Chap­ter 25: Rhys

SOMEONE ONCE SAID HELL WAS OTHER PEOPLE.

They were right.

Specif­i­cal­ly, hell was watch­ing oth­er peo­ple swan around an ice rink, drink­ing hot choco­late and mak­ing goo­gly eyes at each oth­er like they were in the mid­dle of a god­damn Hall­mark movie.

It wasn’t even Christ­mas sea­son, for fuck’s sake. It was worse. It was Valentine’s Day.

A mus­cle flexed in my jaw as Bridget’s laugh­ter float­ed over, joined by Steffan’s deep­er laugh, and the urge to mur­der someone—someone male with blond hair and a name that began with S— inten­si­fied.

What was so fuck­ing hilar­i­ous, any­way?

I couldn’t imag­ine any­thing being that fun­ny, least of all some­thing Stef­fan the Saint said.

Brid­get and Stef­fan shouldn’t even be on a date right now. It was only four days after her birth­day ball. Who the hell went on a date with some­one they met four days ago? There should be back­ground checks. Red tape. Twen­ty-four-sev­en sur­veil­lance to make sure Stef­fan wasn’t secret­ly a psy­cho killer or adul­ter­er.

Princess­es shouldn’t go on a date until there was at least a year’s worth of data to comb through, in my opin­ion. Five years, to be on the safe side.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, my opin­ion meant jack shit to the roy­al fam­i­ly, which was how I found myself at Athenberg’s biggest ice-skat­ing rink, watch­ing Brid­get smile up at Stef­fan like he’d cured world hunger.

He said some­thing that made her laugh again, and his grin widened. He brushed a stray strand of hair out of her face, and my hand twitched toward my gun. Maybe I would’ve pulled it, had reporters not packed the rink, snap­ping pic­tures of Brid­get and Stef­fan, record­ing on their cam­eras, and live-tweet­ing the date like it was an Olympic event.

“They make such a cute cou­ple,” the reporter next to me, a curvy brunette in a bright pink suit that hurt my eyes, cooed. “Don’t you think so?”

“No.”

She blinked, clear­ly sur­prised by my curt response. “Why not? Do you have some­thing against his lord­ship?”

I could prac­ti­cal­ly see her sali­vat­ing at the prospect of a juicy sto­ry.

“I’m staff,” I said. “I have no opin­ions about my employer’s per­son­al life.”

“Every­one has opin­ions.” The reporter smiled, remind­ing me of a shark cir­cling in the water. “I’m Jas.” She held out her hand. I didn’t take it, but that didn’t deter her. “If you think of an opinion…or any­thing else…” A sug­ges­tive note crept into her voice. “Give me a call.”

She pulled a busi­ness card out of her purse and tucked it into my hand. I almost let it fall to the floor, but I wasn’t that much of an ass­hole, so I mere­ly pock­et­ed it with­out look­ing at it.

Jas’s cam­era­man said some­thing to her in Ger­man, and she turned away to answer him.

Good. I couldn’t stand nosy peo­ple or small talk. Besides, I was busy—busy try­ing not to kill Stef­fan.

I’d run a back­ground check on him before today’s date, and on paper, he was fuck­ing per­fect. The son of the Duke of Hol­stein, one of the most pow­er­ful men in Eldor­ra, he was an accom­plished eques­tri­an who spoke six lan­guages flu­ent­ly and grad­u­at­ed top of his class from Har­vard and Oxford, where he stud­ied polit­i­cal sci­ence and eco­nom­ics. He had a well-estab­lished record of phil­an­thropy and his last rela­tion­ship with an Eldor­ran heiress end­ed on ami­ca­ble terms after two years. Based on my inter­ac­tions with him so far, he seemed friend­ly and gen­uine.

I hat­ed him.

Not because he grew up in a life of priv­i­lege, but because he could freely touch Brid­get in pub­lic. He could take her ice skat­ing, make her laugh, and brush her hair out of her eye, and no one would blink an eye.

Mean­while, all I could do was stand there and watch, because women like Brid­get weren’t meant for men like me.

“You’ll nev­er amount to any­thing, you lit­tle piece of shit,” Mama slurred, her eyes mean and hate­ful as she glared at me. “Look atcha. Use­less and scrawny. I should’ve got­ten rid of you when I had the chance.”

I stayed qui­et. The last time I talked back, she beat me so hard with her belt I’d bled through my shirt and couldn’t sleep on my back for weeks. I’d learned the best way to han­dle her bad moods was to hope she even­tu­al­ly for­got I was there. That usu­al­ly hap­pened after she was halfway through what­ev­er bot­tle she was drink­ing.

“If it wasn’t for you, I’d be out of this stinkin’ town by now.”

Resent­ment poured off her in waves. Mama stood by the table, wear­ing her fad­ed pink robe and chain-smok­ing a cig­a­rette. Her cheeks were pale and sunken, and even though she was only in her late twen­ties, she could pass for her for­ties.

I tucked my hands beneath my arms and tried to shrink into myself while she con­tin­ued to rant. It was Fri­day night. I hat­ed Fri­day nights because it meant I had an entire week­end of just Mama and me.

“Waste of space…nothing like your father…are you lis­ten­ing to me, you piece of shit?”

I stared at the cracks in the floor until they blurred togeth­er. One day, I would get out of here. Some­how, some way.

“I said, are you lis­ten­ing to me?” Mama grabbed my shoul­ders and shook me so hard my teeth rat­tled. “Look at me when I’m talk­ing to you, boy!” She back­hand­ed me so hard I stum­bled, the pain mak­ing my ears ring.

My body twist­ed, and I saw it com­ing, but I didn’t have time to brace myself before the cor­ner of the din­ing table smashed into my head and every­thing went black.

I blinked, and the smell of old spaghet­ti sauce and vod­ka fad­ed, replaced by that of fresh ice and Jas’s over­pow­er­ing per­fume.

Brid­get and Stef­fan skat­ed over, and the cam­eras went crazy.

Click. Click. Click.

“…for a while,” Stef­fan said. “But I would love to take you out again when I return.”

“Are you going some­where?” I asked.

It was inap­pro­pri­ate for me to butt into their con­ver­sa­tion, but I didn’t give a fuck.

Stef­fan cast a star­tled glance in my direc­tion. “Yes. My moth­er fell and broke her hip yes­ter­day. She’s fine, but she’s recov­er­ing at our house in Preo­ria. She’s quite lone­ly with my father here in ses­sion for Par­lia­ment, so I’ll be stay­ing with her until she feels bet­ter.”

He answered with full gra­cious­ness, which only annoyed me more. The hard­er he was to hate, the more I hat­ed him.

“How sad,” I said.

Stef­fan paused, clear­ly unsure how to read my tone.

“Hope­ful­ly, she recov­ers soon.” Brid­get shot me a look of mild rebuke. “Now, about that hot choco­late…”

She guid­ed him toward the hot choco­late stand at the oth­er end of the rink while I fumed.

Tak­ing a per­ma­nent posi­tion as Bridget’s body­guard meant I’d have to deal with see­ing her date oth­er peo­ple. I knew that, and that would be my cross to bear.

I just hadn’t expect­ed it to hap­pen so soon.

She’d dat­ed in New York, but that had been dif­fer­ent. She hadn’t liked any of those guys, and she hadn’t planned on mar­ry­ing one of them.

Acid gnawed at my gut.

Thank­ful­ly, the date end­ed soon after, and I whisked her into the car before Stef­fan could pull any first date kiss bull­shit.

“Ini­tial recov­ery for a bro­ken hip takes one to four months,” I said as we drove back to the palace. “Too bad for his lord­ship. What shit­ty tim­ing.”

Even fate didn’t think it was a good pair­ing. If it did, it wouldn’t have pulled Stef­fan away so soon after he met Brid­get.

I’d nev­er believed in fate, but I might have to send her a big, fat thank you card lat­er. I might even toss in some choco­lates and flow­ers.

Brid­get didn’t take the bait. “Actu­al­ly, it’s per­fect tim­ing,” she said. “I’ll be away from Athen­berg for a few weeks as well.”

I eyed her in the rearview mir­ror. That was fuck­ing news to me.

“It’s not con­firmed yet, so don’t give me that look,” she said. “I’ve pro­posed going on a good­will tour around the coun­try. Meet with locals and small busi­ness­es, find out what’s on their minds and what issues they’re fac­ing. I’ve got­ten a lot of crit­i­cism for not being in touch with what’s hap­pen­ing in Eldor­ra, and, well, they’re right.”

“That’s a great idea.” I turned onto King’s Dri­ve.

“You think so?” A note of relief tem­pered the uncer­tain­ty in Bridget’s voice.

“I’m no expert on pol­i­tics, but it sounds right to me.”

Brid­get may not want to be queen, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t make a great one. Most peo­ple thought the most impor­tant qual­i­ty in a leader was strength, but it was com­pas­sion. Strength meant jack shit when you didn’t use it for the right rea­sons.

Luck­i­ly for her and for Eldor­ra, she had both in spades.

“The king still has to approve it,” she said after we parked and walked to the palace entrance. “But I don’t antic­i­pate him say­ing no.”

“You mean your grand­fa­ther.” Roy­als did things dif­fer­ent­ly, but it weird­ed me out how for­mal they were with each oth­er some­times.

Brid­get flashed a quick smile as we entered the grand front hall.

“In most cas­es, yes. But in mat­ters like this, he’s my king.”

“Speak­ing of the king…”

We both stiff­ened at the new voice.

“…He wants to see you.” Andreas swag­gered into view, and irri­ta­tion curled through me. I didn’t know what it was about him that bugged me so much, but Brid­get didn’t like him, and that was good enough for me. “How was the date? Did you get a mar­riage pro­pos­al yet?”

“You need to find a new hob­by if you’re that invest­ed in my love life,” Brid­get said even­ly.

“Thank you, but I have plen­ty of hob­bies to keep me occu­pied. For instance, I just came from a meet­ing with His Majesty and Lord Erhall on the tax reform leg­is­la­tion.” Andreas smiled at Bridget’s sur­prise, which she quick­ly cov­ered up. “As you may know, I’m inter­est­ed in tak­ing up pol­i­tics, and the Speak­er was kind enough to let me shad­ow him for a few weeks. See how it all works.”

“Like an intern,” Brid­get said.

Andreas’s smile sharp­ened. “One who’s learn­ing quite a lot.” He slid his glance toward me. “Mr. Larsen, good to see you again.”

Wish I could say the same. “Your High­ness.” I loathed address­ing him with the same title as Brid­get. He didn’t deserve it.

“His Majesty is wait­ing for you in his office,” Andreas told Brid­get. “He wants to see you. Alone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some press­ing mat­ters that require my atten­tion. Though none as excit­ing as a date at an ice-skat­ing rink, I’m sure.”

It took all my self-con­trol not to knock all his teeth out.

“Say the word, and I can make it look like an acci­dent,” I said after Andreas was out of earshot.

Brid­get shook her head. “Ignore him. He’s been a satan­ic lit­tle turd since we were chil­dren, and he thrives on the atten­tion.”

A star­tled laugh rose in my throat. “Tell me the words ’satan­ic lit­tle turd’ didn’t just leave your mouth, princess.”

She respond­ed with a sly smile. “I’ve called him worse in my head.”

That’s my girl.

It was nice to see glimpses of the real Brid­get shine through, even when she was weighed down with all the roy­al bull­shit.

While she met with the king, I returned to the guest­house, though I sup­posed it was my actu­al house now that I was work­ing here per­ma­nent­ly.

I’d just entered my room when my phone rang. “Yeah.”

“Hel­lo to you, too,” Chris­t­ian drawled. “Peo­ple have no phone man­ners these days. It’s such a shame.”

“Get to the point, Harp­er.” I placed him on speak­er and yanked my shirt over my head. I was about to toss it in the laun­dry bas­ket when I paused. Looked around.

I couldn’t put my fin­ger on it, but some­thing was off.

“Always the charmer.” There was a short pause before Chris­t­ian said, “Magda’s gone.”

I froze. “What do you mean, gone?”

I’d spent a month guard­ing Mag­da at Christian’s request until anoth­er hand-select­ed guard fin­ished his con­tract with his pre­vi­ous client and took over. It was why I couldn’t return to Eldor­ra ear­li­er.

“I mean, gone. Roc­co woke up this morn­ing, and she’d dis­ap­peared. No tripped alarms, noth­ing.”

“You can’t find her?”

Chris­t­ian could find any­one and any­thing with even the small­est dig­i­tal foot­print. His com­put­er skills were leg­endary.

His voice chilled. “I can and I will.”