I didn’t hate my job, but I wished I could do something more meaningful than be a walking, talking mannequin.
And so it went. Day after day, month after month of the same thing. Fall turned into winter, then into spring and summer, then fall again.
Rhys stood next to me through it all, stern and grumpy as always, but he’d dialed down the overbearing attitude. For him, anyway. Compared to a normal person, he was still overprotective to the point of neuroticism.
I loved and hated the shift in equal measure. Loved it because I had more freedom, hated it because I could no longer use my irritation as a shield against whatever was crackling between us.
And there was a thing. I just wasn’t sure whether I was the only one who saw it, or if he did too.
I didn’t ask. It was safer that way.
“Do you ever think about doing anything except bodyguarding?” I asked on a rare night in. For once, I had no plans other than a date with the TV and ice cream, and I loved it.
It was September, almost two years since Rhys and I first met and over a year since I moved to New York. I’d gone full out with the seasonal decorations, including a fall wreath over the fireplace, earth-toned cushions and blankets, and a mini pumpkin centerpiece for the coffee table.
Rhys and I were watching a screwball comedy that’d popped up in my Netflix recommendations. He sat ramrod straight, fully dressed in his work outfit while I was curled up with my feet on the sofa and a pint of ice cream in my hand.
“Bodyguarding?”
“It’s a word,” I said. “If it’s not, I’m declaring it one by royal decree.”
He smirked. “You would. And to answer your question, no, I don’t. The day I do is the day I stop ‘bodyguarding.’”
I rolled my eyes. “It must be nice to see everything in black and white.”
Rhys’s gaze lingered on me for a second before he looked away. “Trust me,” he said. “Not everything is black and white.”
Inexplicably, my heart skipped a beat, but I forced myself not to demand he tell me what he meant. It probably meant nothing. It was a throwaway line.
Instead, I refocused on the movie and concentrated on not looking at the man sitting next to me.
It worked. Sort of.
I laughed at something a character said, and I noticed Rhys looking at me out of the corner of my eye.
“It’s nice,” he said.
“What?”
“Your real smile.”
Forget a skipped beat. My heart skipped a whole song.
This time, however, I covered it up by pointing my spoon at him. “That was a compliment.”
“If you say so.”
“Don’t try to play it off.” I was proud of how normal I sounded when my insides were doing things that were anything but normal. Fluttering, skipping, twisting. My doctor would have a field day. “We’ve passed a milestone. Rhys Larsen’s first compliment to Bridget von Ascheberg, and it only took two years. Mark it down.”
Rhys snorted, but humor filled his eyes. “One year and ten months,” he said. “If we’re counting.”
Which he was.
If my heart skipped any more songs, it’d have no playlist left.
Not good. Not good at all.
Whatever I felt toward Rhys, it couldn’t develop past what it was now. So, in an effort to rid myself of my increasingly disturbing reactions to my bodyguard, I agreed to go on a date with Louis, the son of the French ambassador to the United Nations, when I ran into him at an event a month after my movie night with Rhys.
Louis showed up for our date at seven o’clock sharp with a bouquet of red flowers and a charming smile, which wilted when he saw the scowling bodyguard standing so close behind me I could feel the heat from his body.
“These are for you.” Louis handed me the flowers while keeping a wary eye on Rhys. “You look beautiful.”
A low growl rumbled behind me, and Louis noticeably gulped.
“Thank you, they’re lovely,” I said with a gracious smile. “Let me put them in water and I’ll be right back.”
My smile dropped when I turned my back to Louis and faced Rhys. “Mr. Larsen, please follow me.” Once we entered the kitchen, I hissed, “Stop threatening my dates with your gun.”
I hadn’t needed to see him to know he’d probably pushed his jacket aside just enough to flash his weapon.
Louis wasn’t the first guy I’d dated in New York, though the last time I’d gone on a date had been months ago. Rhys kept scaring off my romantic prospects, and half the men in the city were afraid to ask me out for fear he would shoot them.
It hadn’t bothered me until now because I hadn’t cared for my previous dates, but it was annoying when I was actively trying to move on from whatever weird hold Rhys had on me.
Rhys’s glare intensified. “He’s wearing shoe lifts. He deserves to be threatened.”
I pressed my lips together, but a quick glance at Louis’ feet through the kitchen doorway confirmed Rhys’s observation. I thought he seemed taller. I had nothing against shoe lifts per se, but three inches seemed excessive.
Unfortunately, while I could overlook the shoe lifts, I couldn’t overlook the utter lack of chemistry between us.
Louis and I dined at a lovely French restaurant, where I struggled not to fall asleep while he rambled on about his summers in St. Tropez. Rhys sat at the next table with a glower so dark the diners on his other side requested to move tables.
By the time dinner ended, Louis was so flustered by the menacing presence less than three feet away he knocked over his wineglass and nearly caused a server to drop his tray of food.
“It’s all right,” I said, helping a mortified Louis clean up the mess while the server fussed over the stained linen tablecloth. “It was an accident.”
I glared at Rhys, who stared back at me without a hint of remorse.
“Of course.” Louis smiled, but the mortification in his eyes remained.
When we finished cleaning up, he left a generous tip for the server and bid me a polite good night. He didn’t ask me on a second date.
I wasn’t sad about it. I was, however, pissed at a certain gray-eyed pain in my butt.
“You scared Louis half to death,” I said when Rhys and I returned home. I couldn’t control the anger from seeping into my voice. “Next time, try not to unnerve my date so much he spills his drink all over himself.”
“If he scares that easily, he’s not worthy of being your date.” Rhys had dressed up to adhere to the restaurant’s dress code, but the tie and dinner jacket couldn’t mask the raw, untamed masculinity rolling off him in potent waves.
“You were armed and glaring at him like he killed your dog. It’s hard not to be nervous under those conditions.” I tossed my keys on the side table and slipped off my heels.
“I don’t have a dog.”
“It was a metaphor.” I unpinned my hair and ran my hand through the waves. “Keep it up and I’ll end up like one of those spinsters from historical romance novels. You’ve scared off every date I’ve had in the past year.”
One thing that hadn’t changed after all this time? My refusal to call him anything except Mr. Larsen, and his refusal to call me anything except princess.