Hesitant

Ever indecisive, Anna didn't respond to her grandmother. After a moment of silence, Carter spoke up.

"Clearly, you don't need to help me with this; your job doesn't involve this, and you have no obligation to. I merely thought that you would wish to help.

"Truly, I will not hold it against you if you want to stay out of it. It's especially understandable after what happened earlier today."

"Hmm…" Anna pondered awhile. "May I get back to you tomorrow? I need to get my thoughts in order."

"That's quite alright," said Carter as he stood up. "I'll leave you now then. No need to show me out, just stay here. Thank you for the coffee, and I'll see you tomorrow."

…

'I did the right thing, didn't I?'

Roland lay on his bed pondering what had happened that day.

'We bumped into Anna at the elevator; she was upset, presumably because saw Roni kiss me.

'I get that she might be upset, but there was nothing between us. To get so angry because her boss started dating someone… audacious.

'She's lucky I didn't fire her, and that's only because she was purely acting on her emotions, she's a good employee, and we still owe her for the framing incident.'

He sat up and rubbed his temples. There had been a lot going on recently, a lot. Yet people still kept coming up with ways to stress him more.

'Dammit, I'm supposed to be the CEO; I should have people to deal with miscellaneous cr*p like this!'

Roland couldn't understand why these sorts of issues kept coming up, and he couldn't understand why there was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind.

"I haven't missed anything, have I?" he asked himself.

"Roni couldn't have done those things. I've known her for long enough to know how useless she is with computers. And I know she can be a bit overzealous and overexcited when she's passionate about something, but I don't think she would never be that b*tchy."

He lay back down and thought to himself, 'Perhaps I should perform some rudimentary checks… just in case.'

…

In her room, Veronica was back in front of her computer. She was staring at the monitor with a complicated expression. Roland was on the screen; she was watching him agonize over the matter.

'What's he worrying about? Everything's going well, so there's no cause for concern. He should be happy that we're finally together…'

Then through the monitor came the words "… she would never be that b*tchy."

Veronica's face blanched upon hearing that.

'He thinks that was me being b*tchy? Well, he doesn't think I've actually done all that, but he thinks that if I did do that, it's b*tchy?

'He clearly doesn't understand how much my actions have helped him and his stupid company!

'Oh God, what if he finds out somehow? Before, I was convinced that he'd understand why I've done it all, but now… I know he wouldn't understand.

'Would he even give me a chance to explain?

'Maybe I should speak to him about it, get it all out in the open before it's too late.'

Hesitant to reveal everything to him, scared of how he would react, Veronica sat in front of the screen awhile longer, watching Roland sleep.