Page 35 of Never Again

“Oh, come on!” came the grumble a minute later after he finally managed to wrestle the cup of coffee that someone left on the kitchen counter from her hands and threw her over his shoulder.

“First rule,” Quinn picked up right where he left off as he continued heading towards her office, “you don’t go anywhere without me.”

“And if I don’t agree to that rule?” Bailey demanded as he carried her into her office and closed the door behind them.

“It’s not up for discussion,” Quinn said as he set her down on her desk and shifted his attention to the report that his men left for him.

“We’ll come back to that later,” Bailey said, shifting to get more comfortable on the desk. “What else?”

“No one enters the building without approval,” he murmured absently as he ran through the report, noting everything that had been completed while they’d been gone and what still needed attention.

“And whose approval would that be?” Bailey asked, sounding more curious than anything.

“Mine,” Quinn said, not bothering to look up as he made several notes of his own and added another work order for a second camera in the stairwell outside her door.

“I see…” came the softly murmured response. “Anything else?”

“That should be enough,” he said, making one last note before shifting his focus to the small woman watching him with a determined look in her eye that had him biting back a sigh, knowing what was about to come.

“Then, I guess it’s time that we went over my rules,” Bailey said with a firm nod as she climbed off the desk and made her way around it, where she dropped down in her chair with a satisfied sigh.

“And what would those be?” Quinn asked as he sat down on the leather couch that took up most of the small office.

“First off, I don’t need a bodyguard, so I see no reason why I can’t come and go as I please. Secondly, I have the final say in who gets access to my building,” Bailey began, punctuating every rule with a firm nod.

“I’m assuming that there’s a third rule,” he drawled, waiting for her to finish so that they could finally come to an understanding. It was his job to protect her and he wasn’t going to allow anyone to get in the way of doing his job.

Not even her.

“Yes, yes, there is,” Bailey said, clearing her throat with a firm nod as she folded her hands on the desk and did her best to stare him down.

“And that is…”

“Pam isn’t fired,” she said, following that up with another firm nod.

“She has no business working in security,” Quinn said, watching as she reached up to rub the bridge of her nose as she did her best to hide her wince.

“I had no complaints,” Bailey managed to get out with a straight face.

“And your head?” he asked with a pointed look at the small cut on her forehead that was probably going to leave a scar.

“Will teach me to duck faster?”

“True,” Quinn murmured, getting up and headed for the door, deciding to make sure that his team didn’t miss anything as he added, “Which is why I hired her back as your personal assistant.”

CHAPTER19

“Iwould once again like to thank you for this opportunity,” Pam said with a hopeful smile while Bailey sat there, trying to figure out how this happened.

One minute, she was ensuring that Quinn understood that she would not be intimidated, and the next…

“I’d also like to take this opportunity to apologize for your head,” Pam said with a nod as she shifted in her seat while she continued to hug the notebook and pen that she’d showed up with ten minutes ago against her chest as she sat there waiting for Bailey to say something.

“Did Quinn happen to tell you what your new duties were?” Bailey asked, deciding that was the best place to start since she had no idea what a personal assistant did.

She’d never had one before, never really needed one and…

She really wasn’t sure that this was a good idea.

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