Page 107

Bridget
The palace assignedBooth as my bodyguard again. I’d been in a terrible mood since Rhys left, and the palace handlers assumed it would help if someone I knew and liked replaced him.
Booth took the role after Edvard left the hospital two weeks ago, and while no one could replace Rhys, it was nice to see Booth’s smiling face again.
“Just like old times, huh, Your Highness?” he said as we waited for Elin and Steffan in my office. I usually didn’t have a guard in the palace, but meetings with external guests were an exception.
I forced a smile. “Yes.”
Booth hesitated, then added, “A lot has changed over the years. I’m no Mr. Larsen, but I’ll try my best.”
A fierce ache gripped my chest at Rhys’s name. “I know. I’m glad to have you back. Truly.”
And yet, thoughts of dark hair and gunmetal eyes, scars and hard-won smiles still consumed me.
There was a time when I would’ve given anything to have Booth as my bodyguard again. In the immediate weeks after his departure, I’d cursed him every day for leaving me alone with Rhys.
Insufferable, domineering, arrogant Rhys, who refused to let me walk on the outside of sidewalks and treated every visit to a bar like a mission into a war zone. Who scowled more than he laughed and argued more than he talked.
Rhys, who’d planned a last-minute trip for me so I could fulfill my bucket list, even though it must’ve gone against his every instinct as a bodyguard, and who kissed me like the world was ending and I was his last chance at salvation.
The ache intensified and spread to my throat, my eyes, my soul.
He was everywhere. In the chair where we’d kissed, the desk where we’d fucked, the painting where we’d laughed over how the artist had drawn one of the subject’s eyebrows a little higher and more crooked than the other, giving her a permanent expression of surprise.
Even if I left the office, he would still be there, haunting me.
The door opened, and I curled my hand around my knee to steady myself as Elin and Steffan walked in.
“Thank you for coming,” I said as Steffan took the seat opposite me. It was my first time seeing him in person since he’d agreed to the engagement.
He gave me a smile that looked almost as forced as mine felt. “Of course, Your Highness. We are going to be engaged, after all.”
The way he said it, I wondered if I hadn’t been the only one forced into this arrangement. He’d seemed eager enough on our first two dates, but he’d been distant and distracted since he returned from Preoria.
My mind flashed back to the tension I’d picked up on between him and Malin.
An awkward silence fell before Elin cleared her throat and pulled out her pen and notebook. “Excellent. Shall we start the meeting then, Your Highness? Top of the agenda is the timing and venue for the proposals. Lord Holstein will propose in three weeks at the Royal Botanic Gardens. It’ll be a good callback to your second date. We’ll tell the press you’ve been in regular correspondence while he was in Preoria so it doesn’t seem like the proposal came out of nowhere…”
The meeting dragged on. Elin’s voice blurred into a running stream of noise, and Steffan sat straight-backed in his chair with a glassy look in his eyes. I felt like I was attending a business merger negotiation, which I was, in a way.
Just the fairytale girls dream of.
“…your honeymoon,” Elin said. “Thoughts?”
Her expectant gaze yanked me out of the place I’d mentally escaped to while she droned on about media interviews and outfit options for the proposal.
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We need to decide on a honeymoon location,” she repeated. “Paris is classic, if cliche. The Maldives are popular but getting too trendy. We could choose somewhere more unique, maybe in Central or South America. Brazil, Belize, Costa Rica…”
“No!”
Everyone jumped at my uncharacteristic shout. Booth’s eyes grew round, and Elin’s brow creased with disapproval. Only Steffan’s expression remained neutral.
“No, not Costa Rica,” I repeated more calmly, my heart pounding. “Anywhere but there.”
I would rather honeymoon in Antarctica wearing nothing but a bikini.
Costa Rica belonged to me and Rhys. No one else.
Bucket list number four.
Have you ever been in love?
No. But I hope to be one day.
Look up, princess.
A now-familiar burn pulsed behind my eyes, and I forced myself to breathe through it until it passed.
“It’s too soon to talk about the honeymoon anyway.” My voice sounded far away, like that of one speaking in a dream. “We’re not officially engaged yet.”
“We want to iron out the details as soon as possible. Planning a royal marriage and coronation in the same year is no small feat,” Elin said. “The press will want to know.”
“Let’s get through the proposal first.” My tone brooked no opposition. “The press can wait.”
She sighed, her mouth so pinched I worried it would freeze that way. “Yes, Your Highness.”
After an hour, the meeting finally ended, and Elin rushed off to another meeting with my grandfather. Edvard had been doing well after his hospitalization, but we hadn’t discussed Rhys or what happened in his office before his heart attack yet.
I had no issues with that. I wasn’t ready for those discussions.