Kept

Chapter 1. Expectations

San Francisco, CA

"I can't take this anymore. I quit!" Taylor Braxton's personal assistant screamed at him and dropped the pile of papers he'd just handed her.

He sat at his desk regarding her coldly. "If you do not clean up this mess, I will personally have you escorted out by the police."

"Why, why are you working me so hard? I thought this would be an easy job, but it's not!" The petite blonde was a mess; mascara ran down her face leaving ugly black lines as she cried.

Taylor rolled his eyes and sighed. He leaned over his desk and rubbed the bridge of his nose. What a spoiled little brat. Her references had been excellent which was why he'd hired her, now he realized she probably had all the right connections to people who were willing to lie for her. "Just get out of here," he told her. "You're fired."

She ran out the door crying. Another assistant running away in hysterics, was he really so bad? Sure, he had a lot of work to do, he was a very busy man trying to run his own business and several other things, so yes, working for him would be challenging. What he needed was someone who wasn't afraid to put in some hard work, who reveled in it as much as he did.

An alert popped up on his computer reminding him that he would be traveling to Atlanta in the next month. It was a meeting he could not put off. Damn, who was going to do all the work left behind once he left? He would hate to put Richard, his butler, in the middle of this again, but he had no choice. The old butler would be retiring soon, Taylor knew he needed to hurry up and find another assistant so Richard could train her before he retired.

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Atlanta, Georgia

"Honey?" Kaitlyn walked around the apartment looking for her boyfriend. She had driven to the grocery store when she realized she left her list at home. She'd driven all the way back just to get it.

Raymond hated when she forgot stuff. She wanted to make him happy and make as less mistakes as possible. After all, the man practically took care of her, she was so grateful to have someone as wonderful as him in her life. Living in a foster home for most of her life, she had never had a real family and he had been as close to one as she could get. They were going to get married, move into a house, and have kids that was the plan once he'd gotten his promotion as store manager.

The music was blasting loudly in the apartment. She knew he loved his music, but did it have to be this loud? And why was he playing Barry White? She didn't even know he liked this type of music. He mostly listened to hip hop. She made her way to the bedroom when she couldn't find him and saw him walking out dressed in a pair shorts. He stared at her in shock and quickly closed the door behind him.

Kaitlyn grinned at him. "Busted! You were supposed to be getting ready for work. Why are you still lounging around the house?"

"Why are you back from the grocery store so soon, didn't you just leave?" he asked almost in an accusing voice.

Kaitlyn looked at him in confusion. "It's nothing to get angry about, I just forgot my grocery list." She tried to move past him into the bedroom, he blocked the door.

"What you doing?" he asked nervously.

"I left it in the bedroom, what's wrong with you?" Kaitlyn tried to get past him, he wouldn't let her.

"I'll get it," he told her.

Kaitlyn stared at him, her eyes growing bigger as a shocking realization came to her. "Is someone in there, Raymond?"

"Raymond, baby, what's taking you so long? These strawberries aren't going to last forever around me," the woman giggled from behind the door. "Then again, I can think of other places you can apply the whip cream to."

Kaitlyn pushed past Raymond and opened the door to see a very naked White woman sprawled across the bed. The woman screamed and quickly covered herself. Kaitlyn could only stand there in shock.

"This is all your fault, you know!" Raymond yelled at her. "You just had to come back and mess things up! Me and you had a good thing going, Kaitlyn."

"What?" Kaitlyn asked too shock to say anything else.

"Sorry babe, you weren't doing it for me, the sex was okay, but nothing special. I just needed someone else to satisfy my needs. Look, I'm just as upset about this as you, you made a great wifey..."

Kaitlyn knew her life was over with that statement. She had put so much of herself into this man, had loved him so hard, and he had treated everything that she had given him so nonchalant... It was her last thought before she passed out from the shock.

The man she thought was her soul mate, was not the one...