The Reluctant Heiress (A Christian Romance Novel)

Part 44 : The Purpose

Still Friday. About 6pm in the evening.

"Wow! This can't be happening!" Victor exclaimed from his room as he was looking at his laptop, watching as his vlog (video blog) gets thousand more views by the minute! He couldn't believe it. Within two hours from uploading, it already got 2,500+ views and shared a hundred times!

Before the tornado hit, he was decided on leaving the hotel enroute to New York. But after this epic event, he decided to stay and document this miracle that unfolded before him.

So while everyone was busy inspecting everything when they came out of the shelter, Victor busied himself taking video and pictures of the area and uploaded it to his vlog. He connected it to a video he got online of someone who was able to capture the dramatic video of the tornado making it's way to the hotel and then swirling away from the hotel!

Watching that video gave him goosebumps just thinking he was there at the very storm shelter at that time. It could have been the worst day of his life... and yet the tornado changed its course.

His vlog was aptly titled "The Hotel de Lavi Miracle" which contained insider's views of the 'miracle'. He had pictures from the storm shelter, very beautifully done, all in black and white, showing documentary shots of almost everyone as they waited, passed the time and prayed.

Picture of Luca's kids, crying and playing; pictures of people hugging and holding hands as the tornado was above them. There was the image of Greg as he was walking back and forth. And an image of the silhouette of Raul when it became dark and he found the flashlight.

The most touching must be when everyone was praying, pleading and crying out to God! And when Telly was crying when she heard that the homeless people near her hotel had been badly affected. How he took those shots candidly was amazing. Very raw footages showing raw emotions!

Then of course a beautiful shot of the hotel standing tall in the midst of the debris surrounding it. He even got a shot from a mile outside of the hotel showing the devastating damage of the tornado on the community, and in the midst of it was Hotel de Lavi atop the hill, unscathed!

Lisa, Diane's assistant who was helping with Banquet Sales, was scrolling thru the hotel's website and social media pages when she noticed all these online traffic going to their website. She immediately stood up firm her makeshift office table and headed to Telly.

"Look at this!" Lisa told Telly when she approach her at their table, showing her cellphone. Greg and Kay looked at it too.

"Who took these pictures? They are good!" Greg complimented.

Kay looked at it as well and studied it. "That's us at the shelter!"

And Greg and Kay looked at each other while it was Telly's turn to look on the cellphone. "Victor?"

Telly gave back Lisa's cellphone and searched it on her laptop. #hoteldelavimiracle had been trending the past hours!  The social media has been going crazy about it!

As they were talking, Victor approached them, with this big grin on his face. "I don't know if you've seen it, but your hotel is getting famous by the second!"

"And so are you!" Kay told her smiling. "Congratulations! So there's a reason for the delay!" She winked at him, remembering her and Greg's conversation with him, pacifying him while they were at the shelter a few hours ago.

Greg patted his shoulder. "See? Our small town has a miracle to offer to a big city boy like you."

Victor cracked a smile, the first smile they may have seen from him. "Actually I want to apologize that I didn't get permission from you to post this," he said looking at Telly.