Never Again

by Lilliana Anderson

  Never Again

  Lilliana Anderson

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2017, Lilliana Anderson All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental. Any actual places, products or events mentioned are used in a purely fictitious manner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various places/products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission and is by no way sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Edited by Making Manuscripts

  Cover by Ember Designs

  Created with Vellum

  For myself. Because I’m a fucking queen.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Playlist

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Also by Lilliana Anderson

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Foreword

  This book had been on my ‘to write’ list since 2012. At the time, I had the idea and even started writing a few chapters detailing Cora’s relationship breakdown. But, for some reason, I put it aside and wrote a dozen other books instead.

  Why did I put it down? To be honest, it was because I was afraid of the book. I wasn’t emotionally mature enough at the time to deal with the themes contained within, or the kind of relationship that Cora and Bran have. But now that I’m older and more experienced as a writer, I feel that it’s the perfect time to not only write this story, but release it into the world.

  It isn’t going to shock you. Don’t worry (or perhaps, get excited) about that. What follows is a story that is funny and very sexy with just the right amount of angst. Bran is an alpha. Cora is a solicitor ten years his senior. If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to be taken by the hottest man you can imagine, you’re going to enjoy every moment of the following pages…

  Playlist

  For a list of handpicked songs that match the feel of Never Again, visit Lilliana Anderson using the following image

  1

  I never understood the desire to put your pain on social media for everyone to see. My Facebook feed was full of people lamenting the world—fuck this, fuck that, fuck my existence—it was never ending. For me, social media was about sharing the best of my life and spying on other people’s. That’s why, when I found out my scumbag of a husband was cheating on me, I didn’t share a single tidbit of information with the world. I quietly changed my relationship status from ‘married’ to ‘it’s complicated’, then proceeded to cut the crotch out of every single pair of pants he owned.

  Only my closest friends and family bore witness to my FML moments, because they were the ones who understood, the ones who mattered. Whenever my life fell apart, they picked me up and put me back together again. My mother would bake me chocolate brownies and tell me that everything was going to be OK, and my very best friend, Olivia, would shake me by the shoulders and remind me I’m a queen. “Queens don’t stay down,” she’d say.

  All Facebook ever got was a rare photo of me looking my best. Like today, while I sat with Olivia outside a quaint Melbourne patisserie on our lunch break. My hair and makeup was on point, my lipstick a bold red, while the sun provided the lighting—a rarity on a cold day in July.

  “Hashtag that one ‘slaying life’,” Olivia suggested. “That bastard will see how happy you look and realise how badly he fucked up.” She sucked back on a cigarette then blew the smoke out in a rush. “Come to think of it. We need to go out tonight. That will really piss him off. You can post photos and everything.”

  “Go out?” The idea seemed completely insane to me.

  She stubbed out her cigarette in a small aluminium ashtray. “Yes, Cora. I love you, and I think you’re gorgeous, but lying on my couch for months on end, eating liqueur chocolates while watching Netflix isn’t doing a thing for your figure.”

  “Jack always said that saying ‘but’ meant you could discount everything that was said before it.”

  She picked up her Prada handbag and slid it over her arm. “Fuck Jack. You should discount everything he ever said to you before the moment you saw his butt as he pumped that Sally woman from behind in your marital bed.”

  My stomach soured at the memory. “Don’t remind me.” I’d been expecting to work late on a case but was able to take some work home instead. Thinking it’d be nice to surprise Jack and have dinner together, I hadn’t called ahead. I just picked up his favourite takeaway and a bottle of wine. With the word ‘surprise’ on the tip of my tongue, I entered the house. But the surprise was on me. The moment I walked in, I could hear them: “Harder! Harder!”, coupled with the slapping of wet bodies. I knew what I was walking in on before I saw it—the sight of my partner of eleven years, my husband for one, fucking some woman from behind, slapping her arse like she was some kind of rodeo cow.

  Driven by rage, I threw the food and my handbag at him, sending rice and beef in black bean sauce all over the place. Then, I smashed him in the side of the head with the only thing I had left in my hands—my laptop. The resulting injury had been enough for him to take out an intervention order against me that forced me from my house and almost lost me my job. Instead, I’d been taken off my cases and made the babysitter to the junior solicitors until this mess was sorted out. It made me feel sick every time I thought about it.

  “Come on, stop thinking about that arsehole. We’ll get your intervention order thrown out of court the moment it goes before the magistrate. Then you’ll get your cases back and your house. Then life will start to feel normal again.”

  “Don’t you think taking a Crown Prosecutor with me to a magistrate hearing is a bit of overkill?” Standing, I noticed my skirt was feeling a little tight around the mid-section. Maybe I did need to lay off those chocolates…

  “Considering I know every judge in the city and have slept with more than half of them, taking me is probably the best thing you could do,” she assured me. “Once we’re done with that bullshit order, we’ll get you a quickie divorce, leave him with nothing but a set of stomped-on balls, and then you’ll become single and amazing like me.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “And I’m serious about tonight,” she added, hitting the button to activate the crosswalk. “There’s nothing better in this world than having young men fall all over you. We’ll pick the hottest nightclub in town and when some twenty-something picks you up, you’ll forget all about Jack-Arse.”

  “You seem to be forgetting that I am a tw
enty-something.”

  She scoffed as the lights changed and we crossed. “Barely. Twenty-nine is practically thirty—which you will be in November, I might add.”

  “Says the woman who has been twenty-nine for eleven years.”

  “That’s why I’m an expert on the subject.”

  Chuckling at her response, I shook my head, loving her candour. Olivia was over a decade older than me. We became friends when I first started working for the OPP—the Office of Public Prosecution—straight out of university. She was a barrister and had become my mentor after we worked on our first case together. Then, our personalities clicked and we became the best of friends in the years that followed.

  “And I’m talking about men—well, boys, I suppose—who are barely twenty and a day. They’re outstanding in the sack, super eager to please. I once had a nineteen-year-old who went all night. I was exhausted the next day but deliciously sore in all the right places. I swear they’re all vying for the lover of the year award, and the best part about it is they don’t want any kind of connection or relationship.”

  “Nineteen is a bit young for me. I don’t think I could go below twenty-five.”

  “Don’t get caught up with the numbers, darling. It’s a catch, fuck, and release program. Age doesn’t matter—as long as they’re legal—but size definitely matters. I’m going to get you acquainted with the new way of dating.”

  “I thought Tinder was the new way of dating?”

  “Tinder is full of false advertising and disappointing reality. This is Olivia’s way.” She pointed at herself, amusement in her eyes. “By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll never, ever want to be married again. You’ll be having far too much fun being single and free.”

  Olivia had been married twice. One ended when it turned out her husband preferred men, and the other ended when he wanted children and she didn’t. Now, she swore that the single life was the only life worth living.

  “Well, I kind of have to get divorced, first.”

  “Formalities.” She waved her hand about in the air. “It takes a year of separation before you can file for divorce. You can’t quit having a sex life because of that tiny technicality. Right now, you are separated, which is the same thing as being single. I was always on Ross’s side; he and Rachel were definitely on a break. Besides, I doubt Jack is too concerned.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I just feel weird about the idea of being with someone else. Eleven years with the same man is a long time.”

  “All the more reason to get back on that bike. It’s not like you have to remember much. All the same parts go into the same holes. And when your heart is broken, the best way to feel better is to fuck someone who is so beautiful you could die.”

  “This doesn’t feel anything like something I want to do,” I responded, smiling at her advice as we headed into our building on Lonsdale Street. I hadn’t been to a nightclub since my early days at university. I never dreamed I’d want to step foot inside one again. But then, I hadn’t thought that I’d be single after spending eleven years of my life committed to the same man either. The fact he so easily threw that all away for a measly fuck really got my goat. I had never looked at another man and was bloody devastated that he thought so little of me. Worse, that he also screwed that bitch in my bed! I couldn’t imagine he’d have the gall to take her to our home for their first time, so how many times had I slept on those sheets after he’d been fucking her on them? My stomach twisted at the thought. I was going to develop an ulcer.

  “It’s exactly something you should do,” Olivia rebutted, lowering her voice once we were in the lobby so nosy ears weren’t listening in. “Trust me on this, Cora. I’ve had more relationship breakups than you’ve had birthdays. And, have I ever steered you wrong?”

  I thought back to the time she convinced me that I needed to own every colour Mac lipstick they had in store. We maxed out my credit card in about thirty minutes flat. “No. You haven’t,” I replied, smiling. Buying those lipsticks had been a costly venture, and I’d needed to install new cabinets to store them all. But I had zero regrets over following her advice. I loved every one of those damn things.

  Scanning her ID card to open the main door, she grinned, triumphant. “Then we need to get out of here early so we can buy you a dress.”

  2

  “I cannot afford this shop,” I stated, turning from side to side in front of the dressing room mirror. We were in Sass & Bide—not my idea—and the dress I’d tried on had a price tag that turned my face as green as the hand-sewn sequins that covered it.

  “That sequined mini is gorgeous. Emerald green is your colour. It suits your dark hair and creamy skin. And it screams come and get me,” Olivia replied, admiring herself in a fitted black mini dress that had this amazing silver embellishment curling around her waist then up around the high neck. She was made to wear designer clothes; her tall rake-thin figure was enough to make any runway model feel fat and stick their finger down their throat.

  I, on the other hand, was not as gifted. The sequined dress barely covered my very round arse, and my enormous boobs looked like they were about to bust out of the scoop neck and take the spaghetti straps out as casualties.

  “I look ridiculous. I won’t be able to scratch my knee without showing arse cheek.”

  “Good. We’re going out to get you laid.”

  “No.” I shook my head, deciding that getting fat on too much chocolate was much better than parading around with my tits and arse on display. I didn’t need a man to make me feel better. And since Jack was the only man I’d ever been with, I didn’t even know if I’d know what to do. “I don’t want that. I’m out.” I turned around and went back inside my cubicle to change. Twenty seconds later, a familiar hand slid two more dresses over the door. One was a kimono-style silk dress in the same green as the sequined dress, and the other was black and fitted with wide shoulder straps.

  “Try these, Cor,” Olivia cooed, using my nickname as she wiggled the dresses to tempt me. “You look beautiful in anything, and I really think going out will do you the world of good. It’s been months since you and Jack split.”

  Folding my arms across my middle, I looked at the dresses but didn’t take them or respond to what she said, preferring to behave like a petulant child instead of the twenty-nine-year-old woman I was.

  “Come on, please. I’ll tell you what; you don’t even have to pick up tonight. You can just sit back and accept the free drinks. Hell, I’ll buy your drinks. You just need to get out of the apartment and have some fun with me.” She shook the dresses again. “I’ll even buy your dress for you.” I reached out and grabbed the dresses before she insisted on buying shoes for me as well. “I knew you’d come around. Oh, and I’m getting you shoes too. Nothing you have at my place will do.” Laughing to myself, I held both dresses against my body to decide which one I preferred while Olivia could be heard demanding that the sales assistant bring us shoes to try. There was one thing you could say about Olivia: once her mind was set on something, there was no persuading her otherwise. It was the primary reason she was one of the best prosecutors in the state.

  “I think this is the one,” I said, exiting the cubicle in the black embroidered dress. It held my boobs in place and enhanced my chocolate-loving curves with the addition of a very sexy centre-front split. I could see this becoming my favourite LBD.

  Nodding appreciatively, Olivia gestured for me to turn around. “Yes. That’s definitely the one. You’re a knockout.”

  By the time we’d finished shopping, it was past dinner so we stopped off to grab some sushi before we went back to Olivia’s to get ready for our big night out. She’d booked an Uber to pick us up at ten, saying that no sane person would enter a club before that time, so that gave us a couple of hours to eat and get ourselves all glammed up—although, I kind of thought of it as mutton dressing up as lamb. I couldn’t imagine that I was going to feel as though I fit in to the nightclub scene any better than I did wh
en I was eighteen. It was never my thing.

  Although, I’d never had Olivia as my wing-woman before. She totally knew how to get in the mood for going out. She turned on some music, prepared vodka martinis to loosen us up, and by the time our driver arrived, I was smiling and actually looking forward to a night out on the town.

  “We’re going to Chaise Lounge,” Olivia informed me when we slid into the back seat.

  “Chaise Lounge? They named their club after furniture?”

  “It’s really cool, actually. The décor is red with antique-looking chairs. It’s very old-theatre looking, great DJ, and lots of beautiful young men dying to get their rocks off after a tough week at work.”

  “Who are you to deny them that pleasure, right?”

  She giggled, a throaty sound that could have also been described as a purr. “It’s mutually beneficial, I assure you.”

  When I laughed, she reached over and gave my leg a squeeze.

  “I won’t ditch you,” she assured me. “Tonight is about you. Bob can be my lover for tonight.”

  Did I miss something? Who was Bob?

  Seeing my confused look, Olivia filled in the blanks for me. “B-O-B: Battery Operated Boyfriend.”

  I still didn’t get it. Olivia laughed.

  “You’ve been far too sheltered, Cora. I’m talking about my vibrator.”

  I sucked my breath back so hard that I choked on my own spit. “Olivia!”

  Laughing, she patted me on the back to help me breathe. “I really have my work cut out with you, don’t I? I mean, I knew you were a little straight and naïve, but I had no idea it was this bad. Do you even own a vibrator?”