Page 10

Rhys/Bridget
RHYS
Bridget and I arrived in Athenberg, Eldorra’s capital, four days after my no-more-walking decree opened a second front in our ongoing cold war. The plane ride had been chillier than a winter dip in a Russian river, but I didn’t care.
I didn’t need her to like me to do my job.
I scanned the city’s near-empty National Cemetery, listening to the eerie howl of the wind whistle through the bare trees. A deep chill swept through the cemetery, burrowing past my layers of clothing and sinking deep into my bones.
Today was the first semi-free day on Bridget’s schedule since we landed, and she’d shocked the hell out of me when she insisted on spending it at the cemetery.
When I saw why, though, I understood.
I maintained a respectful distance from where she kneeled before two tombstones, but I was still close enough to see the names engraved on them.
Josefine von Ascheberg. Frederik von Ascheberg.
Her parents.
I’d been ten when Crown Princess Josefine died during childbirth. I remembered seeing photos of the late princess splashed across magazines and TV screens for weeks. Prince Frederik had died a few years later in a car crash.
Bridget and I weren’t friends. Hell, we weren’t even friendly most of the time. That didn’t stop the strange tug at my heart when I saw the sadness on her face as she murmured something to her parents’ graves.
Bridget brushed a strand of hair out of her face, her sad expression melting into a small smile as she said something else. I rarely gave a damn what people did and said in their personal lives, but I almost wished I were close enough to hear what made her smile.
My phone pinged, and I welcomed the distraction from my unsettling thoughts until I saw the message.
Christian: I can get you the name in less than ten minutes.
Me: No. Drop it.
Another message popped up, but I pocketed my phone without reading it.
Irritation spiked through me.
Christian was a persistent bastard who reveled in digging into the skeletons of other people’s pasts. He’d been bugging me since he found out I was spending the holidays in Eldorra—he knew my hang-ups about the country—and if he weren’t my boss and the closest thing I had to a friend, his face would’ve met my fist by now.
I told him I didn’t want the name, and I meant it. I’d survived thirty-one years without knowing. I could survive thirty-one more, or however long it took before I kicked the bucket.
I returned my attention to Bridget just as a twig snapped nearby, followed by the soft click of a camera shutter.
My head jerked up, and a low growl rumbled from my throat when I spotted a telltale pouf of blond hair peeking from the top of a nearby tombstone.
Fucking paparazzi.
The asshole squeaked and tried to flee when he realized he’d been caught, but I stormed over and grabbed the back of his jacket before he could take more than a few steps.
I saw Bridget stand up out of the corner of my eye, her expression concerned.
“Give me your camera,” I said, my calm voice belying my anger. Paparazzi were an inescapable evil when guarding high-profile people, but there was a difference between snapping photos of someone eating and shopping versus snapping photos of them in a private moment.
Bridget was visiting her parents’ graves, for fuck’s sake, and this piece of shit had the nerve to intrude.
“No way,” the paparazzo blustered. “This is a free country, and Princess Bridget is a public figure. I can—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence before I yanked the camera from his hand, dropped it on the ground, and smashed it into smithereens with my boot.
I didn’t like asking twice.
He howled in protest. “That was a five-thousand-dollar camera!”
“Consider yourself lucky that’s all that got broken.” I released his jacket and straightened it for him, the movement more a threat than a courtesy. “You have five seconds to get out of my sight before that changes.”
The paparazzo was indignant, but he wasn’t stupid. Two seconds later, he’d disappeared through the trees, leaving the pieces of his now useless camera behind. A minute after that, I heard an engine turn over and a car peel out of the parking lot.
“I recognize him. He’s from the National Express.” Bridget came up beside me, looking not at all surprised by the turn of events. “The trashiest of the tabloids. They’ll probably run a story about me joining a Satanic ring or something after what you did to his camera.”
I snorted. “He deserved it. I can’t stand people who don’t respect others’ privacy.”
A small smile flitted across her face, the first she’d given me in days, and the earlier chill abated. “He’s paparazzi. It’s his job to invade others’ privacy.”
“Not when people are at the fucking cemetery.”
“I’m used to it. Unless I’m in the palace, there’s always a chance what I do will end up in the papers.” Bridget sounded resigned. “Thank you for taking care of that, even if your method was more…aggressive than I would’ve advised.” A hint of sadness remained in her eyes, and I felt that strange tug in my chest again. Maybe it was because I related to the source of her sadness—the feeling I was all alone in the world, without the two people who were supposed to love me most by my side.
I’d never had that parental love, so despite the hole it left, I didn’t understand what I was missing. Bridget had experienced it, at least on her father’s side, so I imagined the loss was even greater for her.
You’re not here to relate to her, asshole. You’re here to guard her. That’s it. No matter how beautiful or sad she looked, or how much I wanted to erase the melancholy cloaking her.
It wasn’t my job to make her feel better.
I stepped back. “You ready? We can stay longer if you want, but you have an event in an hour.”
“No, I’m ready. I just wanted to wish my parents a Merry Christmas and catch them up on my life.” Bridget tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking self-conscious. “It sounds silly, but it’s tradition, and I feel like they’re listening…” She trailed off. “Like I said, it’s silly.”
“It’s not silly.” A tightness formed in my chest and spread until it choked me with memories best left forgotten. “I do the same with my old military buddies.” The ones buried in the D.C. area, anyway, though I tried to make it out to the other places when I could.