Tate worried about her being at work. She shared his worries, but refused to stop living her life. Besides, they were going to need the money to fix up the cabin and pay for the wedding she hoped came sooner rather than later.
Tate certainly seemed on the verge of asking her something more than once, but then he backed off because of timing or circumstance. Clint had become a dark cloud in their sunny relationship and it had to stop. Because of him, they had to do things they didn’t plan, put things off, move things around, and generally organize their life around whatever he did or they thought he might do.
Frustrated and annoyed, she stuffed the receipts she’d been working on into her drawer and went to shut off her computer when an email popped up with an attachment. The subject read Liz Living it Up!
She normally didn’t click on attachments from email senders she didn’t recognize, but something dreadful stirred in her gut. Somehow she knew what it was going to be, but she didn’t want it to be real. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d thought this could happen, but hoped it wouldn’t. Not to her.
Things like this happened to other people.
She clicked the attachment and covered the gasp that actually got stuck in her throat along with the bile she choked back.
Gasps. Moans. Ridiculously fake heavy breathing rang in her ears as she watched a few seconds of the explicit sex scene playing on her screen. She immediately thought, That’s not me! But it took her a second to push through the shock and realize that her face had somehow been superimposed over someone else’s in the video.
It sure did look real.
Too real.
Real enough that other people would believe this if they didn’t know she didn’t have a butterfly tattoo on her ass and her breasts were real, not that perfectly round. While you couldn’t see the man’s face, it was obvious a third party recorded the original video. She’d never participate in such a thing.
But Clint sure would make this trash and send it out to humiliate her. After all, he’d done it before. And now he wanted to punish her for her perceived slights.
Heart thrashing in her chest, she shut down the video and grabbed her purse to find Detective Valdez’s contact information. Though it sickened her to share this with anyone, she couldn’t let Clint get away with this. She was under no illusions that they’d trace this to him. He’d proven to be quite adept at covering his tracks. Computer savvy, he’d managed to send the email anonymously. Making the video look real took skill. Or at least a credit card to get some jerk to make it for him.
She pulled the detective’s card out of her bag just as Emmy and a few of the other women who worked at the spa filled her doorway. Trepidation filled Emmy’s eyes and Liz knew.
Her heart pounded with anxiety and embarrassment and rage. “You got the video.”
Clint must have sent it to everyone at her work. Just like he did to Aubrey.
All the women’s eyes darted this way and that, but none of them looked right at her.
“It’s not me.”
Disbelief covered all their faces.
“The video is a fake.” Tears threatened, but she tried to hold it together by focusing on her outrage.
Emmy looked relieved but a few of the others gave her yeah-right looks, even though they were well aware that Clint had been causing her trouble. They’d been so good about watching her back here at work and lending their support.
But still, this was hard for them to dismiss as another of Clint’s retaliations.
And in that moment she understood exactly how Aubrey must have felt when Clint did this to her with a real video. How humiliated and helpless she must have felt to take it back and make them unsee it.
The blame and shame should be on Clint for doing something so underhanded and violating, but no, they looked at her like it was her fault. She was the disgraceful one. The degenerate.
Even if it was her, having sex wasn’t a crime. Everyone did it.
Oh, forget it. No rationalization would make them see her the way they did before they saw the video even if she could prove it a fake. It was in their minds. They’d formed their opinions.
And she was screwed.
Exactly what Clint intended. To hurt and shame her.