Chap­ter 51: RHYS
THREE MONTHS LATER

“Rhys!” Luciana’s face creased into a huge smile. “Como estas?”
She looked Brid­get over with a twin­kle in her eye, and when she spoke next, her words held a teas­ing note. “Es tu novia?”
I laughed and tan­gled my fin­gers with Bridget’s. “Si, es mi novia.”
“I knew it!” Luciana said with delight. “Final­ly. Come, come. I have food for you.”
She ush­ered us to the same table we’d sat at dur­ing our last trip to Cos­ta Rica. I could­n’t believe that had only been a year ago. So much had changed since then.
Hell, so much had changed in the past three months alone. Brid­get and I could final­ly enjoy being togeth­er, even as prepa­ra­tions for her coro­na­tion ramped up and I slow­ly accli­mat­ed to the spot­light. I didn’t enjoy the atten­tion, but I was more com­fort­able with it, and that was the best I could hope for.

“This was a good idea.” Brid­get sighed with hap­pi­ness when Luciana brought out a feast of meat and rice. “I need­ed a vaca­tion.”
I smirked. “I always have good ideas.”
Brid­get hadn’t want­ed to go on a trip until after her coro­na­tion, but I could tell she was buck­ling under the stress. She need­ed a get­away to reset. Plus, my mouth could be pret­ty damn per­sua­sive, espe­cial­ly when I used it for pur­pos­es oth­er than talk­ing.

It was our first vaca­tion as an offi­cial cou­ple, and I’d cho­sen Cos­ta Rica not only for sen­ti­men­tal pur­pos­es but because no one in town knew or cared Brid­get was a princess. Even after all the recent press cov­er­age, they treat­ed her as they would any­one else—warm and friend­ly, some­times inquis­i­tive, but nev­er pry­ing.

“Five days in par­adise,” I drawled. “Swim­ming, sun­bathing, fuck­ing—”
“Rhys.”
“What, you don’t like the itin­er­ary?”
“Low­er your voice,” she hissed, her face the col­or of the toma­toes on her plate. “Peo­ple will hear.”
“No one’s lis­ten­ing.”
We were the only ones on the trip. No Booth, no entourage. It took a hel­lu­va lot of con­vinc­ing, but the palace final­ly agreed to my plan. I was still qual­i­fied to guard Brid­get, even if I was no longer offi­cial­ly employed in that capac­i­ty.

Since I quit work­ing for Chris­t­ian, I’d tak­en on a few free­lance secu­ri­ty con­sult­ing gigs. I didn’t need the money—Harper Secu­ri­ty had paid very well, and I wasn’t a big spender—but I’d go out of my mind with bore­dom if I didn’t have some­thing to occu­py my days.

“You don’t know that.” Brid­get tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She wore a tank top and shorts, and her skin already glowed from the sun. No make­up or fan­cy clothes, and she was still the most beau­ti­ful sight I’d ever seen. “Peo­ple could def­i­nite­ly be lis­ten­ing.”
“Trust me. I know.” The clos­est peo­ple to us sat three tables over, their eyes glued to the soc­cer game on TV. “Even if they are, ain’t noth­ing wrong with fuck—”
“Rhys.”
I chuck­led but stopped try­ing to get a rise out of her lest her face explode from embar­rass­ment. It nev­er failed to amaze me how prim Brid­get was in pub­lic com­pared to how wild she was in bed. It made our sex even hot­ter, know­ing I got to see a side of her no one else did.

After lunch, we walked around town for a bit before I con­vinced her to return to the vil­la.
I couldn’t wait much longer.

“I have a sur­prise for you,” I said as we drove up the hill. I couldn’t resist drop­ping a hint, and talk­ing kept my focus off the knot of nerves in my stom­ach.
I wasn’t used to being ner­vous.

Brid­get perked up. “I love sur­pris­es. What is it?”
I kept one hand on the steer­ing wheel and twined the fin­gers of my oth­er hand with hers. “It wouldn’t be a sur­prise if I told you.”
“I like sur­pris­es I’m pre­pared for,” she said. “Just a hint?”
I shook my head with a grin. I’d been doing a lot more of that lately—grinning.

Some­thing had changed over the past few months. The dark, heavy cloud that’d hung over me all my life had dis­si­pat­ed. It still came back now and then, but sun­ny days were the default now, not thun­der­storms.
It was…strange. The dark­ness had been a pro­tec­tive shield, and with­out it, I felt stripped bare. Defense­less, which was not some­thing I ever want­ed to feel. But in moments like this, when it was just me and Brid­get, I didn’t need defens­es. She’d bro­ken through all of them, any­way.

“Here we are.” I parked in front of the vil­la. “Sur­prise.”
Brid­get looked around slow­ly. “Okay…” She shot a con­fused glance in my direc­tion. “I hate to tell you this, but we’ve been here before, remem­ber? Lug­gage drop-off this morn­ing? Buck­et list num­ber four?”
“Trust me, that’s not some­thing I’ll ever for­get.” My mouth quirked up at the warm rose creep­ing over her cheeks. “But that’s not the sur­prise. This is.” I held up a set of keys. “I bought the house.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
“My bud­dy was think­ing of sell­ing any­way. He and his fam­i­ly are mov­ing fur­ther down south. So, I bought it.” I shrugged.
We could stay in the nicest hotels in the world, but I want­ed a place that belonged to us.
“Rhys, you can’t…” Bridget’s eyes dart­ed to the vil­la. “Real­ly?”
“Yep.” My grin widened when she squealed in a decid­ed­ly un-princess-like man­ner and jumped out of the car.
“We’re com­ing here every year!” she yelled over her shoul­der. “And we need more ham­mocks!”
I fol­lowed her inside, a laugh rum­bling from my chest as she vis­it­ed every room like they were long-lost friends.
I loved see­ing her like this, wild and care­free, her guard down and her face lit with a smile. A real one.

“I love this place.” She slid open the glass door to the ter­race and sighed when she saw the pool. “Per­fec­tion.”
“Why do you think I bought it?”
A teas­ing sparkle bright­ened her eyes. “Rhys, are you a secret roman­tic?”
“I don’t know.” I reached into my pock­et and pulled out a small vel­vet box, the knot of nerves in my stom­ach dou­bling. Brid­get sucked in an audi­ble breath, but oth­er­wise every­thing hushed—the wind, the birds, the roar of the Pacif­ic in the dis­tance. It was like the entire world held its breath, wait­ing to see what hap­pened next.
“You tell me.”
I opened the box, reveal­ing the glit­ter­ing dia­mond ring that had burned a hole in the back of my dress­er draw­er for two months. I’d want­ed to wait until the per­fect moment. Now it was here, and I felt like an eigh­teen-year-old walk­ing into Navy train­ing for the first time again, deter­mined but scared as hell about how the next chap­ter of my life would unfold.
A pro­pos­al was inevitable. I knew it, Brid­get knew it, the world knew it. But just because some­thing was inevitable didn’t mean it wasn’t impor­tant, and this was the most impor­tant moment of my life.

“I’m not the best at flow­ery lan­guage, so I’ll keep it sim­ple.”
Fuck, was my voice shak­ing? I hoped not. “I nev­er believed in love. Nev­er want­ed it. I didn’t see the prac­ti­cal val­ue and, to be hon­est, I was doing just fine with­out it. But then I met you. Your smile, your strength, your intel­li­gence and com­pas­sion. Even your stub­born­ness and hard­head­ed­ness. You filled a part of my soul I always thought would be emp­ty, and you healed scars I nev­er knew exist­ed. And I realized…it’s not that I didn’t believe in love before. It’s that I was sav­ing it all for you.”

A half sob bled through the hand pressed to Bridget’s mouth.
I took a deep breath. “Brid­get, will you mar­ry me?”
The ques­tion hadn’t ful­ly left my mouth before Brid­get threw her arms around me and kissed me. “Yes. Yes, yes, a thou­sand times yes!”
Yes. One word, three let­ters, and it filled me up so com­plete­ly I was sure I’d nev­er hunger again.
I slipped the ring on her fin­ger. It fit per­fect­ly.
“There’s no tak­ing it back,” I said gruffly, hop­ing she couldn’t hear the hitch in my voice. “You’re real­ly stuck with me now.”