Chapter One Hundred Two

Prince Renauld kept in touch with his daughters the best way he knew how, without being detected by his wife. He sent them text messages back and forth.







The prince was in deep thought when his wife walked in. "What were you doing?" Queen Catarina asked.
Prince Renauld shoved his phone into the pocket of his pajamas. "Just making a few phone calls."
"Do you know where the girls are?"
Prince Renauld shook his head no.
"You cannot lie to me, Renauld. You know where the girls are."
"I don't know where they are, Cat. I'm worried about them, so I've been making a few calls to try to find them."
"Well, obviously you're not trying hard enough. I've asked everyone in town, including some of their friends, and no one seems to be able to give me any straight answers. I want to find my daughters!"
"Cat, if you hadn't been screaming in their faces all the time, they might have stayed a little while longer. Instead you ran them off -- just like you did Fran."
Queen Catarina straightened her shoulders. "Oh, that was low, Renauld. Really low."
"Why do you want to find them so badly?"
"Because they're my children."
"They're not children anymore, Cat. Our youngest daughter, Anastasia, just got married. With any luck she'll be starting her own family soon. Give us grandkids. I'm sure you look forward to that, right?"
"You don't understand. They're my babies. They'll always be my babies."



Meanwhile, it was twilight on Patrick and Alexandra's rented houseboat in the middle of the ocean.



While Patrick was taking a nap in one of the beds, Alexandra decided to take the controls of the boat and go for a sail.



She thought she spotted something hidden in the mists. So she checked her navigation system to see if it was indeed something, but it didn't show up. Undaunted, she decided to sail closer toward it to investigate further.



But hail started to pelt the ship, violently. No sensible Sim would be out in this weather, but Alexandra Vanderburg had long ago lost her sense.



When the boat passed by what appeared to be a small island, Alexandra hopped into her speedboat and went even closer to see.



With a broken umbrella barely protecting her against the hailstones streaming from the sky, Alexandra took her first cautious steps onto what appeared to be an uncharted island. Her own private island! She'd have to tell the others. And brag to her friend AJ back home.



Gazing out into the night sky, Alexandra thought about what she might do with her own private island.