Chap­ter 3: Brid­get remind­ed me just how com­pli­cat­ed it could be liv­ing with a body­guard around the clock. Shar­ing space with Rhys wasn’t like it had been with Booth; every­thing with Rhys was height­ened, tense, and odd­ly inti­mate in a way that unset­tled me more than I liked admit­ting. Our small house sud­den­ly felt even small­er, with Rhys’s con­stant pres­ence loom­ing in the cor­ners of every room. He was always there, whether brew­ing cof­fee in the kitchen, emerg­ing ful­ly clothed after a show­er, or pun­ish­ing the back­yard pull-up bar with a work­out that would hum­ble Olympic ath­letes. It felt strange­ly domes­tic in a way that made my chest tight­en, and I hat­ed it. I couldn’t stop notic­ing things I shouldn’t, like the way his mus­cles bunched under his black shirts or how eas­i­ly sweat trailed down his tem­ple in the late fall heat. Every encounter chipped away at the wall I tried to rebuild after our last tem­po­rary cease­fire.

I fum­bled for dis­tance, cling­ing to sar­casm like a life raft, but Rhys caught every slip with infu­ri­at­ing pre­ci­sion. That after­noon, while he was work­ing out in clothes clear­ly meant for autumn weath­er, I found myself watch­ing instead of read­ing, much to my own hor­ror. I accused him of try­ing to cook him­self alive, but he shot back a com­ment about me secret­ly want­i­ng him to strip. The worst part? A tiny, ridicu­lous part of me actu­al­ly won­dered what he looked like with­out the ever-present bar­ri­er of cot­ton and dis­ci­pline. I tried to brush it off, retreat­ing inside with what­ev­er scraps of dig­ni­ty I had left, but even the air-con­di­tion­ing couldn’t cool the heat burn­ing beneath my skin. Our con­stant snip­ing was sup­posed to keep him at arm’s length. Instead, it added to the strange, sim­mer­ing ten­sion nei­ther of us dared to name aloud.

Time did­n’t soft­en things much. Over the next few days, Rhys’s silent judg­ment fol­lowed me every­where, includ­ing to my vol­un­teer shifts at Wags & Whiskers. If it weren’t for Wendy and the play­ful shel­ter ani­mals, I might have lost my mind. Wendy thought Rhys was mys­te­ri­ous and hot, like some for­bid­den romance nov­el hero. I almost choked when she sug­gest­ed switch­ing lives with me. She didn’t have to live with the man glar­ing at my every move like I was sec­onds away from get­ting myself killed. Rhys’s vig­i­lance nev­er wavered, not even when the only dan­ger around was a par­rot named Leather shout­ing scan­dalous things from his cage. Watch­ing him be so hyper-aware even in a room full of cats and chew toys made me won­der how exhaust­ing it had to be, liv­ing with every nerve stretched tight like a bow­string. But when I asked, he just answered with one word—no—and shut me out again, like he always did.

The strangest part was how some­times, he slipped. Lit­tle cracks appeared between us, like the day he asked why I vol­un­teered at the shel­ter. His ques­tion wasn’t mock­ing or con­de­scend­ing; it was almost…curious. For a moment, I dropped my guard and told him about my moth­er, how she passed down her love for ani­mals to me, and how work­ing at shel­ters made me feel clos­er to her. I hadn’t shared that with any­one out­side my close cir­cle, but Rhys’s steady pres­ence drew it out with­out try­ing. His sim­ple response—“I understand”—was so unex­pect­ed, so gen­uine, that it lodged in my heart before I could shield myself. We had this moment, this strange con­nec­tion where the walls between us wavered. But, like always, it didn’t last. Leather’s inap­pro­pri­ate squawk shat­tered the frag­ile peace, and we both retreat­ed to our respec­tive cor­ners, pre­tend­ing it hadn’t hap­pened at all.

Even after that, some­thing had shift­ed. Rhys wasn’t quite as sharp-edged around me, and though we didn’t speak much, the silences felt less hos­tile. I let myself hope that maybe, just maybe, we could get through this strange liv­ing arrange­ment with­out killing each oth­er. That hope evap­o­rat­ed dur­ing one of our walks back from the shel­ter. Hazel­burg was one of the safest towns in Amer­i­ca, but when a car screeched around the cor­ner too fast, Rhys react­ed with mil­i­tary pre­ci­sion, shov­ing me into an alley and cov­er­ing me with his body. For sev­er­al heart­beats, all I could feel was his heat, his strength, and the wild rhythm of both our puls­es ham­mer­ing through the thin space between us. He didn’t move until the car dis­ap­peared and the adren­a­line began to ebb, but the imprint of his body on mine lin­gered long after we stepped back into the street.

The inci­dent sparked anoth­er argument—no more walk­ing, he insist­ed. Dri­ve or noth­ing. I argued back, frus­trat­ed by the con­stant con­trol, but deep down I knew he wasn’t try­ing to con­trol me because he want­ed pow­er. He did it because the idea of me get­ting hurt twist­ed him up inside. I didn’t know what scared me more: the idea that he cared, or the idea that one day, I might care too much in return. For a girl who had spent her whole life dodg­ing emo­tion­al attach­ments, that thought was dan­ger­ous. Safer to keep our bat­tles about logis­tics and stub­born­ness than to even glance at the bat­tle­field stir­ring under the sur­face. Yet no mat­ter how much I told myself it was all pro­fes­sion­al, the way his eyes soft­ened for a split sec­ond after check­ing me for injuries said oth­er­wise.

Dur­ing our final few days before leav­ing for Eldor­ra, a new, heav­ier ten­sion hung between us. It wasn’t just the usu­al fric­tion any­more; it was lay­ered with some­thing heav­ier, some­thing nei­ther of us want­ed to acknowl­edge. Pack­ing my bags became an exer­cise in avoid­ance, shov­ing things into suit­cas­es with unnec­es­sary force while pre­tend­ing I didn’t notice how Rhys watched from the door­way. Eldor­ra meant Christ­mas, fam­i­ly, duties—and now him, woven into all of it. The idea of Rhys in the palace unset­tled me in ways I didn’t want to admit. The con­trast between his brood­ing strength and the frag­ile tra­di­tions of the roy­al court would be stark. Worse, it would be a con­stant reminder that no mat­ter how well I wore my crown, the life I real­ly want­ed might always be just out of reach.

I thought maybe dis­tance would make it eas­i­er, but as we board­ed the plane to Eldor­ra, Rhys’s sol­id, silent fig­ure next to me said oth­er­wise. He was already too close, even when he didn’t speak a word. I pressed my fore­head to the cold win­dow and closed my eyes, wish­ing I could leave my tan­gled feel­ings behind like for­got­ten lug­gage on the tar­mac. But the truth clung to me stub­born­ly, whis­per­ing that no mat­ter how many con­ti­nents we crossed, some bat­tles you couldn’t out­run. And some peo­ple you couldn’t ignore, no mat­ter how des­per­ate­ly you tried.