Taking the Risk, Amaunet Jendayi [book recommendations website .txt] 📗

She wakes up to find herself in a queen-sized bed, trying to sit up she winces in pain and catches her breath. Struggling through the pain, she is able enough to try to see where she is. Because she knows, she isn't at the hospital or her own house.

Looking around she notices very expensive items such as the real wooden black dresser, a towering entertainment center complete with a 60-inch flat screen television, along with some other things. Also, the nice silk sheets she is wrapped in and the silk pajama set she now realizes she has on. Seeing her reflection in the television set, she gasps.

Two black eyes, bruises on her mocha colored face, and a busted lip. She wants to move closer, the pain disable her to do so, rendering her immobile. Lifting the sheet, she sees that her legs are propped up on pillows, her right ankle wrapped tightly in some bandages. It looks swollen, but she cannot feel the pain or tell if it was broken.

The jiggle of the doorknob causes her to flinch and her muscles tighten. She grimaces as her tight muscles make the pain circulate through her other muscles.

 A dark chocolate young man with dark blue jogging pants on and no shirt ambles in carrying a tray. Her heart beat increases at the strange man, she sits there in pain. His Muscles rippling from his arms as he carries a medium black steel tray full of breakfast food: eggs, pancakes, bacon, grits, and apple juice.

Their eyes meet and with a bright smile, he greets her, "Nice to see you're up."

Her mind not really noting who he is, she stares blankly at him but smiles when he sets the tray in her lap. However, his face did look very familiar, however, when she tried to remember; a migraine would shut it down. "I wanted to bring you some breakfast before I headed out for a run." He places his hands on his hips while he watches her dig into the breakfast.

She looks up at him and nods.

"Okay." He claps once, "Bathroom is over there." he points to the right and she tries to look at the bathroom entrance but the pain only limited her to look half way, then back at him. "There are fresh towels and wash cloths. I have also, asked my personal assistant to do a little clothes shopping for you, so you could have something to wear other than that torn and dirty dress. She should be by here soon."

He looks at his watch. She nods chewing on the bacon, not feeling so comfortable eating with him standing there. "If you need anything my pager and cell number is on the nightstand." She looks to her left next to the bed; there is a black nightstand that matches the black, white, and a little blue theme going on in the bedroom.

She turns back to him. "The maid...err...butler Jere, who is tending to the kitchen can help you as well, okay?" She nods; he ambles up to her and kisses her forehead, then leaves.

She cringes when he kissed her forehead, her eyes widen and her breathing turns rapid. She scrunches her face up, not understanding what made him think in his right mind that she would be comfortable with that. Aside from him kissing her even if it was on the forehead; she loved the attention she is getting. Especially, the breakfast in bed idea. She has never been served breakfast in bed before. She was always the one giving the person the food in bed. However, they never returned the favor.

She only wishes she could remember who this extremely sexy man is and what happened the night before. However, trying to remember only brought on a serve migraine. Grabbing the television remote from the nightstand, she turns on the television hoping to ease the migraine.

Flipping through the channels, she stops at the news channel; she hates the news because there is so much sadness in the world. However, no one really tried to change the sadness, but the people that did, were treated badly and shot down. All because people don't like change.

The face of her ex-lover, Patrick West’s picture is plastered on the television screen. Gasping, she turns the volume up to get a better hear. She flinches again because of the unexpected surround sound system.

"Just in Patrick Larkin West, suspected murderer, drug dealer, and also suspected of having an underground prostitution ring has been captured today. Police found Mr. West hiding out at his baby mom's house in the closet..." The reporter informs.

She turns down the volume. She knew that he was always sleeping with his baby mama, for all of the 4 years they have been together. Even when he denied it. She knew better than that. She also figured out he had been sleeping with other females as well.

To her, it was a bullet dodged when she went to her doctor for a regular checkup and everything came back clean.

Sighing, finally finished with her meal, she sets the tray on the empty side of the bed and looks at the business card that the young man had left her.

Picking it up, she reads his name, "Tyson Reese; Apex Sciences Computers. Computer Science Engineer."

The name does sound very familiar to her, but as she tried to think on where she'd heard his name, the serve migraine started to rear its ugly head back in. She pushed the thoughts aside for now.

Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she gently gets out of the bed, putting some pressure on her left ankle. She winces a bit but then hobbles to the bathroom; using the wall as a guide and support so that she wouldn't topple over and fall.

Switching the light on and looking into the mirror, the image of her nearly scares her. The worriment and wounds on her face are completely visible. Including the new editions. Seeing this, her hazel-green eyes begins to swell up with tears. She couldn't believe that she let him do this to her, beat her so bad, so many times for so long. 4 years of abuse and miscarriages, all cause he didn't want any more kids or thought they weren't his own.

She really couldn't believe that she let him do this to her. Continue to do it to her after the first time he hit her. She sucked up the tears, she's been strong for so long, and she had to keep on being strong. She could not think of a reason why she should keep on being strong, but she knew that she had to do so.

She had every reason to break down and cry on this bathroom floor, but she didn't. Just like all the other shitty things that happened in her life, from her mother selling her to her drug dealer boyfriend for a quick fix at the very tender age of 10 years old, then to her 'stepfather' sexually abusing her from 7 to 16 years old. Through all that, she never once shredded a tear or complained, she took it. Took it because she knew that the more she cried or whined, the harder her mother would beat her with whatever her mother could find or whatever was in arms reach.

Staring in the mirror at her own image, hypnotized by her scars and bruises. Her thick, curly brown hair that stops at the end of her shoulder blades lay a mess on her head. Her 5 foot 4-inch frame and voluptuous build made her the target for thugs, gang bangers, hustlers, drug dealers, and pimps. Undesirable attention. Her skin is a light skin complexion with a slight dark tint from always being outside.

A knock on the bedroom door causes her to jump and almost knock over some bottles on the bathroom counter. Steadying the bottles to make sure that they don't fall on the floor. She limps to the bedroom door, once again using the wall for support. "Who is it?"

"It's Tyson's assistant."

 She opens the door and in rushes Tyson's personal assistant with both arms full of shopping bags, struggling to not drop them. She quickly puts the bags down and plops down on the bed.

 "Ugh," She groans tiredly, dropping some of the bags on the floor and the others on the bed.

Closing the door, Aynslee limps to the female laying on the bed.

"I am Maryanne Cortez, Tyson's personal assistant," She gets up and places the bags that were on the floor onto the bed.

She continues to speak, "Okay, I didn't know your style but Tyson did tell me your size."

She dumps the contents of one bag out on the bed and shuffles through the shirts, jeans, skirts, and dresses. Maryanne then looks up at the young lady's face and winced at how bruised up she looks.

Touching her chin, she gently turns her head this way then the other way, looking at the wounds and bruises.

She inhales sharply, "They hurt?"

"A little." She answers meekly.

Maryanne nods and hums, "Hm, I have something for them, but not sure if it would work." Still sorting through the clothes and dumping the other bags contents onto the bed, "would you like to try it?" She asks looking at the female.

She nods.

Maryanne grabs her purse and she rustles through it.

 "It amazes me how everything else that I have is organized to a T except this purse," She chuckles finally finding what she is looking for; a red small jar.

Patting the bed next to her, she sits down, and Maryanne catty corners her body. She opens the jar and the very strong odor of grapes arises from the jar, the cream is a light blue.

 She applies the cream to her face, where the scars, wounds; new and old and mostly the black eyes, "Okay, let that sit for 2 minutes then you can rinse it off." She puts the top back on the jar and puts it back in her purse.

She nods feeling Maryanne get up from the bed, Maryanne speaks, “I came up with that myself. I use to be a doctor/lab tech."

"Hm?" Aynslee tilts her head.

Maryanne chuckles, "I know, a doctor to a personal assistant. A Huge change, right? Especially with the salary." She lays out the clothes neatly on the bed. "When Tyson hired me, I didn't expect to be doing so many computer technology stuff that deals with my field. I thought he would just make me sit behind a desk; file papers all day, run errands, and type things. Boy was I wrong."

She hears Maryanne rustling with another bag and hears a thump on the floor, causing her muscles to tighten again; making more pain course through her body.

Maryanne pats her lap to soothe her then continues to speak, "But sometimes when there isn't an assignment to be done, he lets me come up with my own stuff. He doesn't pressure me to sell my product either. Unless, I pitch it to him. Oh...times up." She says looking at her watch then helps the young lady up and guides her to the bathroom and runs the water for her.

 Shuddering slightly while she bent over to wash her face, she thought to herself that no one has been this nice to her since she found out about her spoiled half-sister; Luna who lives with her mother on the nicer side of town.

Finishing washing the cream off her face, she looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes sparkle at how majority of the wounds, scars, and bruises on her face is gone now, even the ones from years ago. She never thought that she would see this day where all the damages would be gone.

All most near tears, she hugs Maryanne. "Thank you."

Caught off guard by the kind gesture, smiling Maryanne hugs her back gently as