Liv's Journey by Patricia Green Read Free Book Online Page A

road.
    In the back, Liv jounced and rocked violently, clawing her way into a seat as she pulled her panties and pants up. Her flaming rear screamed as she sat down on it and buckled the seatbelt.
    "Do you see him?"
    "Yes! A little white sports car," Trey told her. "He got a bit of a head start, though. I don’t know if we'll catch up."
    "You have to!"
    He nodded, shoulders tense as he steered the speeding truck.
    There was a deep dip in the road as they went down a small hill and toward another hill. Their view of the farther rise was clear, but not what was on the other side. As they found the deepest part of the dip between the two, the white car made it to the other side of the hill and they lost sight of it. When they crested the rise, it was gone.
    Liv was frantic. Her career would be over! She'd be a laughingstock and those that weren't pointing and laughing would be pointing and denigrating her. She could imagine the headlines on the National Investigator , "Supermodel Gets Spanked!"
    "Oh God," she moaned as the truck slowed.
    "I'm sorry, Liv." His voice was tired, tight.
    "I can't believe this is happening."
    "I'm sorry," he said again. "It's my fault. I'll think of some way to get you out of it." He turned the truck and headed back the way they'd come. "Maybe we can say that the woman in the picture looked a bit like you, but it wasn't really you."
    "Who's going to believe that when it's public knowledge that I'm here near Sonora doing a shoot?"
    "You're right. We're screwed."
    " I'm screwed, you mean. This isn't going to hurt your reputation one bit."
    He turned back to her quickly and then shifted back to focus on the road. "You think army majors go around spankin’ women for public pictures?"
    She thought about that for a few seconds. Wasn't there some sort of military code about "an officer and a gentleman"? Surely, "gentleman" precluded spankings in public.
    "I'm sorry. I didn't think of that. I guess we're both in hot water."
    He nodded.
    They drove back to the restaurant in silence. Trey went inside alone to tell his friends that they were going back to the ranch early. Liv moved to the front passenger seat while he was away.
    His look was intense as he sat beside her. "We'll get through this, Liv." Trey's fingers were warm on her cheeks and she realized that tears were running down her face.
    "Yeah." But they wouldn't get through it. No matter what they did, what story they'd concoct, there would be that photo out there, calling attention to a new weakness she blatantly showed the world. It was too much. She pressed her hands to her face and began to sob in earnest.
    She tried to stop, but the tears and wretched whimpers kept coming.
    Trey gathered her up in his arms, quietly cursing into her hair.

Chapter 4
    Liv had to bathe her eyes in ice water the next morning before the session, but puffy redness persisted. The cosmetician covered what she could and looked at her with concern. Liv told her she was alright, but, of course, she wasn't. Nothing would ever be alright again.
    When her cell phone rang, she looked at the caller ID and then put the phone on "silent." It was her agent. She didn't know why Amanda would call her so early, except with bad news, so she chose not to deal with it. Maybe if she ignored the spanking incident, it would just go away.
    No, of course it wouldn't.
    She went to work though her heart wasn't in it. The photographer got frustrated with her lack of animation and switched to other segments and other models. Liv wandered away from the crew and into the trees nearby, meandering toward the sound of the stream she'd heard so recently with Trey.
    Only birdsong broke the silence of the cool trees. It was shadowed like her mood, but peaceful, unlike her roiling emotions.
    Maybe she could scurry out of the country until the scandal died down. Europe would be out as the property "Liv Aune" was known there as well as she was known in the states. In fact, they'd probably laud her in Paris