Glad to see you found your sense of hu-
mor, Mr. Larsen. It’s a Christ­mas mir­a­cle.”
A chuck­le escaped my throat, the sound so for­eign I bare­ly recog-
nized it as my own, and some­thing in my soul stirred, nudged
awake by the reminder oth­er things exist­ed besides the dark­ness that
had haunt­ed me for so long.
Sur­prise flared in Bridget’s eyes before she offered a ten­ta­tive
smile in return, and the some­thing lift­ed its head at the fur­ther
encour­age­ment.
I shoved it back down.
A laugh was fine. Any­thing else was not.
“Let’s go.” I wiped the smile off my face. “Or we’ll be late.”
BRIDGET
If I could sum up my rela­tion­ship with Rhys with one song, it
would be Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold.” One minute, we were fight­ing
and giv­ing each oth­er the cold shoul­der. The next, we were laugh­ing
and bond­ing over jokes.
Okay, bond­ing was too strong a word for what had hap­pened in
the ceme­tery park­ing lot. Act­ing like nor­mal human beings toward each
oth­er was more accu­rate. And Rhys hadn’t so much laughed as
slipped up with a half chuck­le, but maybe that con­sti­tut­ed a laugh in
his world. I couldn’t pic­ture him throw­ing his head back with mirth
any more than I could pic­ture The Rock danc­ing bal­let.
But if there was one thing I’d learned over the past month, it was
I need­ed to take advan­tage of the ups in our rela­tion­ship when I
could. So, after my planned “sur­prise” vis­it to a local high school,
where I gave a speech on the impor­tance of kind­ness and men­tal
health, I brought up a top­ic I’d been avoid­ing for the past week.
“I usu­al­ly stay in Eldor­ra longer for the hol­i­days, but I’m glad
we’re head­ing back to cam­pus ear­li­er this year,” I said casu­al­ly as we
set­tled into our seats at a restau­rant by the school.
No answer.
Just when I thought Rhys would ignore the bait, he said, “Spit it
out, princess. What do you want?”
There goes the grumpi­ness again.
A small frown touched my face. I felt like a kid ask­ing per­mis-
sion from a par­ent when I talked to him, which was ridicu­lous, but
he radi­at­ed such author­i­ty I some­times for­got he was my employ­ee
and not the oth­er way around.
Well, tech­ni­cal­ly, he was a con­trac­tor with the palace, but that
was a minor dis­tinc­tion.
“My favorite band is com­ing to D.C. in Jan­u­ary. Ava and I al-
ready bought tick­ets to see them,” I said.
“Band name and loca­tion.”
I told him.
“I’ll check it out and let you know.” Rhys snapped his menu
closed when our serv­er approached. “Burg­er, medi­um rare, please.
Thank you.”
I placed my order and wait­ed for the serv­er to leave before re-
peat­ing in a tight voice, “I already bought the tick­ets.” Trans­la­tion:
I’m going whether or not you like it.
“Refund­able ones, I hope.” His sharp gaze glid­ed through the
restau­rant, not miss­ing a sin­gle detail about the patrons or room
lay­out.
Aaaand there went the down in our rela­tion­ship, just like
clock­work.
“Your job isn’t to run my life. Stop act­ing like an over­pro­tec­tive
par­ent.” My frus­tra­tion mount­ed. I would rather hate him all the
time than have my emo­tions swing back and forth like a bro­ken
gauge. It was exhaust­ing. “How are you still employed? I’m sur-
prised your pre­vi­ous clients haven’t com­plained to your com­pa­ny
about your…your…”
Rhys arched an eye­brow while I fum­bled for the right words.
“Your over­bear­ing ten­den­cies,” I fin­ished lame­ly. Dammit. I need-
ed a big­ger arse­nal of bet­ter insults.
“Because I’m the best. They know it, and so do you,” he said ar-
rogant­ly. He leaned for­ward, his eyes dark­en­ing. “You think I want
to par­ent you? I don’t. If I want­ed kids, I’d get myself an office job
and shack up in some cook­ie-cut­ter sub­ur­ban home with a pick­et
fence and a dog. I’m in this field of work to save lives, princess. I’ve
tak­en plen­ty of ‘em, and now—” He stopped abrupt­ly, but his words
lin­gered in the air.
I flashed back to his words from the park­ing lot. It got too much.
The deploy­ments, the uncer­tain­ty, the funer­als. Watch­ing men I con­sid­ered
broth­ers die right in front of me.
Rhys hadn’t gone into detail about what hap­pened when he was
in the mil­i­tary, but he didn’t need to. I could only imag­ine.
Guilt and sym­pa­thy blos­somed in my stom­ach and curled
around my heart.
That was why I vac­il­lat­ed so much in my feel­ings toward him. I
dis­liked Rhys’s atti­tude and actions, but I didn’t dis­like him, because
I under­stood why he did what he did.
It was a conun­drum, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, I didn’t see a way out of
it.
“It only takes one slipup,” Rhys fin­ished. “One sec­ond of dis­trac-
tion, and you could walk into a mine­field and get blown to hell. One
lapse of judg­ment, and you could end up with a bul­let in your
head.” He leaned back, shut­ters falling over those gun­metal eyes.
“So no, I don’t give a fuck if you already bought tick­ets. I’m still