Secrets of a Prince (The Princes of New Sargasso #3) - Carol Moncado Page 0,25

came through.

THE ultimate dream. Not my ultimate dream. Oops. Typo.

Except Joss didn’t think it was a typo at all.

10

Had she bared too much of her soul? Minnie wasn’t sure, and she doubted RealJ1955 would believe her retraction for a second. He’d know she said what she meant in the first message.

But, aside from Joss that morning, it was her first real conversation with another person in days. A couple of text messages with here and there didn’t really count.

She did her “gotta go” thing and logged off without waiting for him to say anything else. No one had ever known her as well as RealJ1955, despite never discussing personal things.

Unsettled, she went to bed and slept, though not well.

Sunday morning, she watched church service on television. She chose the service with the royal family in attendance. Rosie sat with Caleb, confirming the speculation they were a couple again.

She warmed up something for lunch. Then again for dinner.

By the time bedtime rolled around, she’d watched a full season of 2 Cool 4 School. She tried to sleep but couldn’t. She gave up around three in the morning and started scrolling online.

An old article about the San Majorian and Eyjanian royal families popped up on one of the royal families of the world pages. It showed Prince Darius and Princess Esther going to church in a small town in southwest Missouri.

Bored, she turned on the service at Grace Community Chapel in Serenity Landing. It was yesterday morning there, still.

By the time she went to bed Monday, she’d finished three seasons of 2 Cool 4 School. By Wednesday afternoon, she’d finished all of them and moved on to Seating 4 Six.

And was about to go out of her mind.

Joss had texted a few times a day, but she hadn’t even talked to him on the phone. She hadn’t talked to a real person since he left Saturday morning, and his schedule had changed so he wouldn’t be able to come over until at least the day after the wedding, and maybe not until the day after that. If she was lucky.

As much as she wanted to get back online, to talk to her friends in the TriluniMunity, she didn’t dare.

Something about the conversation with RealJ1955 bothered her on a level she didn’t understand.

While she didn’t believe friendships, even close ones, with members of the opposite gender guaranteed problems in a marriage, it bothered her that she’d had a deeper conversation with this person that she’d never met than she had with Joss.

Not that what she and Joss had qualified as a real marriage. It was barely a marriage on paper, much less anything else.

Was it even possible to cheat on someone in such a situation?

The appropriate snippet of her vows ran back through her head, and Minnie knew she had her answer.

Not that she’d do such a thing, and Joss wouldn’t either.

You haven’t mentioned the news from Monday.

A text from Joss came in as she debated whether to watch the next episode or find something new.

I haven’t been online or watched the news. Never turned on the news apps on this phone or the new tablet.

She watched the dots until the message came through.

Look online. You’ll like this news.

Minnie picked up her tablet, but it was dead and told him so. She hated reading stuff like this on her phone.

Use the desktop, he urged.

She went into the other room and logged in. She’d avoided doing anything but ordering food and a few more necessities on it.

This time she went to the website for the main New Ancora news website.

DETAILS EMERGE IN SEARCH FOR NEW TRILIUNIUM AUTHOR

What?

New Trilunium author?!?!?!

Kari and her people are looking for someone to carry on her great-grandmother’s legacy. No guarantees, but if they find someone, they have partial books to finish along with notes for a bunch of others.

Minnie leaned back in the seat and stared at the screen. She would love to do something like that. Later, she’d have to look into it more deeply. Make sure the royal family wasn’t excluded - since technically she was a member now.

That’s amazing.

He said he had to go but encouraged her to look into it.

Did he know she wrote stories? That she had dozens on the TrilluniMunity fanfic site? That she’d won awards in the annual Trilunium Fanfic Awards.

She clicked on a new tab, wondering what the people on the message boards were saying.

For an hour she read the hundreds of messages in several different threads about it. The admins had