Do Not Be Deceived

By Dorothy Perry

Nicole has been tattered and torn. Growing up in a privileged and sheltered Christian home cannot be easy; she took things at face value, never digging beneath the surface. This led her into an abusive marriage that she ended up running away from with her children. While running, she meets a suave, debonair Dominos, with a secret of his own. She turned away from God for just a minute, and everything went chaotic.

Ask yourself, are these two relationships the end of her? Can she find her way back to Christ? How do these relationships affect the life of her children?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645840183

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Do Not Be Deceived

Dorothy Perry

Copyright © 2021 Dorothy Perry

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-64584-017-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-64584-018-3 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Nicole was in a bad place in her life when she met Dominos. She had just left the only home and world she ever knew. After a difficult experience in her life, here comes another experience that was tall, dark, and handsome. He was half-Indian and half-African-American, with a cocoa color complexion and pretty, wavy hair that lay down on his head. He also had big brown eyes that could hypnotize you when looking into them, but she could not see through him, she was naive to his way of life. Her life started to fall apart right before her eyes. She could not see anything that year.

It started as she was a senior in college, studying law. She had it all planned; at least, that’s what she thought. She was to graduate in the spring and then to grad school. Everything changed when she came home for Christmas break.

Her parents had something else planned. Yes, they wanted her to finish her education, but they saw she was spending to much time alone. In fact, she was happy in her own little world of being a shy girl that came from a life of social background, education, and money. Unlike Dominos, whose only means was to get what he could out of anybody. He had no family, no education. Nicole’s family is pretty large, with her being the youngest of six. Her parents made sure that they all would get the best that life had to offer. She was reared in a Christian home where her father is a minister in Washington, DC. They made sure she knew the laws of God and what he expects of her. Unlike Dominos who left school after the tenth grade, when he realized that the teachers were just passing him on. He knew then that he was not getting the help he needed to be successful in life. Not being able to read, he then decided to give up. Dominos knew then that he had to keep this a secret. He would be to embarrassed if anyone ever found out. He would pretend he was reading, by picking up books, newspapers, and other things. After a while it became easy for him to fool people.

Making friends was not easy for Nicole, so she kept to herself. She was beautiful and shy, living in a world where the two things did not mix. So when she met Dominos, she thought he was everything when, in fact, all he was doing was pretending.

Nicole came home a few days before Christmas, not knowing what her parents were planning. She spent her time in her room reading, taking long walks in the park, and just helping around the house. Her parents only wanted what was best for her, and they knew she was spending too much time alone and decided they would help by setting her up with one of the young men from the church. The boys were more than happy to meet her until they heard the words beautiful and shy, then the answer became No. To them, those words meant ugly.

Nicole became very spiritual at an early age as she fasted and stayed on her knees praying and reading the bible. While Dominos was becoming a master in deceiving. He became a big-time gambler. He made his money by preying on beautiful and lonely women. He became so great at gambling by watching others.

During Nicole’s Christmas break, her parents did get someone to come to dinner to meet their daughter. The young man was just sitting outside the church after the service. Nicole’s mother went up to him. As they engaged in a conversation, she remembered seeing her husband talking to him more than once. She knew that this was not where he normally attended church. She began to ask many questions, where he attended church, who his parents were, and where he went to school, and what were his goals for him after he was done with school. After being interrogated with all her questions, he became nervous and wondered why she would ask him all things questions, so when the minister came along, he was glad to see him. Once he told the young man who she was, he was glad to answer her questions. The one thing that had them impressed was that after he was done with school and got his career going, he wanted to get married and start a family.

The minister and his wife began to tell him about their daughter, and he became very interested, and was not scared off by her being beautiful and shy. The minister had already told him once about her; that’s why he sat there, waiting to hear more about this astonishing woman.

It was Christmas Eve, and Nicole had been up in her room doing what she loves, when she decided to come down to see if she could help with dinner. After she helped with dinner, Nicole went up the stairs to dress for dinner, as always, only find there was another plate sat at the table. When she asked the cook who was coming to dinner, the cook replied, Someone your mother invited.

On her way to ask her mother, the doorbell rang. When Nicole open the door there stood a tall, dark, good-looking man on the other side of the door. She quickly put her head down and said, May I help you?

He introduced himself then asked if Nicole was in.

She became very nervous and said, Why, who are you?

He apologized and said, My name is Eddie Holman, and Mrs. Waters had invited me to dinner. You must be Nicole.

Yes, I am. Do I know you? she asked, never looking up at him once.

They were in the hall standing by the door for a few minutes before Mrs. Waters came.

Hello, Eddie, I see you met my daughter, Nicole.

Yes, and she is everything you described and more. He could not take his eyes off her; she is so very beautiful.

Well, come on in. We still have a little time before dinner is ready, and the two of you can get acquainted.

After a little time had gone by, they then entered the living room where he and Nicole could finish getting acquainted. As they walked, he stepped to the side to let the women go first. While they sat and talked, he became very interested in her. He wondered why, when she put her head down, it would fall a little to the right, or why she had so little self-esteem. Nicole sat there nervously as he watched her, and he asked, How do you like the school you attend?

A surprised look came on her face when he asked that. No one has ever taking the time to ask her that outside her family. Her respond was, It is an excellent school, and I love it.

They went into the dining room for dinner. When they approach the table, Eddie rushed over to pull out Nicole’s chair for her. She, once again, was surprised as she looked up at him. While they enjoyed dinner, he paid more attention to her. As they began to talk, he discovered that they had a lot in common, they both like the theater, ice skating, and taking long walks in the park. Nicole was beginning to like the attention and worked up enough nerves to look up at him, but that did not last long as she saw that he was watching her. Eddie took a chance and asked her out to dinner and then to the ballet. She thought to herself, This man is so handsome he could ask any woman to go with him; why me? She felt that if she said no that there would not be another chance he would ask her again, so she looked up and smiled and said, Yes, it will be my pleasure to accompany you.

Dominos would never take his women to a nice restaurant. All he thought of was getting what he could out of them. He was too much focused on deceiving them. Taking them out to a restaurant meant that he had to talk, and that was not something that he could do and still be able to keep his secret.

Eddie informed Nicole that he would be calling her next week, and