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.

5
RHYS
I’LL BE FINE, MY ASS.
Bridget’s words, spo­ken with such con­fi­dence a month ago, had
come back to bite her, and by exten­sion me, in the prover­bial behind.
After look­ing into the con­cert venue, I’d express­ly told her not to at-
tend the per­for­mance, which took place in some sketchy ware­house
that should’ve been shut down for break­ing a thou­sand and one
safe­ty code reg­u­la­tions. The build­ing was one strong gust of wind
away from col­laps­ing.
Yet Brid­get had gone against my orders and snuck out in the mid-
dle of the night to attend the damn con­cert, only to get kid­napped
after­ward.
That was right. Fuck­ing kid­napped by a mer­ce­nary who’d
grabbed her and Ava off the street.
It wasn’t even the con­cert that pissed me off. If Brid­get had insist-
ed on going, I would’ve gone with her, because she was the client. I
couldn’t phys­i­cal­ly restrain her from doing what she want­ed.
No, I was pissed about the fact she’d gone behind my back and
the whole kid­nap­ping inci­dent could’ve been avoid­ed had she been
hon­est with me.
I glanced in the rearview mir­ror to reas­sure myself Brid­get was
still there. As furi­ous as I was, the sight of her in the back­seat,
bruised but safe, eased some of the icy ter­ror that had gripped me
since I woke up and real­ized she was gone.
Luck­i­ly, I’d had the fore­sight to plant a secret track­ing chip in her
phone a few weeks ear­li­er, and it’d led me to Philadel­phia, where I
found her and Ava tied up and at the mer­cy of a gun­man for hire.
The whole sit­u­a­tion result­ed from a long, sor­did saga involv­ing Alex
Volkov, Alex’s psy­cho uncle who’d kid­napped Ava as lever­age
against his nephew, and years of secrets and revenge.
I hon­est­ly didn’t give a shit about the dra­ma. All I’d cared about
was get­ting Brid­get out of there safe­ly, and I had, if only so I could
tear her apart with my own hands.
“Ava’s stay­ing with us tonight.” Brid­get smoothed a hand over
her friend’s hair, her brow knit in a wor­ried frown. “I don’t want her
to be alone.”
Ava lay curled up in her lap, her sobs soft­er than before but still
fre­quent enough to make me wince. I had no clue what to do around
cry­ing peo­ple, espe­cial­ly ones whose now ex-boyfriend con­fessed to
lying to her dur­ing their entire rela­tion­ship to get revenge on the
man he’d thought had mur­dered his fam­i­ly. And that was only the
Cliff­s­Notes ver­sion of what had hap­pened.
It was fucked-up shit, but Alex Volkov had always been a lit­tle
fucked up in an I might mur­der you if I’m in a bad mood kind of way. At
least every­one was alive…except for his uncle and the gun­man.
“Fine.” The word ric­o­cheted through the car like a bul­let.
Brid­get flinched, and a small ker­nel of guilt took root in my stom-
ach. It wasn’t enough to drown out my anger, but it was enough to
make me feel like an ass­hole as I pulled up in front of her house.
She’d been through hell, and I should let her sleep off the events of
the past twen­ty-hours first before I laid into her.
Key­word: should. But I’d nev­er cared much about what I should
do. What mat­tered was what I need­ed to do, and I need­ed Brid­get to
under­stand she couldn’t fuck around with my rules. They were there
to pro­tect her, dammit, and if any­thing hap­pened to her…
Fresh ter­ror stabbed at me.
We entered the house, and I wait­ed until Ava retreat­ed to Brid-
get’s room before I jerked my head to my right. “Kitchen. Now.”
Brid­get wrapped her arms around her chest. Anoth­er wave of
anger crashed over me at the sight of the raw, red­dened skin where
the ropes had dug into her wrists.
If the mer­ce­nary weren’t already dead, I’d carve him up myself,
and I would take a longer, sweet­er time than Alex had.
She walked into the kitchen and bus­ied her­self mak­ing a cup of
tea, avoid­ing my gaze the entire time.
“Every­thing worked out,” she said in a small voice. “I’m okay.”
A vein pulsed in my tem­ple. “You’re okay,” I repeat­ed. It came
out as a snarl.
We stood five feet from each oth­er. Me in the door­way, my fists
clenched at my sides; Brid­get by the sink, her hands wrapped
around her mug and her eyes huge in her pale face. Her usu­al cool,
regal demeanor had dis­ap­peared, stripped bare by the events of the
past twen­ty-four hours, and I detect­ed a slight trem­ble in her
shoul­ders.
“I made a mis­take, but—”
“A mis­take?” Fire scorched my veins, sear­ing me from the inside
out. “A mis­take is show­ing up at the wrong class. A mis­take is for­get-
ting to lock the door when you leave the house. It’s not get­ting kid-
napped and almost killed by a psy­cho because you snuck out like a
high school­er break­ing cur­few. I’d say that was more than a mis­take.”
My voice rose with each word until I was yelling. I’d nev­er lost
my cool with a client before, but Brid­get had an uncan­ny abil­i­ty to
wring every emo­tion out of me, good and bad.
“It’s not like I want­ed to get kid­napped.” Some of the fire re-
turned to Bridget’s eyes. “The con­cert was per­fect­ly safe, despite
what you said. It was only after…” She took a deep breath. “They
weren’t tar­get­ing me. They tar­get­ed Ava, and I hap­pened to be with
her. It could’ve hap­pened at any time.”
The vein in my tem­ple pulsed hard­er. “No. It couldn’t have hap-
pened any­time.” I stalked toward her, my mouth flat­ten­ing with
grim plea­sure when I saw her eyes widen in fear. Good. She should
fear me, because I was about to rain hell all over her naive lit­tle pa-
rade. “Do you want to know why?”
Brid­get wise­ly chose not to answer. For every step I took for-
ward, she took one back until her back pressed against the wall, her
white-knuck­led hands stran­gling her mug.
“Because I would’ve been there,” I hissed. “I don’t give a fly­ing
fuck whether you, Ava, or fuck­ing Big Bird was the tar­get. If I’d been
there, I would’ve neu­tral­ized the ass­hole before he ever laid a hand
on you.” It wasn’t arro­gance; it was the truth. There was a rea­son I
was Harp­er Security’s most in-demand agent, and it wasn’t my per-
son­al­i­ty. “What did I tell you when we first met?”
Brid­get didn’t respond.
“What. Did. I. Tell. You?” I plant­ed my fore­arm on the wall above
her head and my hand by the side of her face, effec­tive­ly caging her
in. We were so close I could smell her perfume—something sub­tle
and intox­i­cat­ing, like fresh flow­ers on a sum­mer day—and see the
dark ring around her pupils. I’d nev­er seen eyes like that before, so
deep and blue it was like star­ing straight into the depths of the
ocean. They were the kind of eyes that lured you in and sucked you
under before you knew what was hap­pen­ing.
The fact I noticed those stu­pid things in the mid­dle of the worst
day of my career only pissed me off more.
“Do what you say, when you say it.” A hint of defi­ance tem­pered
her whis­per.
“That’s right. You didn’t, and you almost died.” If I hadn’t got­ten
there when I had…My blood iced over. Alex had been there, but that
crazy fuck­er was as liable to shoot Brid­get as he was to save her. “Do
you know what could’ve—” I stopped mid-sen­tence. I was yelling
again. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to take a deep breath. “I
know you think I’m over­bear­ing and para­noid, but I don’t say ‘no’
because I want to tor­ture you, princess. I want to pro­tect you, and if
you keep defy­ing me at every turn, you’re gonna get your­self and
those around you killed. Is that what you want?”
“No.” The defi­ance was still there, but I didn’t miss the sus­pi-
cious sheen in Bridget’s eyes or the slight wob­ble in her chin.
Tough love worked, and she need­ed a big heap of it.
Still, I soft­ened the harsh edge of my voice when I spoke next.
“You need to trust me. Stop fight­ing me on every­thing, and for
fuck’s sake, don’t sneak behind my back. Talk to me first next time.”
“Every time I try to talk to you, we end up fight­ing and the con-
ver­sa­tion goes nowhere.” Brid­get stared at me, dar­ing me to say oth-
erwise. I didn’t. I was used to doing things my way, and my way
was usu­al­ly right. “Trust is a two-way street. You placed a secret
chip in my phone—”
“It’s a good thing I did, or you’d prob­a­bly be dead right now,” I
growled.
She pressed her lips togeth­er, and my gaze inad­ver­tent­ly
dropped to her mouth. Lush, pink, and capa­ble of more sass than
one would expect from a prim and prop­er princess. Except there was
noth­ing prim and prop­er about what lay beneath her surface…or
about the thoughts run­ning through my mind.
It was the worst pos­si­ble time for me to be think­ing about any-
thing remote­ly relat­ed to sex. She’d got­ten kid­napped less than
forty-eight hours ago, for Christ’s sake. But adren­a­line and arousal
had always gone hand in hand for me, and if I were hon­est, there
were very few instances when she didn’t turn me on. Even when I
was pissed at her, I want­ed her.
My cock thick­ened, and my hands clenched into fists once more.
I’d guard­ed the most beau­ti­ful women on the planet—movie stars,
super­mod­els, heiress­es, many of whom had made it clear they were
more than will­ing to sub­mit to my orders both inside and out­side
the bedroom—but I’d nev­er tak­en them up on their offers. Nev­er
been tempt­ed to.
Fig­ured the one woman who’d rather see me burn than touch me
was the one I end­ed up lust­ing after.
“You said I need to trust you. How can I do that if you don’t trust
me?” Brid­get slipped into her nego­ti­a­tion voice, which I rec­og­nized
from the count­less pub­lic events I’d accom­pa­nied her to.
The voice irked me beyond belief. I’d much rather her snap at me
than treat me like some damn stranger she need­ed to get off her
back.
“I pro­pose a com­pro­mise. Take out the chip, and I’ll do what you
say, when you say it, as long as it’s secu­ri­ty-relat­ed.” Bridget’s gaze
burned into mine. “I promise.”
Un-freak­ing-believ­able. She was in the wrong here, and she was ne-
goti­at­ing with me.
And I was think­ing of say­ing yes.
“Why should I believe you?” My breath came out in a harsh ex-
hale, and a small shiv­er rolled through her body. I could see her nip-
ples clear­ly through the thin black silk of her dress. Hard and peb-
bled, beg­ging for my touch. Maybe it was because of the chill—the
one thick walls and dou­ble-glazed win­dows couldn’t quite keep out
—but judg­ing by Bridget’s flushed cheeks, I wasn’t the only one
aware of the charged air between us.
My nos­trils flared. I was still hard as a rock, and I loathed it.
Loathed her, for tempt­ing me this way. Loathed myself, for not hav-
ing more self-con­trol when it came to her.
“I don’t break my promis­es, Mr. Larsen.” Brid­get insist­ed on call-
ing me by my last name the same way I insist­ed on call­ing her
princess. It irri­tat­ed us both, but nei­ther of us would back down first.
Sto­ry of our entire rela­tion­ship. “Do we have a deal?”
My jaw ticked in rhythm with my pulse. One. Two. Three.
My first instinct was to say hell no. The chip was the only rea­son
she was alive right now. But this was the clos­est we’d ever got­ten to
a truce, and while I had no prob­lem play­ing the bad cop, I would
much rather work with a coop­er­a­tive Brid­get than breathe down her
neck every day.
“Fine,” I ground out. “We start with a tri­al peri­od. Four months.
You keep up your end of the bar­gain, and I back off. If you don’t, I
will hand­cuff you to me until you can’t even piss in peace.
Under­stand?”
Her lips thinned fur­ther, but she didn’t argue. “A four-month tri-
al. Fine.” She hes­i­tat­ed, then added, “One more thing…”
Dis­be­lief filled my veins. “You’ve got to be kid­ding me.”
Red stained her cheeks. “You can’t tell any­one what hap­pened.
Espe­cial­ly not the palace.”
“You’re ask­ing me to lie.” I was required to write up every inci-
dent with a client and sub­mit it to Chris­t­ian. The last guy who
hadn’t…let’s just say he regret­ted his deci­sion. Big time.
“Not lie, omit,” Brid­get cor­rect­ed me. “Think about it. If my
grand­fa­ther finds out what hap­pened, you’ll be fired, and your repu-
tation will be trashed.”
Appeal­ing to my ego. Nice try, princess.
“My rep­u­ta­tion can han­dle it.” I raised an eye­brow. “I thought
you’d be hap­py to get rid of me.”
The red on her cheeks deep­ened. “You know what they say. Bet-
ter the dev­il you know…”
“Hmm.” Aside from the occa­sion­al civ­il inter­ac­tion, we couldn’t
stand each oth­er, my hard cock and her hard nip­ples not-
with­stand­ing. Lust was one thing, but if we kept this up, we’d kill
each oth­er. Not to men­tion, I would be break­ing all sorts of rules if I
kept what hap­pened in Philadel­phia secret. I should report it to
Chris­t­ian and let him deal with the palace. He was bet­ter at that
diplo­mat­ic crap, any­way.
But the thought of walk­ing away from Brid­get and nev­er see­ing
her again caused a strange twinge of dis­com­fort. As infu­ri­at­ing as
she was, she was one of the more inter­est­ing clients I’d had. Smarter,
kinder, less spoiled and enti­tled.
“I don’t sup­pose your request has any­thing to do with the fact
you’ll nev­er breathe a sec­ond of free air again once the king finds out