Page 1 of Powerful Prince
Chapter 1
Hypocrite.
My stomach was now in knots and I could barely breathe.
Had I read that right?
I blinked, but my screen still had the wordhypocriteas the most liked comment from this morning’s post.
I sank onto the bed and my face was hot. Here I was in Vegas, in a five-star hotel, and my eyes were misting. Sometimes, living my life for the world to see was too much.
My hotel room had a fleur-de-lis pattern embossed in the rug, with a black guard rail and a step separating my bedroom from the living and dining area of the suite. Seriously, this upgrade was unexpected and awesome. I’d snapped pictures and gone online to share these digs with my followers, but then I saw this.
And I can’t stop the tears. I re-read the entire commentary on my blog. I could deny or delete this, but the post was from Cristiane, an online friend. Or someone I thought was a friend.
Everyone needs to stop reading Nicole Steel’s Modern Life blog as she’s a hypocrite. She gives all this relationship advice and it turns out she’s never been in a relationship or even had sex with a guy.
My secret was now out there and my skin was raw. As a teenager, I thought living my life online was a means to escape, but now … it was like I’d built my own glass prison.
Granted, it was usually a pleasant prison where I traveled, spread my message of hope to the world, and only sometimes did I lose my ability to breathe. Like now.
And I’m supposed to meet a potential client in about ten minutes, but right now I can’t breathe.
In the back of my mind, I’d always feared that one day everyone would know.
Now the time was here. I closed my eyes and ran my hands through my brown hair.
Virginity was a choice, too, and it was still modern. But Cristiane and many of my followers who had unsubscribed disagreed.
If I lost my people, I lost income.
I knew I should probably cancel the meeting and figure out how to fix this disaster.
My phone rang. My heart was pounding but I grabbed it and saw that it was my sister Olivia. She knew me. I answered fast and, without a hello, I said, “I am so angry.”
“The video link?”
“Yeah,” I said and wiped my face. Cristiane had video of me telling Stephen—a guy I’d met last year—that I’d not sleep with him because I was a virgin. He was clearly the wrong choice for a boyfriend if he’d recorded that and sent it out to bloggers.
If this wasn’t my life, if someone else had asked for my help with this problem, I’d tell them to close the screen and breathe.
Yet, I didn’t seem capable of following that advice.
Olivia quickly said, “I wanted to call you before you saw it.”
“Too late,” I answered, and jumped off the bed.
One person’s comment shouldn’t stop me. Now it was time to explain to my followers that I was a virgin, but that it was still modern and true and authentic. And it wasn’t because I’d never had offers.
This was who I was. Though, right now, part of me wondered what having privacy might be like.
Influencing was a dream for so many. At thirteen, I had the bright idea to become an online star. I had followed that passion to spread my message to do good in the world, even in the smallest ways.
So here I was. What to do now?
Being honest with yourself and having no delusions was the biggest message on my blog. Personal self-awareness was always the seed to doing better in the world. That’s how I got started.
Olivia’s voice echoed as she said, “Snap out of it. You have a presentation to do and you’re amazeballs.”
