Caught: Melbourne Girls, #1

By Nina M

He cheated.

Damien's actions desecrated the sanctity of their relationship.

Sarai, has never been the woman who got played and stayed.
Clad in her new armour of betrayal, anger, a broken engagement, returning to work mum, she forges ahead.

But when the reckoning of atonement beckons, truths reveal unexpected things.

Did they have it together like they thought they had?

Will the ambers of their love still glow or has the heat of distaste razed through everything, that only warm ashes remain?  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nina M
• Release date: Mar 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215085790

Nina M

Nina M is a paranormal author, who enjoys creating worlds filled with magic and characters who fight for love despite the chances. She's an avid reader finding her way of expression as well as finding a way back to her roots.

Book preview

Chapter 1

There was another car parked in the designated spot my client said I could use, but luckily it was the middle of the day, so there were less cars parked on the street and I didn’t park far. Switching my car off, I grabbed my small laptop bag, got out, and walked up to the driveway. The number plate of the other car stalled my steps as I squinted and read it again.

What was Damien’s car doing here?

I eyed the front door, the car, and looked back at the door. I took a deep breath, mind reeling as I tried to understand what I was seeing. The clucking of my heels and clinking laptop sling sounded loudly as I trudged forth.

Despite the quiet, Malvern neighbourhood; a light, early autumn breeze swaying the leaves and the not too hot sun, kissing my exposed arms, chaos roiled in me as ‘what if’s’ bounced around in my head.I stood outside, hand poised but unable to press the button to ring the bell for a few minutes. The huge house seemed stranger and imposing.

Brow furrowed, I glanced at the car again and shook my head. There could be tons of explanations as to why his caris here, I said out loud, as if trying to quell the panicked nagging voice of my intuition that said otherwise.

The clinking sound of a dog’s leash as someone and their pet passed by snapped me back from the whirlwind, picking up momentum in my head. Taking a deep breath, I straightened my shoulders, despite the creeping dread all over my body, weakening knees, and thumping heart; I hoped I was wrong.

Pressing a finger on the doorbell, I waited. Two minutes passed, so I rang it again, checking my watch for the time since she’d asked me to pop in for our meet-up at one p.m. Leaning to my right, I looked through the translucent mirror flanking the door before ringing the bell again.

A faint, just a second, reached my ears, so I waited.

Hey, Sarai, come on in. My client looked dishevelled, braids were okay, falling past her shoulders, but she had on a long silky gown, and there was a faint smell of someone who just got some. The pit in my stomach felt worse, gaping by the second the more I looked at her.

Her tawny skin was glowing, smile bright, eyes still held that post orgasmic faint glaze.

I hope I’m not interrupting, I could come in another day, if it’s a bother, I rushed andsaid, still at the doorstep. A part of me felt like the longer I stayed in that spot, the more I held what could turn my world upside down, ashore.

Shaking her head, she ushered me in. No, it’s okay, you just caught me a little early, is all. She began walking away and full of trepidation. I stepped through the threshold and closed the door behind me.

Give me a minute, I’ll be right down and then we can go through things, okay?

I nodded. She showed me to the living room and had me take a seat before disappearing down the hallway and went upstairs.

My eyes darted around, my skin felt tight, and that annoying itchy painful feeling like I was about to start sweating, blanketed me in a stifling cloak. I’d been to this house prior, had been comfortable like many others I’d been to for workbefore, but now I wanted to bolt.

I’ll call you, a male voice said. The bass of that voice sounded so familiar; my whole body clumped up. Some delighted answer I couldn’t give a fuck wanting to hear was murmured.

I listened to the footsteps thump on the carpeted stairwell until he reached the bottom, debating if I should turn around and look, just to be sure or not. But the whooshing of blood in my ears, the dry mouth, and shaking limbs kept me still.

Humming behind me, I listened to that sound I’d heard so many times the last five years and blinked back tears that I didn’t know where they had come from. Livid and curious, like the damn cat that still died after finding out what was just around the corner or bush, I turned my head.

Watching the pecan, brown-skinned man I’d adored with my fingers, lips and eyes, and claimed as mine, the faded and trimmed kinky hair on his head, lined up stubble I’d grown to like, and lean body exit another woman’s bedroom; I crumbled inside.

Eyes snagged by my moving form, I saw him glance my way and kept on fixing his tie before he looked up again, paid attention, and then time slowed. Those dark brown eyes I thought so soulful— passed on to our daughter, widened. The air around us grew charged, my ears were ringing, and I thought I, too, resembled a deer in the headlights. We just stared. His tie forgotten but hands still clasping the Windsor knot. His mouth hung open too as if he were in the twilight zone, but I was the one in that damned thick, smoky, hallucinogenic filled space wishing this was all a bad dream.

He blinked and that seemed to break him from the spell of surprise we’d been caught in, but I just kept on gaping and staring.

Seeing the man I’d fallen in love with, the alpha to mine, the loving fiancé and father, hardworking—although that was questionable now—always generous and kind, fall from grace before me, cracked something in me.

Either he didn’t know if to be sorry he’d been caught or be remorseful because he was realising he was neck deep in shit that got people’s car keyed, windows busted, or set alight; or he was just arrogant enough to think he could get away with it. He didn’t say anything.

His eyes shuttered and went flat, a look I’d been seeing more of the last couple of months, and I didn’t know if it was directed at me or was his way of distancing himself. Maybe a way he’d come up with to distance himself from me and our relationship and I had been too busy to catch on.

I...I, his mouth moved to try and spill something I was sure was so cliché I’d want to lose it all and risk everything and I waited. Fuck, he said in a murmur.

Indeed. He had just fucked. He was fucked. I was fucked over and it sure wasn’t a pretty sight for any other word to express just how bad this all was.

I heard another set of footstalls thump down the stairwell again and a part of me braced for the avalanche when I’d already had the shower of humiliation as if her finding out was any consolidation whatsoever into this mess.

You’re still here, you gotta get a move on, your lunch is probably over.

Damien watched me as if wanting to perversely witness what those off-hand words from our oblivious counterpart would do to me. His lunch time, huh? While I was here, trying to find my feet again after getting back to work, he was busy fucking someone else during his lunchtime.

Yeah, I...uh, see you later.

I felt my brows rise. Was that a figure of speech because it’s something people just say without thinking or was this motherfucker lacerating me before this woman for her entertainment?

Our confused audience glanced at me then back at Damien and frowned. I didn’t care for what questions lay in her eyes. I was too stunned and angry to worry about her feelings. She was a client, yes, but she was now entangled in this mess, slithering up my body in a slow cold climb until it had my throat tight. I was vibrating with anger and paralysed from shock, ears buzzing and too stunned to get up and make a fool of myself.

Or maybe I was sitting there to try and preserve my image in society’s backward conditioning of not exposing your business by showing your rightful emotions and demanding the right to be heard and showing how hurt you are by someone’s actions.

She pointed at him, still with that baffled look on her face and I watched him go— his head down. I listened as he slipped his shoes on and walked out without a backward glance.

Rearranging her face, ‘Jolene,’ gave me a bland smile but I didn’t return it. I was suddenly too tired, livid, shocked, and just done to do anything else but silently seethe.

I’m sorry again, I didn’t mean to let that get in the way. That’s my mistake. It won’t happen again when you’re coming in to finalise things.

So, she was going to be screwing Damien again?

I must have been a little early, it’s no biggie, I said in a fake, strong voice wanting to put my hands around her neck and once I was done, follow her counterpart and do the same, but made sure to prolong his suffering until I was good and ready to let him die.

But I had a business to run, and I had walked in on this and stepped on the landmine by accident. So, I was going to collect whatever body parts that could still function and get this meeting over and done with as quickly as possible, then I could get the hell out of this place that reeked of my relationship’s breakdown and never return.

She flounced right to where I sat without a care in the world, in her flared high-waisted pants paired with a silk camisole tucked, forgetting to even offer me a glass of water or juice. Her face was cleaned up as well as that light sheen of sweat she had all over her earlier like the new coveted Au de Cum perfume every woman had to have. Her hair was half tied up and the rest of her braids were let down to cascade over her shoulders and down to her little annoying perky breasts. Skin all soft, although I bet mine was better and I just loathed her.

From the moment we’d met, when she contacted Homey Inside, me and Asiya’s