Rhys chewed quietly, not answering me.
“Did you…” A strange lump formed in my throat. I blamed it on too much food. “Did you come up with the idea? And set it up all by yourself?”
“It’s not a big deal.” He continued eating without looking at me.
I’d known it was him since my phone call with Jules, but hearing him confirm it was a whole other matter.
The butterflies in my stomach escaped all at once, and the lump in my throat grew. “It is a big deal. It was…very thoughtful. As was tonight. Thank you.” I spun my silver ring around my finger. “But I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me it was your idea, or why you did it all. You don’t even like me.”
Rhys’s brow scrunched. “Who said I didn’t like you?”
“You.”
“I never said that.”
“You implied it. You’re always so grumpy and scolding me.”
“Only when you don’t listen.”
I bit back a tart reply. The night was going so well, and I didn’t want to ruin it, even if he made me feel like a misbehaving child sometimes.
“I didn’t tell you because it was inappropriate,” he added gruffly. “You’re my client. I should not be…doing those types of things.”
My heart crashed against my ribcage. “But you did it, anyway.”
Rhys’s mouth flattened into a displeased line, like he was angry at his own actions. “Yes.”
“Why?”
He finally lifted his eyes to meet mine. “Because I understand what it’s like to be alone.”
Alone.
The word struck me harder than it should’ve. I wasn’t physically alone—I was surrounded by people all day, every day. But no matter how much I tried to pretend I was a normal college student, I wasn’t. I was the Princess of Eldorra. It meant glamour and celebrity, but it also meant bodyguards and round-the-clock protection, bulletproof vests and a life that was planned, not lived.
The other royals I knew, including my brother, were content with living life in a fishbowl. I was the only one clawing at my insides, desperate to escape my own skin.
Alone.
Rhys somehow recognized that inherent truth about me before I did.
“Thoughtful and observant.” He was observant of his surroundings, but I hadn’t expected him to be so observant of me he saw parts of me I’d hid from myself. “You really are full of surprises.”
“Don’t tell anyone, or I’ll have to kill them.”
The tension cracked, and a small, genuine smile blossomed on my lips. “Humorous too. I’m convinced aliens have hijacked your body.”
Rhys snorted. “I’d like to see them try.”
I didn’t ask any more questions after that, and Rhys didn’t offer any more answers. We finished our dinner in companionable silence, and after he paid—he’d refused to entertain the idea of splitting the check—we walked off the food in a nearby park.
“You’re really letting me walk around here without my vest?” I teased. The bulletproof vest hung in the back of my closet, unused since our trip to the mall.
An image of Rhys’s hands on my skin in the dressing room flashed through my mind, and my face heated.
Thank God it’s dark out.
“Don’t make me regret it.” Rhys paused before adding, “You’ve proven you can handle yourself without me breathing down your neck.” He said it almost grudgingly.
I had been more careful with my actions in recent months, even without Rhys’s explicit instructions, but I hadn’t expected him to notice. He’d never said anything about it until now.
A pleasant warmth unfurled in my stomach. “Mr. Larsen, we might not kill each other after all.”
His mouth twitched.
We continued walking through the park, where we passed couples making out on the benches, teens huddled by the fountain, and a busker playing his heart out on the guitar.
I wanted to stay in that peaceful moment forever, but dinner, alcohol, and a long day conspired to drive exhaustion into my bones, and I couldn’t hold back a small yawn.
Rhys noticed instantly. “Time to go, princess. Let’s get you to bed.”
Maybe it was because I was delirious from fatigue and the high emotion of the day, or maybe it was because of my recent dry spell with the opposite sex, but a mental image of him “getting me to bed” flashed through my mind, and my entire body flushed.
Because in my imagination, we were doing anything but sleeping.
Images of Rhys naked, on top of me, under me, behind me…they all crowded my brain until my thighs clenched and my clothes rasped against my skin. My tongue suddenly felt too thick, the air too thin.
My first sexual fantasy about him, and he was standing less than five feet away, staring right at me.
I was a princess, he was my bodyguard.
I was twenty-two, he was thirty-two.
It was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.
Rhys’s eyes darkened. Mind reading didn’t exist, but I had the eerie sense he could somehow crawl inside my brain and pick out every dirty, forbidden thought I had about him.
I opened my mouth—to say what, I wasn’t sure, but I had to say something to break the dangerously charged silence.
Before I could utter a word, however, a gunshot ripped through the night, and chaos ensued.
8
Bridget/Rhys
BRIDGET
One second, I was standing. The next, I was on the ground, my cheek pressed to the grass while Rhys shielded my body with his, and screams rang out through the park.
It all happened so quickly it took my brain several beats to catch up with my pounding pulse.
Dinner. Park. Gunshots. Screams.
Individual words that made sense on their own, but I couldn’t string them together into a coherent thought.
There was another gunshot, followed by more screams.
Above me, Rhys let out a curse so low and harsh I felt it more than I heard it.
“On the count of three, we’re running for the tree cover.” His steady voice eased some of my nerves. “Got it?”
I nodded. My dinner threatened to make a reappearance, but I forced myself to focus. I couldn’t freak out, not when we were in full view of the shooter.
I saw him now. It was so dark I couldn’t make out many details except for his hair—longish and curly on top—and his clothes. Sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers. He looked like any of the dozens of guys in my classes at Thayer, and that made him all the more terrifying.
He had his back to us, looking down at something, someone—a victim—but he could turn around any second.
Rhys shifted so I could push myself onto my hands and knees, keeping low as I did so. He’d drawn his gun, and the grouchy but thoughtful man from dinner had disappeared, replaced by a stone-cold soldier.
Focused. Determined. Lethal.
For the first time, I glimpsed the man he’d been in the military, and a shiver snaked down my spine. I pitied anyone who had to face him on the battlefield.
Rhys counted down in the same calm voice. “One, two…three.”
I didn’t think. I ran.
Another gunshot fired behind us, and I flinched and stumbled over a loose rock. Rhys grabbed my arms with firm hands, his body still shielding me from behind, and guided me to the thicket of trees at the edge of the park. We couldn’t reach the exit without passing directly by the shooter, where there was no cover at all, so we would have to wait until the police arrived.