52 pages • 1 hour read
Ana HuangTwisted Games
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 12-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary: “Rhys”
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of drug abuse and child abuse.
When Rhys sees Nikolai alone, he realizes that something is not right and begins to worry about Bridget even on his day off. He learns from Nikolai and the palace staff that no one knows where Bridget is. After her argument with Nikolai, she stormed off and went for a ride on her horse. The weather has turned bad and her horse has been found, but no one is looking for Bridget. Furious at this inaction, Rhys searches for Bridget alone in the rain. He finds her unconscious with a big bruise on her head and takes her back to the palace. A doctor later tells him and the others that Bridget has a mild concussion and a sprained wrist, but she should be fine in a few weeks.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “Bridget”
As Bridget heals over the following weeks, the palace makes plans to announce her ascension to the throne in just over a month. One night when Bridget is at her secret hideout on top of the palace roof, she is surprised to see Rhys there. When she offhandedly mentions moving back to Eldorra, she suddenly realizes that she has not yet told him about the abdications. To cover up the awkward moment, she tells a half-truth about moving back because she wants to be near her family. Rhys says that if that is the case, she won’t need him anymore because she has the palace guard. This thought makes Bridget angry, and she is determined to spend the next month living her life as fully as possible, regardless of Rhys’s opinion.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary: “Rhys”
Rhys is miserable when Bridget begins flirting with a man he knows she doesn’t like. He confronts them both one night when they are out dancing. To Bridget’s disdain, Rhys threatens the man until he leaves. He then makes Bridget leave the venue as well. Rhys and Bridget fight when they return home, and she drunkenly asks if he always scares off her dates because he wants to be with her. Fueled by lust and anger, Rhys admits to Bridget everything he wants to do with her. This does not scare Bridget away like he expected, and she tells him to have sex with her.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary: “Rhys”
Despite being tempted, Rhys does not give Bridget what she wants. Instead, he asks what is wrong. She admits that she only has a week left until she becomes the heir to the throne; she just wants to live a normal life until then. Bridget has a bucket list of four things she wants to do before returning to Eldorra: go to someplace where no one knows who she is, do nothing all day, do something dangerous that gives her an adrenaline rush, and have an orgasm that someone else initiates. Although Rhys knows that he shouldn’t help her with any of these things, he wants her to be happy and begins looking into the first three things on her list.
Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary: “Bridget”
Bridget wakes up the next morning incredibly hungover and embarrassed. She and Rhys agree to forget everything that happened the night before, but he still promises to help her with her bucket list.
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary: “Bridget”
Rhys helps Bridget check the first item off her bucket list when he takes her to a friend’s house in a small town in Costa Rica. Bridget is stunned by the lengths to which Rhys is willing to go for her, especially when he takes her outside at night to see the stars.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “Bridget”
Bridget and Rhys spend four days relaxing in Costa Rica. Rhys lets Bridget do all of the adventurous things she wants, including zip-lining and parasailing. The one thing he refuses to do is get in the pool with her. On the last night, she finally convinces him to swim with her, but when he takes off his shirt, she sees that his back is covered with scars. He tells her that he got the scars from his mother. He explains that his mother fell in love with a man who left her when she was pregnant. Rhys’s mother turned to drugs and alcohol and punished her son for ruining her life; she always believed that the man she loved would come back. Bridget cries for Rhys and kisses his scars. When she makes one last effort to try to convince him to kiss her, she is surprised when he does.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “Rhys”
Rhys and Bridget perform oral sex on one another after agreeing that nothing more can happen between them. They also agree that word of their activities will never leave the room. Afterward, they are both happy and satisfied. They wish that they didn’t have to leave Costa Rica, but Rhys knows that nothing more can ever happen between them.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “Bridget”
Bridget wakes up happy until she realizes that Rhys is back to being his usual cold self. When she offers him the proposition to extend his contract as her bodyguard, he only answers that he will decide by the end of the week. Yet when Bridget asks him to stay with her during her brother’s abdication speech tomorrow, he agrees and escorts her out of her hotel once she is officially declared crown princess.
Part 1, Chapters 12-20 Analysis
As a common pattern in contemporary romance novels, the “forbidden love” trope is thoroughly emphasized in this section when Rhys and Bridget struggle with their feelings for one another. The more the characters learn about each other, the more apparent the differences in their background become. This disparity weighs particularly heavily on Rhys, who often feels that he does not deserve to be with a princess. From Bridget’s perspective, her highly privileged position is nonetheless subject to severe restrictions through the Royal Marriages Law which prevents her from being with Rhys unless she abdicates like her brother. To make matters worse, the forbidden nature of her romance with Rhys is underscored by the characters’ forced proximity, which heightens the desire between them. This dynamic highlights the major theme of The Tension Between Love and Duty: a challenge that hinders both characters’ attempts to remain professional given the dire consequences of a lapse in judgement. A relationship with Bridget would get Rhys fired, while involvement with Rhys would cause Bridget to lose the throne, which would then go to her cousin Andreas. After Nikolai’s abdication, this issue is at the forefront of Bridget’s mind, but even so, her feelings for Rhys lead her to her risky actions in Costa Rica.
As both a literal island and an isolated sanctuary amidst a sea of troubles, Costa Rica becomes highly symbolic in Bridget and Rhys’s relationship and in the broader scope of the novel. Even before Rhys brings Bridget to his friend’s house, this location has been an escape for him, and Bridget sees this once they arrive. For Bridget, Costa Rica also represents an escape from her royal and political pressures, as none of the locals know who she is. She is delighted when someone mistakes her for Rhys’s girlfriend rather than recognizing her as a future queen. This private setting allows her to indulge in adventures that she could never pursue as a crown princess, and Bridget revels in the opportunity to live life the way [she] could” (142) instead of how she “should.” Similarly, the change of pace has a positive effect on Rhys, causing Bridget to note, “For all his overprotectiveness, Rhys was more relaxed down here” (166). As he becomes more open toward her, they confide in each other about their love lives and their pasts, and their relationship reaches the next level. In Costa Rica, Rhys and Bridget are free to be their true selves, and for a rare few days, their relationship is not confined to the rules and standards of society.
This growth in Bridget and Rhys’s relationship leads to personal development for each character. As the two open up to one another, they begin to see their past traumas from new perspectives. When Rhys tells Bridget about how he was abused by his mother as a child, unlike himself, Bridget doesn’t blame Rhys for this, knowing he was a child and did nothing to deserve his mother’s hatred. Rhys’s response to Bridget’s belief that she killed her parents is similar, and through their empathy, they are able to recalibrate their beliefs about their lives. This growing closeness reflects how much they care about one another, and spending time together makes them both happier. However, despite their growing closeness, significant obstacles remain both on the individual and the societal level, as is demonstrated when both Rhys and Bridget often consider their relationship in terms of how the other views it. For example, Bridget worries that Rhys will think too much of her invitation to join her in Eldorra, just as Rhys fears that Bridget will look down on him for his social status. These unspoken issues will combine with the broader societal pressures that still beset them, and they will have to find creative ways to overcome such barriers as the novel progresses.
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By Ana Huang
