Chap­ter 32: Brid­get

PROBLEM: I COULDN’T REPEAL THE LAW ON MY OWN. I NEEDED BACKUP, and I had lim­it­ed options. I didn’t want to tell Rhys until I had a more con­crete plan, and I cer­tain­ly couldn’t tell my fam­i­ly or any of the palace han­dlers. My friends in D.C. were too far away and removed from Eldor­ran pol­i­tics to help.

There was only one per­son left I could trust.

“You want to what?” Mikaela’s mouth hung open as she stared at me like I’d sprout­ed a sec­ond head. “Brid­get, the Roy­al Mar­riages Law is almost as old as the coun­try itself. It’s impos­si­ble to over­turn, espe­cial­ly with those fud­dy-dud­dies in Par­lia­ment.”

“It’s not impos­si­ble, it’s improb­a­ble,” I cor­rect­ed. “There’s a dif­fer­ence. And improb­a­ble things can become prob­a­ble with the right strat­e­gy.”

“Okay. What’s the strat­e­gy?”

“I don’t know yet.”

She groaned. “Bridge, this is crazy. Why are you going to all the trou­ble to over­turn the law? I thought every­thing was going well with Stef­fan. I mean, he was gone for a while, but he’s back and as deli­cious as ever. And he’s your date to Nikolai’s wed­ding.” She sipped her tea and set it on the table. “Am I miss­ing some­thing?”

I bit my lip. Should I spill the beans about Rhys? I trust­ed Mikaela, but I didn’t quite trust her reac­tion to the news, giv­en what she’d said in my office about dat­ing the staff.

“The law is archa­ic,” I said. “It’s not just for me. It’s for all the kings and queens after me. If it wasn’t for the law, Niko­lai would still be crown prince and hap­pi­ly engaged to Sab­ri­na.”

“Okay, but laws can’t be repealed unless the Speak­er brings the motion to the floor and a three-fourths major­i­ty of Par­lia­ment votes in favor,” Mikaela point­ed out. “When was the last time they repealed a law?”

Fif­teen years ago, when they repealed a law pro­hibit­ing speed lim­its of high­er than fifty-five miles per hour through­out the coun­try.

The odds weren’t in my favor.

“I’ll fig­ure it out.” Erhall would be dif­fi­cult, but I would think of a way to per­suade him. “Will you help?”

“You’re crazy. This is crazy.”

But for all her grum­bling, Mikaela reluc­tant­ly agreed, and for the next week, I threw all my ener­gy into cre­at­ing a work­able plan. I ana­lyzed every repealed law in Eldor­ran history—there weren’t many—and stud­ied the dif­fer­ent min­is­ters in Par­lia­ment, divid­ing them up based on how like­ly they were to pass the motion. I hadn’t fig­ured out a strat­e­gy for Erhall yet, so I left him for last.

How­ev­er, it wasn’t until my next check-in with Elin that some­thing clicked. Some­thing so sim­ple I felt like an idiot for not think­ing of it before.

“His Majesty is delight­ed you’re attend­ing Prince Nikolai’s wed­ding with Stef­fan,” Elin said with an approv­ing nod. “Cov­er­age has been pos­i­tive with the good­will tour and wed­ding, but we want to keep the momen­tum going. Plus, we want to make sure every­thing is in place for when you even­tu­al­ly take the crown. Noth­ing says sta­bil­i­ty like a good mar­riage with a good, sol­id con­sort, and Lord knows we need some sta­bil­i­ty after the abdi­ca­tion.”

“I don’t see how mar­riage affects the abil­i­ty to rule,” I said, sti­fling a yawn. I stayed up late last night doing research, and I was pay­ing the price today.

“It affects pub­lic opin­ion, Your High­ness,” Elin said in a tone that sug­gest­ed I should know this already. “No one is immune to pub­lic opin­ion. Not even the roy­al fam­i­ly.”

I froze. “What did you just say?”

She raised a ques­tion­ing brow. “No one is immune to pub­lic opin­ion, not even the roy­al fam­i­ly.”

A light­bulb went off in my head, and I almost jumped out of my chair in excite­ment. “Elin, you’re a genius,” I breathed. “An absolute genius. You deserve a raise imme­di­ate­ly.”

“Excel­lent. Please tell His Majesty the next time you speak with him.” She checked her watch. “That’s all I have for today unless—”

“No.” I was already up and halfway to the door. “This was a love­ly meet­ing. I’ll see you next week.”

I prac­ti­cal­ly ran into the hall.

“Your High­ness, please remem­ber, princess­es don’t run!” Elin called after me.

I ignored her. The ideas rushed in so fast I couldn’t keep up. Some were more devi­ous than oth­ers, but at least one had to work. It had to.

Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions were com­ing up in the fall, and I was still rid­ing high from the good­will tour. If I could get the pub­lic to back a repeal—

I slammed into a brick wall.

“Whoa. Where are you off to in such a hur­ry?” Rhys’s amused voice cut through the chat­ter in my brain as he gripped my arms and stead­ied me.

I smiled, my heart skip­ping at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?”

We didn’t have a meet­up sched­uled, but sched­ules were over­rat­ed, any­way.

“Thought I’d explore. See if any­thing inter­est­ing is hap­pen­ing, or if any princess­es need pro­tect­ing.” His mouth formed a small, teas­ing grin.

“Hmm.” I adopt­ed a thought­ful expres­sion. “I don’t know about pro­tect­ing, but I can think of a few things that might inter­est you.”

There was no one else in the hall, even so, we kept our voic­es low. Inti­mate.

Heat turned Rhys’s eyes into molten sil­ver. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Like a tour of the throne room.” I slow­ly walked back­ward until I reached the door lead­ing into the cer­e­mo­ni­al space, and we cast a quick look around before slip­ping inside.

I’d planned to brain­storm ways I could get the pub­lic to sup­port a repeal, but that could wait. I hadn’t seen Rhys all day.

“So, this is a throne room.” Rhys looked around the lav­ish space. With its mas­sive crys­tal chan­de­liers, thick crim­son car­pet and wall cov­er­ings, and gold trim, it was the most over-the-top room in the palace, but we only used it for the occa­sion­al knight­ing cer­e­mo­ny or offi­cial func­tion. No one came in here unless they had to. “Looks exact­ly the way I pic­tured a throne room would look.”

“Don’t act like you haven’t stud­ied every inch of every room in the palace already.”

Rhys gave me a slow smile, and my stom­ach flipped. “You think you know me so well.”

“I do.”

“Hmm.” He walked clos­er to me until we were mere inch­es apart. “Then do you know what I’m going to do right now?”

I held my breath. “What?”

He leaned down and whis­pered, “I’m going to sit you on that nice lit­tle throne over there and eat your pret­ty cunt out until you beg me to stop.”

I gasped out a laugh as he picked me up and tossed me over his shoul­der with the ease of some­one pick­ing up a rag doll. “You can’t! No one sits on the throne except the monarch.”

Rhys set me down on the gold and vel­vet chair.

“It’s going to be yours one day. Might as well get used to it,” he said. “How does it feel?”

“I…” I looked around. The room seemed dif­fer­ent from this van­tage point. Big­ger, more intim­i­dat­ing. “Strange. And scary. But…not as scary as I thought.”

In my mind, the throne was so large I’d nev­er grow into it, but now that I was actu­al­ly sit­ting in it? It seemed man­age­able.

“Because you’re ready for it.” Rhys said it like it wasn’t even a ques­tion. “You’re a fuck­ing queen, and don’t let any­one tell you oth­er­wise. Includ­ing your­self.”

My mouth tipped up while my heart melt­ed into a pud­dle. “If you ever give up on the body­guard gig, you could make a killing as a moti­va­tion­al speak­er.”

He chuck­led. “Not moti­va­tion, just the truth. The throne suits you. Now…” He knelt before me and spread my thighs. “How can I serve you, Your High­ness?”

Heat con­sumed my body as he pulled my under­wear down.

“Rhys,” I hissed, my pulse rac­ing with a mix of lust and anx­i­ety. “Some­one will catch us.”

The odds were slim, but they weren’t zero.

His wolfish smile caused my toes to curl. “Then we bet­ter make it worth it. Hmm, princess?”