Chap­ter 26: Brid­get

MY GRANDFATHER WANTED TO KNOW HOW MY DATE WITH STEFFAN went.

That was right. The rea­son the king sum­moned me to his office imme­di­ate­ly after I returned to the palace was so I could give him a detailed break­down of my first date with the future Duke of Holstein—and poten­tial future Prince Con­sort. He did also apol­o­gize for not includ­ing me in the “emer­gency” tax reform meet­ing, which Erhall called at the last minute. I was con­vinced Erhall did so know­ing I wouldn’t be able to attend because of my date with Stef­fan, but I couldn’t prove it.

Edvard, mean­while, was con­vinced Stef­fan was the one. Based on what, I wasn’t sure, but I imag­ined Steffan’s title, pho­to­genic looks, and diplo­mat­ic demeanor had some­thing to do with it.

My grand­fa­ther wasn’t the only one. The press and pub­lic went wild for the pho­tos of us at the ice-skat­ing rink, and every­one was already buzzing about our “bur­geon­ing rela­tion­ship” even though I’d spo­ken to Stef­fan twice in my life.

Still, Elin insist­ed I cap­i­tal­ize on the atten­tion with anoth­er date. It would be a “pri­vate” one with no reporters—to give the illu­sion of intimacy—but would lat­er “leak” to the press. I agreed, if only because she was right. The Part-Time Princess head­lines had dis­ap­peared, replaced by breath­less spec­u­la­tion over the new “love” in my life.

If only they knew.

On paper, Stef­fan would make the per­fect hus­band. He was good-look­ing, intel­li­gent, kind, and fun­ny, and he was by far the best option out of the so-called eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors who’d attend­ed my birth­day ball.

There was only one prob­lem: no chem­istry.

None. Zip. Nada.

I had as much roman­tic inter­est in Stef­fan as I did the suc­cu­lent plant in my room.

“It’s because you haven’t kissed him yet,” Mikaela said when I told her about my dilem­ma. “At least kiss the man. You can tell every­thing based on one kiss.”

She may be right.

So, at the end of my sec­ond date with Stef­fan, I worked up the nerve to kiss him, even though it seemed far too soon. But he was leav­ing for Preo­ria tomor­row, and I need­ed to know if this would go any­where. I couldn’t spend weeks won­der­ing.

“I must admit, I was sur­prised you want­ed to meet again so soon after our first date.” He gave me a shy smile. “Pleas­ant­ly sur­prised, that is.”

We walked through the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens’ large, heat­ed green­house. Lush flow­ers bloomed around every cor­ner, scent­ing the air with their sweet per­fume, and strings of lights twin­kled over­head like tiny stars. It was as roman­tic a set­ting as one could hope for, and I tried to focus on Stef­fan instead of the scowl­ing body­guard shad­ow­ing our every move.

If looks could kill, Rhys would’ve put Stef­fan six feet in the ground by now.

That was anoth­er rea­son I was hes­i­tant to kiss Stef­fan. It seemed…wrong to do that in front of Rhys.

God, I wished I’d thought this through before­hand.

“I had fun,” I said when I real­ized I hadn’t respond­ed yet. “Thanks for agree­ing even though I’m sure you’re busy prepar­ing for your trip tomor­row.”

“Of course.”

Stef­fan smiled.

I smiled.

My palms slicked with sweat.

Just do it. One tiny kiss. You have noth­ing to feel guilty about. You and Rhys aren’t dat­ing.

“I’m not sure why, but I have the strangest desire to give a run­down of all the fun facts I know about flow­ers,” Stef­fan said. “Did you know tulips were worth more than gold in sev­en­teenth-cen­tu­ry Hol­land? Lit­er­al­ly.”

That’s what hap­pens when I’m ner­vous. I start spout­ing all sorts of use­less facts.

A sub­tle hint from Stef­fan he want­ed a kiss too. He had no rea­son to be ner­vous oth­er­wise.

I dis­creet­ly wiped my palms on my skirt. Don’t look at Rhys. If I did, I would nev­er go through with it.

“That’s fas­ci­nat­ing.” I winced when I real­ized that was the sort of answer some­one gave when they found the sub­ject any­thing but inter­est­ing. “Tru­ly.”

Stef­fan laughed. “I’m afraid there’s only one way to stop me from bor­ing you death with my flo­ral knowl­edge, Your High­ness,” he said somber­ly.

“What’s that?” I asked, dis­tract­ed by the sen­sa­tion of Rhys’s gaze burn­ing a hole in my side.

“This.” Before I could react, Steffan’s lips were on mine, and even though I knew the kiss was com­ing, I was still so stunned I could only stand there.

He tast­ed faint­ly of mint, and his lips were soft as they brushed against mine. It was a nice, sweet kiss, the kind cam­eras zoomed in on in movies and most women swooned over.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, I wasn’t one of them. I might as well be kiss­ing my pil­low.

Dis­ap­point­ment crashed into me. I’d hoped a kiss would change things, but it only con­firmed what I already knew. Stef­fan, for all his won­der­ful traits, wasn’t for me.

Maybe I was naïve for think­ing I could find a fiancé to whom I was attract­ed to and whose com­pa­ny I enjoyed, but I was only in my twen­ties. No mat­ter how much every­one tried to rush me, I wasn’t ready to give up on my hope for love yet.

I final­ly gath­ered enough of my wits to pull back, but before I could, a loud crash shat­tered the silence in the green­house.

Stef­fan and I jumped apart, and my eyes fell on Rhys, who stood next to a bro­ken pot of lilies.

“My hand slipped.” His voice held not an ounce of apol­o­gy.

That was, for lack of a bet­ter term, utter crap. Rhys didn’t slip. He may be larg­er than the aver­age per­son, but he moved with the lethal grace of a pan­ther.

That was what he remind­ed me of right now—a pan­ther prepar­ing to pounce on unwit­ting prey. Taut face, coiled mus­cles, and eyes trained with laser inten­si­ty on Stef­fan, who shift­ed with dis­com­fort beneath his stare.

“Atten­tion all guests, the gar­dens are clos­ing in fif­teen min­utes.” The announce­ment blared over the PA sys­tem, sav­ing us from the most awk­ward moment of my life. “Please make your way to the exits. The gar­dens are clos­ing in fif­teen min­utes. Vis­i­tors in the gift shop, please final­ize your pur­chas­es.”

“I guess that’s our cue.” Stef­fan held out his arm with a smile, though he kept a wary eye on Rhys. “Shall we, Your High­ness?”

We’d booked the green­house for our­selves, though the rest of the gar­dens remained open to the pub­lic. We could prob­a­bly stay longer if we want­ed, but I had no desire to drag out the night.

I took Steffan’s arm and walked to the exit, where we said good­bye with a stilt­ed half-hug, half-kiss on the cheek and promis­es to meet up again when he returned to Athen­berg.

Rhys and I didn’t speak until we reached our car.

“You’re pay­ing for the flow­er­pot,” I said.

“I’ll take care of it.”

The park­ing lot was emp­ty except for a hand­ful of cars in the dis­tance, and ten­sion rolled between us, so thick I could prac­ti­cal­ly taste it.

“I know he fits the image of Prince Charm­ing, but you might want to keep look­ing.” Rhys unlocked the car doors. “I’ve seen you kiss a cat with more pas­sion.”

“Is that why you knocked over the lilies?”

“My. Hand. Slipped,” he bit out.

Maybe it was the wine I’d had at din­ner, or the stress was get­ting to me. What­ev­er it was, I couldn’t help it—I burst into laugh­ter.

Wild, hys­ter­i­cal laugh­ter that left me gasp­ing for breath and clutch­ing my stom­ach right there in the mid­dle of the park­ing lot.

“What the hell is so fun­ny?” Rhys’s grumpy tone only made me laugh hard­er.

“You. Me. Us.” I wiped tears of mirth from my eyes. “You’re an ex-Navy SEAL and I’m roy­al­ty, and we’re in such denial we might as well apply for Egypt­ian cit­i­zen­ship.”

He didn’t crack a smile at my admit­ted­ly lame attempt at a joke.

“I don’t know what you’re talk­ing about.”

“Stop it.” I was tired of fight­ing. “I asked you before, and I’m ask­ing you again. Why did you come back, Mr. Larsen? The real answer this time.”

“I gave you the real answer.”

“The oth­er real answer.”

Rhys’s jaw clenched. “I don’t know what you want me to say, princess.”

“I want you to say the truth.”

I knew my truth. I need­ed to hear his.

My truth? There was only one man who’d ever giv­en me but­ter­flies with a kiss. One man whose touch set me on fire and made me believe in all the fan­tas­ti­cal things I’d dreamed about since I was a child.

Love, pas­sion, desire.

“Truth?”

Rhys took a step toward me, the hard steel in his eyes giv­ing way to tur­bu­lent thun­der­storms.

I took an instinc­tive step back until my back hit the side of our SUV. There was anoth­er car next to us, and the two vehi­cles formed a makeshift cocoon that crack­led with elec­tric­i­ty as he plant­ed his hands on either side of my head.

“The truth, princess, is I came back know­ing this was what I signed up for. To see you every day and not be able to touch you. Kiss you. Claim you.” Rhys’s breath was hot against my skin as he low­ered one hand and slid it up my thigh. It seared through the thick lay­ers of my skirt and tights until my pussy clenched and my nip­ples tight­ened into hard points. “I came back despite know­ing the tor­ture I’d have to go through because I can’t stay away from you. Even when you’re not there, you’re every­where. In my head, in my lungs, in my fuck­ing soul. And I’m try­ing very hard not to lose my shit right now, sweet­heart, because all I want is to cut off that fucker’s head and serve it on a plat­ter for dar­ing to touch you. Then bend you over the hood and spank your ass raw for let­ting him.” He cupped me between my legs and squeezed. I whim­pered with a mix­ture of pain and plea­sure. “So don’t. Push. Me.”

A thou­sand emo­tions ran through my veins, turn­ing me light­head­ed with arousal and dan­ger.

Because what Rhys just said was dan­ger­ous. What we were doing, feel­ing, was dan­ger­ous.