Secrets of a Prince (The Princes of New Sargasso #3) - Carol Moncado Page 0,1
read the book.
His response didn’t go any further. He didn’t elaborate or say he guessed Prince Patrick would be exactly as expected.
Odd.
Could anyone have read the actual book yet? They likely wouldn’t come off the press until a couple of weeks before the release at the earliest.
So no actual book, but could he have gotten his hands on a digital copy of the file somehow? If he worked behind the scenes, could he be an employee of the publishing company?
Maybe an editor?
Wouldn’t that be something!
But you have read it? she pressed.
The message was left unread, but she knew messages could be seen without it being apparent.
Five minutes later, she still ignored the rapidly scrolling chat in the main window and stared at the mini-window containing her chat with RealJ1955.
Nothing.
A chime resounded through her small apartment.
Gotta go.
Even before she saw the delivered message, her tablet was half-closed. As it changed from sending to delivered, she snapped it closed and shoved it under the couch cushion. It wasn’t the official hiding place, but it would work until her father left.
He didn’t knock, just walked into the house manager’s apartment she’d been relegated to eighteen months earlier.
“You’re going to the book release party,” he informed her.
She feigned agony at the announcement. “Do I have to?”
He glared at the thought of insubordination on her part. “Yes. You’ll have a suite. You know what to do. You’ve failed so far, but I expect you to do much better this time.”
She adopted the meek personality he preferred. The one that kept her out of trouble. “Yes, sir.”
“Don’t let me down this time. You won’t get many more chances.”
Before she could respond, he’d left the room.
She knew what he meant.
Find one of the princes, lead him into a compromising situation, then allow her father to take advantage of it. Bonus points if she ended up pregnant.
If none of the princes would fall for the bait, then the son of a duke would do.
No one lower down the chain.
Lady Waterford would not be caught dead lowering her standards to a mere earl.
Her father believed he should have been awarded a much more prestigious title for services to the crown many years earlier.
If he couldn’t move beyond earl through legitimate means, he’d use subterfuge.
And his daughter.
Even a grandchild if there was no other way.
Maybe, just maybe, she’d fall in love with an ordinary man, elope, and find herself out from under her father’s thumb.
And maybe one day her wish to visit Trilunium would come true.
Prince Joshua Patrick Geoffrey stared at the screen of his tablet.
But you have read it?!
How could he have been so careless?
Sure, he’d been instant messaging with NotCharlotte95 for nearly a decade. Despite never meeting in person, and having no idea who she was in real life, he truly believed he knew her well enough that she could probably be trusted with his real identity. And believe him when he said there was no future for them as a couple.
Women tended to go straight for the relationship when they met him, and he showed anything that could possibly be construed as interest.
Before he could decide whether or not to reply, another message came through.
Gotta go.
And her available light clicked off.
She often disappeared like that during the day or early evening. Less so late at night.
Did she live with someone who didn’t approve of her Trilunium obsession?
Obsession might be a bit much. He loved the stories, loved imagining things outside the stories, and enjoyed the camaraderie of the TriluniMunity, but he didn’t consider himself obsessed.
He might have the extra giant size map hanging over the lounge in his apartment, but it was truly a work of art, not just some fanart someone whipped up in a few minutes of spare time.
Outside of his time spent in the TriluniMunity, he led a very normal life. As normal as could be for a working member of a royal family, anyway.
There was a knock on the door, and then it opened without Joss approving the entrance.
That meant it could be only one person - his twin brother. Even the king would wait for an answer before entering.
“Papa said we have to go as knights,” Caleb announced. “No Odzooken princes for us.”
The answer didn’t surprise Joshua. He flipped the cover closed on his tablet. “Just as well. We don’t want anyone to realize that we’re the princes from TriluniCon. That means we either go with some low-quality, off-the-rack, ill-fitting prince costumes, or we go as someone else entirely.”