Tuesday 16th October

"He said what?"

Dolph's piercing blue eyes blazed with fury. He was infuriated upon hearing what CM Punk had been saying to AJ the previous night. He couldn't believe Punk would be that callous towards her, especially if she was as broken as she claimed she was after Vickie had promised she would get her removed from her general manager position. He hated Punk before, but now he wanted to downright kill him. How dare he call her a whore! He wanted to walk out of AJ's hotel room right now, find Punk and hurt him just like he had hurt AJ, but seeing her so fragile before his eyes kept him from leaving her side.

"He… He said that the next time I whore myself around, I should cover my tracks because otherwise I wouldn't be in this mess. He was pretty brutal with his words, and it hurt, and I just…" She dropped her focus away from Dolph and onto the floor, blinking back the tears. She'd spent the past day a complete wreck with no clue on what to do next, and she'd just managed to get a hold of herself but having to explain everything to Dolph made all the emotions come flooding back to her.

"I'm gonna hurt him. I'm gonna hurt him so bad, that he'll never be able to compete in WWE again" He vowed.

AJ grabbed hold of his arms, doing her best to lock him in place as she saw that he was serious about hurting Punk and was about to make an exit for the door. "Whoa, don't you dare do anything stupid. If you go after him you will only make things worse and you know it."

"Well, what am I supposed to do AJ? Just let that dick treat you like crap? He's not going to get away with it, I promise you."

"Okay, so he shouldn't get away with it, but you can't just go attack him, that is literally the worst thing that you can do. What we need to do is focus on Vickie, not Punk, and figure out a way to prevent all of this coming out." She stated.

He could see the pleading look on her face, and couldn't deny that the more important thing to do at this moment was to help find a way to stop Vickie from making AJ lose her job. The only problem with this was… how?

"Okay, you're right. I'll leave the Punk thing alone for now, but what do you suggest we do about Vickie? I know her more than pretty much everyone and trust me babe, she does not back down from something easily." He told her.

AJ turned away from Dolph, now nervously fiddling with the silky strands of her hair, trying to come up with some kind of plan. She paced up and down the room and Dolph studied her every move. He so desperately wanted to help her, as he knew it was tearing her up inside to know she was on the verge of becoming unemployed, but so far he couldn't think of anything he could do. He felt completely useless for the first time in his life, and he hated that more than anything. In fact no, scratch that, he hated Vickie and CM Punk more than anything.

After a good few minutes of pacing, AJ flopped onto the couch. Her current facial expression told a thousand words. She was clueless, upset and lost. "I can't think of anything. I may as well face facts now… I'm going to lose my job and our relationship will be exposed." She admitted.

Dolph walked over to where she was sitting and once he was sat next to her, he slung his arm around her to comfort her. "Hey, don't give up yet, babe. Look, I know it might not work out, but how about I go talk to Vickie. If anyone can convince her to not go to the board with this, it's going to be me. She trusts me, and with any luck she'll change her mind."

"Thank you, I really appreciate that, but I don't think it's going to do any good, Dolph. If you keep trying to prevent her from going to the board, she's going to become suspicious of why you care so much. And then if she does find out that I've been seeing you, not John, she's going to make the both of our lives hell, presumably even more than she already has been doing."

Dolph stopped listening to her after she mentioned the name 'John'. It had been frazzling his mind to know that on that evidence, John and AJ are apparently in the same room. He believed AJ, he knew he did after she was so adamant that nothing had happened, but if there really was footage of them together, how the hell could she explain that one away?

"AJ? I um… I know you haven't been seeing John, but um… I'm just a little confused. Why would Vickie say there's evidence of you being together, if you weren't actually together?" He asked timidly. He was careful about which words to say to her, as he knew her mood could change at the drop of a hat. Dolph really didn't want to be back on the list of people she doesn't like.

AJ mulled over what he was saying, and quite honestly, she didn't understand why Vickie would say there's evidence of them either. She knew that she'd never even been in the same hotel room as John Cena before, so how the hell could there be a video of it? "I genuinely don't know. The only thing I can think of is if she's somehow got cctv footage of me and him when we had this business dinner a few weeks back. But that's all it was, a business dinner to discuss his injury, but we were in a hotel, and he walked me back to my door. But that was it, and I didn't see him again until a week later."

Dolph didn't know what to think. They had dinner together? AJ can throw the word 'business' in there all she wants, but that didn't change the fact that AJ and John Cena had dinner together, in a hotel restaurant. Why didn't she tell him? "You and John had dinner? Why the hell wouldn't you tell me that, AJ? Of course people are going to think things if they see you having dinner together!" He said heatedly.

"I didn't think it was that big of a deal, I mean, I don't usually have business dinners, but he has a busy schedule and the only time I could meet up with him to discuss his surgery and injury was at dinner after work. Why are you getting so worked up over that?" She queried.

"Because AJ… damn it. That's just something you should tell me, alright?"

"Hold on a second, I don't have to tell you everything, but I have just told you now. Besides, that kind of meeting is supposed to be solely between me and John, so please let me know why I should tell you all about that?"

Dolph laughed and shook his head at her. He got up from the black leather couch and walked over to the fridge to get out a bottle of water. There was total silence for a good long while, and it was killing AJ. She wanted him to talk, to explain to her why the meeting with John was something she just had to let Dolph know about. That was a meeting between general manager and employee, something that shouldn't be a big deal, but now it is.

"Dolph? Are you going to talk to me?" She probed. He didn't reply. The silence had returned between them, and with each passing second that there was no noise in the room, AJ became more scared as to what he was thinking. "Dolph, please tell me that you're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

A small smile crept up onto his face, but it certainly wasn't because he was happy right now. "That depends AJ, what do you think it is?"

She got up and walked over to the counter that he was now leaned against. "You're… you're thinking that something happened between me and John aren't you?" She enquired in a low voice, almost too scared to know what his reply is going to be.

"I'm sorry AJ, but how am I supposed to know if something has been going on or not? Let's be realistic for a minute, I haven't known you for that long, we have literally only just started to get to know each other and it's not like we're in a committed relationship."

She didn't want to listen to him say that. The last thing she wanted was someone else who wasn't on her side. "You're supposed to know that nothing happened between me and John because I told you so, and you're supposed to care enough about me to believe me!"

He wants to apologise. He wants to tell her he does care, and he does believe her, but he's having doubts because really, who could blame him? He didn't want to lose her, and to find out that there's some incriminating evidence of them together, it tortured him. Cena was like an enemy to Dolph, he loathed the idea of the two of them even being in the same room as each other.

Dolph's refusal to reply back to her only made AJ angrier. Dolph should know better than to piss off such an emotional person who has been known to snap at any given moment. "You know what? Screw you! All that BS you said about caring about me and wanting to be in a relationship with me was total crap wasn't it? You've only been with me so you can get one thing, and to be honest, you're just as bad as Punk!" She shouted at him, with rage so intense that had come out of nowhere.

"That is not fair AJ! You know I've never used you just for one thing, and I do care about you, but come on, if you were in my position are you telling me you wouldn't at least have a few doubts?" He questioned, now equally as mad as she is due to being accused of only wanting AJ for sex.

"I understand you having some doubts Dolph, but I'm being truthful! Nothing happened between me and John, and nothing ever is going to happen. What I am so unbelievably pissed off about is that despite me being completely honest with you right now, you're now choosing to believe some stupid evidence that is most probably doctored from someone who you claim to hate! I'm sorry for swearing here, but how fucked up is that?!" She shouted, yet again.

There were so many things he could say right about now, but he couldn't stand arguing with her. They were supposed to be coming up with ways to stop Vickie, not yelling at each other like no tomorrow. Dolph also didn't want to end up saying something completely stupid and get her even more worked up.

"You know, we wouldn't even be in this mess if you hadn't have been so adamant on keeping us a secret. If we had have been honest with everyone that we are seeing each other, then none of this would be happening! Everyone would know about us and not even think that I was sneaking around with Cena." She stated to him, now walking away from where he was because she was so angry to even look at him.

"AJ, why change the subject to bring that up again? You know why we didn't tell anyone about us. If Vickie found out, she would go berserk and things would be a million times worse, you even said it yourself earlier. Plus, we're not even in a proper relationship yet, it didn't make sense to let everyone know that we were sleeping together every night!"

AJ swivelled her body around to face him now, while adorning the most frustrated look imaginable. "That's the problem isn't it? Why the hell aren't we in a relationship? We're supposed to like each other, care about each other, but yet we're not really together? And you don't want to say anything because of Vickie, so what, are we just going to be a secret forever? I don't want to be that way, Dolph! And I don't understand why you even care about what she thinks!" She declared, now changing from angry to disheartened and upset.

"She's my manager AJ, it's complicated, but…" He now moved from behind so he could go stand closer to her, "you know I want to be in a relationship with you. All of this is a mess alright, how about we just get something to eat and talk about this later." He tried to reason.

"No. We're not going to talk about this at all. I don't want to look at you right now, I am that damn angry with you. Just get out of my hotel room, and you can forget about having any sort of relationship with me."

Dolph was shocked, and couldn't believe AJ was saying that. They were having a fight, but he didn't expect her to say that they were done. "Babe, please, I know you don't mean that. Let's just…"

"GET OUT!" She yelled, conjuring so much force into those two words so he got the message. "Get out of my hotel room. Whatever this thing is between you and me, it's done. It should have never happened."

Dolph was frozen in his position. He was hurt beyond belief that AJ had so quickly turned on him and said that all those intricate little moments between them shouldn't have happened. They meant something to him. She meant something to him, and now, she was practically gone.

He opened his mouth to try and argue against him leaving, but before he could get a word in, AJ ran to the bathroom, almost in tears. Knowing that she didn't want to talk about this, he begrudgingly trudged out of the hotel room.

In the bathroom, AJ had slid down against the door, now feeling even worse than she did before, which she didn't think was possible. Did she mean what she said to Dolph? No. But she was so livid in that moment with him that she wanted to hurt him. The only problem with that was that in doing so, she had hurt herself. She wanted to be with Dolph oh so badly, but they were fighting, and they had only started seeing each other… that shouldn't be happening. So she did the natural thing and told him they shouldn't have been together.

AJ's phone vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out so fast she almost dropped the device on the bathroom floor. She hoped that it was Dolph. She hoped that maybe he'd convince her that she was making a big mistake by saying she didn't want to be in a relationship with him, even though she was already regretting saying that to him anyway. But it wasn't Dolph. It was a man she had only gotten to know a month ago. A man named James who worked at the WWE headquarters. She didn't have a good feeling about this phone call.

"Hello, James? What can I do for you?"

"Hi AJ, I'm calling you up to let you know that there is a meeting scheduled for next Monday afternoon. Something has been brought to our attention, and we would like for you to be present for this meeting. It starts at 3pm, are you okay to attend at that time?" He told her.

"Uh, yes, that is okay. Can I ask what all of this is about?" She requested warily.

"That will be discussed next week. Goodbye AJ."

AJ dropped the phone to the floor and covered the mouth with her hands. This was truly happening now. There was no way of stopping Vickie because it looks as if she's already gone to the board. Her life was soon to be over, and now she didn't even have Dolph there to stick by her side. She didn't have anyone. She was well and truly alone.