“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.
I was the reason they were dead. The least I could do was pay my respects.
“Do you stay in touch with your friends from the Navy?” Bridget asked as we walked toward the exit.
I kept an eye out for any more paparazzi or ne'er-do-wells, but there was no one else around except for us and ghosts from the past.
“A couple. Not as often as I’d like.”
My unit had been my family, but after what happened, it became too hard for the survivors to keep in touch. We reminded each other too much of what we’d lost.
The only person I kept in regular touch with was my old commander from my early days in the Navy.
“What made you leave?” Bridget tucked her hands deeper into her coat pockets, and I resisted the urge to draw her closer so I could share some of my body heat. It was damn cold, and her coat didn’t look thick enough to protect her from the wind.
“It got too much. The deployments, the uncertainty, the funerals. Watching the men I served with die right in front of me.” The tightness squeezed, and I forced myself to breathe through it before continuing. “It fucked me up, and if I hadn’t left when I did...” I would’ve lost what was left of myself. I shook my head. “It’s the same story as a lot of vets. I’m no one special.”
We reached the car, but when I opened the door for Bridget to get in, she rested her hand on my arm instead.
I stiffened, her touch burning through my clothes more effectively than any chill or flame.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Both for what happened and for prying.”
“I got out years ago. If I didn’t want to talk about it, I wouldn’t. It’s not a big deal.” I pulled my arm away and opened the car door wider, but the imprint of her touch lingered. “I don’t regret my time in the Navy. The guys in my unit were like brothers to me, the closest I ever had to a real family, and I wouldn’t give that up for the world. But the frontline stuff? Yeah, I was over that shit.”
I’d never shared that with anyone before. Then again, I’d had no one to share it with except my old therapist, and I’d had enough issues to work through with her without delving into why I left the military.
“Yet you chose to be a bodyguard after,” Bridget noted. “Not exactly a danger-free occupation.”
“I have the skills to be a good bodyguard.” A lot of former SEALs went the private security route, and Christian may have been a bastard, but he was a persuasive bastard. He’d convinced me to sign on the dotted line less than a day after I returned to U.S. soil. “Don’t think I’ve ever been in as much danger as since you became my client, though.”
Her brow scrunched in confusion, and I almost smiled.
Almost.
“My risk of rupturing an artery increased tenfold.”
Bridget’s confusion cleared, replaced with an odd combination of delight and exasperation. “Glad to see you found your sense of humor, Mr. Larsen. It’s a Christmas miracle.”
A chuckle escaped my throat, the sound so foreign I barely recognized it as my own, and something in my soul stirred, nudged awake by the reminder other things existed besides the darkness that had haunted me for so long.
Surprise flared in Bridget’s eyes before she offered a tentative smile in return, and the something lifted its head at the further encouragement.
I shoved it back down.
A laugh was fine. Anything else was not.
“Let’s go.” I wiped the smile off my face. “Or we’ll be late.”
BRIDGET
If I could sum up my relationship with Rhys with one song, it would be Katy Perry’s “Hot N Cold.” One minute, we were fighting and giving each other the cold shoulder. The next, we were laughing and bonding over jokes.
Okay, bonding was too strong a word for what had happened in the cemetery parking lot. Acting like normal human beings toward each other was more accurate. And Rhys hadn’t so much laughed as slipped up with a half chuckle, but maybe that constituted a laugh in his world. I couldn’t picture him throwing his head back with mirth any more than I could picture The Rock dancing ballet.