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.

48
BRIDGET
FOR THE NEXT MONTH, I LAUNCHED INTO CAMPAIGN MODE TO WOO, OR
threat­en, enough min­is­ters into vot­ing yes on a repeal. Some were an
easy sell, oth­ers not so much. But one hun­dred phone calls, eleven
in-per­son vis­its, twen­ty-three media inter­views, and count­less pub­lic
appearances—both sched­uled and “candid”—of me and Rhys lat­er,
the big day final­ly arrived.
Rhys and I sat in my suite, watch­ing the vote play out on TV. I’d
stress-ate my way through two packs of Ore­os while he sat next to
me, his face impas­sive but his body vibrat­ing with the same rest­less
ener­gy tun­nel­ing through my veins.
The cur­rent vote count: nine­ty yay, thir­ty nay, and two absten-
tions, with fifty-eight more votes to go. We need­ed one hun­dred thir-
ty-five yays for a repeal. It looked good, but I wasn’t count­ing my
chick­ens until they hatched.
“Lady Jensen.” Erhall’s sour voice rang through the mahogany-
pan­eled cham­ber on-screen.
“Yay.”
“Lord Orskov.”
“Yay.”
I squeezed Rhys’s hand, my heart thump­ing. I’d slot­ted Orskov
into the maybe col­umn, so his vote was a big win.
“They’ll pass it.” Rhys’s qui­et con­fi­dence soothed the frayed
edges of my nerves. “If they don’t, we have our back­up plan.”
“Which is?”
“Burn down Par­lia­ment.”
I huffed out a laugh. “How’s that sup­posed to help?”
“I don’t know, but it’d be damn sat­is­fy­ing.”
Anoth­er laugh, anoth­er eas­ing of nerves.
Fifty-sev­en down. Fifty-six. Fifty-five.
The vote con­tin­ued until only two min­is­ters were left and we
were one yay short of a repeal. If either of them vot­ed yes, we were
home free.
I squeezed Rhys’s hand again as Erhall called on the next
min­is­ter.
“Lord Kop­pel.”
“Nay.”
I deflat­ed while Rhys let out a stream of curs­es. I hadn’t expect­ed
Kop­pel to vote yes, but it was dis­ap­point­ing nonethe­less.
Regret rose in my throat. I should’ve dug out the black­mail file
on Kop­pel. I’d tried to keep my cam­paign above­board, nev­er out-
right threat­en­ing any of the min­is­ters except Erhall, but per­haps I’d
mis­cal­cu­lat­ed. I wouldn’t be the first per­son in his­to­ry who’d got­ten
screwed over by their con­science.
You did what was right.
The hairs on the back of my neck prick­led. I straight­ened and
looked around my suite, but it was emp­ty save for Rhys and me.
Still, I could’ve sworn I heard a soft female voice whis­per to me…a
voice that sound­ed sus­pi­cious­ly like my mother’s, based on the old
tapes I’d watched of her.
This is what I get for stay­ing up late. I’d been too wired to sleep
much last night, and I was clear­ly deliri­ous from exhaus­tion.
On-screen, a smug smile slashed across Erhall’s face, and I could
tell he was pray­ing for the repeal to fail. He’d opened the motion as
promised, but his glee had been vis­i­ble every time some­one vot­ed
nay.
“Lady Dahl.”
I gnawed on my bot­tom lip.
Dahl was the last min­is­ter left. She had one of the most unpre-
dictable vot­ing records in Par­lia­ment, and she could go either way.
None of my calls to her had yield­ed any­thing more than a polite
Thank you, Your High­ness. I’ll think about it.
The rest­less ener­gy ema­nat­ing from Rhys tripled until it was near
audi­ble in the thick silence of my suite. The Ore­os sloshed in my
stom­ach, and I wished I hadn’t binged on so much sug­ar in such a
short time.
Dahl opened her mouth, and I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to
watch the moment that would change my life—for bet­ter or for
worse.
Please, please, please…
“Yay.”
Yay. It took a minute for my brain to process that one word.
When it did, my eyes flew open in time to see an irri­tat­ed-look­ing
Erhall say, “With a final vote count of one hun­dred thir­ty-five yay,
forty nays, and five absten­tions, Par­lia­ment offi­cial­ly declares the
Roy­al Mar­riages Law of 1723 repealed. The cham­ber…”
I tuned out the rest of what he said. I was too buzzed, my skin
rac­ing with tin­gles of elec­tric­i­ty and my head dizzy with dis­be­lief.
My stunned gaze met Rhys. “Did that real­ly hap­pen?”
His eyes crin­kled into a small smile. “Yeah, princess, it did.”
Fierce pride and relief lined his face.
“We did it.” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. The law had
been the bane of my exis­tence since I became crown princess, and
now, it was gone. I could mar­ry whomev­er I want­ed with­out giv­ing
up the throne. I could mar­ry Rhys.
The import of what hap­pened ful­ly sank in.
“We did it!” I squealed and flung myself into a laugh­ing Rhys’s
arms. Every­thing went blur­ry, and I real­ized I was cry­ing, but I
didn’t care.
So many months of ago­niz­ing over the law, so many ear­ly morn-
ings and late nights and con­ver­sa­tions that made me want to tear my
hair out…all worth it, because we did it.
I’m proud of you, hon­ey. The soft female voice returned, and emo-
tion welled in my throat.
It didn’t mat­ter whether the voice was real or a fig­ment of my
imag­i­na­tion. All that mat­tered was it was there, clos­er than it’d ever
been.
Thanks, Mom. I’m proud of me, too.
Rhys, my grand­fa­ther, and Niko­lai had all reas­sured me I could
do my job as queen, but I hadn’t quite believed them until now. My
first real vic­to­ry in Par­lia­ment. I hoped my rela­tion­ship with the
min­is­ters would be more coop­er­a­tive than com­bat­ive, but I wasn’t
naïve enough to think it’d be smooth sail­ing from here on out.
There’d be plen­ty of uphill bat­tles to come, but if I won once, I could
win again.
Rhys cap­tured my mouth in a deep, ten­der kiss. “You did it. I’m
just along for the ride.”
“Not true.” I snug­gled clos­er to him, so euphor­ic I would’ve
float­ed right off the ground had he not secured his arms around my
waist. “You were there for every­thing, too.”
The inter­views, the meet­ings, the pub­lic appear­ances. All of it.
A deep sound rum­bled in Rhys’s chest. “Looks like you’re stuck
with me, princess.” He grazed his knuck­les over my spine.
“Should’ve thought this through.”
“Am I?” I adopt­ed a thought­ful expres­sion. “I could always
break up with you and date some­one else. There’s a movie star I’ve
always—” I squealed again when he stood and tossed me over his
shoul­der.
“Rhys, put me down.” I was smil­ing so big my cheeks hurt. “I
have calls to answer.” I waved my hand in the gen­er­al direc­tion of
my phone, which had been vibrat­ing with new mes­sages and calls
since the vote con­clud­ed.
“Lat­er.” Rhys’s palm land­ed with a hard smack on my ass, and I
yelped even as heat seared through me at the impact. “I need to
teach you a les­son about jok­ing with me. Espe­cial­ly about oth­er
men.”
Was it wrong my panties damp­ened at the way his voice low­ered
into a pos­ses­sive growl? Per­haps. But I couldn’t bring myself to care
as he kicked the door to my bed­room ful­ly open and tossed me on
the bed.
“What kind of les­son?” I was already so wet my thighs were
sticky with my arousal, and Rhys’s dark smile only made me wet­ter.
“Get on your hands and knees,” he said, ignor­ing my ques­tion.
“And face the head­board.”
I com­plied, and my heart crashed against my ribcage when the
bed dipped beneath Rhys’s weight. He yanked my skirt up with one
hand and my panties down with the oth­er, the move­ment so force­ful
I heard the unmis­tak­able rip of silk tear­ing.
I need­ed to set aside a month­ly bud­get to replace all the under-
wear he’d ruined, but I wasn’t com­plain­ing.
“We’ll cel­e­brate the vote lat­er.” Rhys dragged his fin­ger through
my slick­ness and over my sen­si­tized clit, and a tiny whim­per es-
caped my mouth. “But for now, let’s see if you still think you’re fun-
ny after I’m done with you.”