After Hours

13- What are you hiding

She moved out of his grip, and turned her back facing him. Surprised to see her acting the way she was, when a few hours earlier it was a completely different story, and wondered what changed. "Victoria, what's going on here?" he asked sounding bewildered, while walking up to her, and placing his hands on her shoulders. "Am I missing something here?"

She slowly turned around, and took a deep breath as she looked at him. She didn't want to tell him what his sister said, but was now curious what she meant by it. "I started thinking... you wanted to know everything about me, and about Brayden, but never once did you tell me about you, or your history. Is there something that I should know?"

He squinted his eyes, and slightly shook his head, not understanding what she was talking about. "Victoria, I have no clue what you're talking about. Where is all this coming from?" he asked. After looking at her, and by the look on her face, it hit him... Janelle. "What did she tell you?" he asked quietly.

"Who?" she asked, playing dumb, not wanting to throw his sister under the bus.

"I'm not stupid, my sister is working back there with you, and obviously something was said... so, I'm asking, what was all said?"

"She didn't say much of anything... she just said that she knows you all too well, and that she didn't want to see me get hurt by you. So now the question I have for you is, what did she mean by that? And, what are you hiding from me?"

He placed his hand in hers, and walked her over to his office chair, sat down, and had her sit on his lap. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and exhaled deeply. "I don't know what Janelle was getting at, and I'm sure she's just looking out for me."

"But the question is why... quit trying to beat around the bush, and just tell me. You wanted to know about me, insisted on me talking to you about me, now I want to know about you, and why she would even say anything like that to me... I'm still not understanding why she would even bring that up."

'I don't know either, unless she was reading you. She's been known to be good at reading people, and she must have saw something with you... perhaps with your smile?" She shifted her body to look at him, and stared at him waiting to hear what he had to say. He sighed, and wrapped his hand around his mouth, thinking as he looked at the ground. He lowered his hand, and rested it on her thigh as he cleared his throat. If he wanted any kind of relationship with her, he knew he needed to tell her, even though it was something he wanted to forget about. "I too, recently split with someone that I had been with for a while."

"How long ago?"

"About five months ago, or so... I took her on a vacation to place she always wanted to go, and thought everything was going good between us, didn't see any issues, and was shocked when I asked for her hand in marriage, and she said no. When we got back home, she packed up her things, and moved out, I haven't heard from her since."

"Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you... I guess in a good way, you're lucky it happened then, rather at the altar, or after you were married." She felt bad for asking, but with him questioning her, she felt it was only fair to question him. "Now I understand why she said what she said to me. But I still don't understand why she thinks you would hurt me?"

"Only thing I can think of why she would say that is, if Krista were to come back, and wanting me to take her back, that I would."

"Would you?"

"No." he said hesitantly, while shaking his head no.

She leaned back, and wrinkled up her nose, not liking how he said no, "You hesitated." she says, trying to get off his lap.