Dream Lover by Nicola Peterson Page B

yelled at me every chance you got. I don’t understand what happened…’ she started.
    ‘I’ve also been nice to you, lots of times,’ he cut in and looked hurt when she raised her brows. ‘What about on the plane, I held your hand. I took care of you when Giles hit you and I didn’t bill you for ruining my suit and two shirts,’ his mouth curved into a generous smile. ‘And I introduced you to frogs legs,’ he added with another smile.
    She shook her head and ignored his humorous banter, ‘It would never work, not while we work together,’ she said seriously.
    Maxwell fell into the same serious mood, ‘Okay, so what about when Paul returns to work?’
    Quinn shook her head, ‘I will still be working for your company,’ she argued but only half heartedly.
    ‘I could sack you,’ he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
    Quinn couldn’t help herself and laughed, ‘What for?’
    He shrugged her shoulders, ‘Oh I could probably think of something.’ He tapped his brow with his finger while pretending to think, ‘I could say you…. you seduced me while I slept!’
    Quinn knew he was teasing but it didn’t stop the colour draining from her face, his joke was a little to near to the bone. Before she could stop herself she leapt up and ran from his room and in to her own locking the door behind her.
    ‘Quinn,’ he shouted as she ran across the room, ‘I was teasing…’
    ‘Leave me alone I won’t sleep with you!’ she shouted as she slammed the door in his startled face.
    ‘It was a joke, open the door Quinn,’ he demanded.
    ‘Leave me alone... go to your meeting you’ll be late,’ she called through the door. A few minutes later she heard his door slam and the sound of his feet as he dashed toward the staircase.
    Quinn couldn’t believe he could be so insensitive to make a joke about something that had caused her great distress in the past. Sighing unhappily she dropped onto the sofa, she should never have let him kiss her; should never have accepted his invitation to go to dinner with him, not when she knew there would only be the two of them. But what had she been thinking of to let him kiss her in the first place?
    Quinn had been with her previous employer for nearly a year when she was offered the position of personal assistant to one of the junior executives. She had only been working for him a few weeks when he asked her out, Quinn refused explaining that she didn’t think it was a good idea much to her relief Devlin appeared to accept her refusal graciously. Unaware of his reputation for bedding his secretaries she had happily gone along on all of his business trips. Even though nothing had happened between them stories started to spread through the office while Quinn carried on blissfully unaware of the rumours of her alleged affair with Devlin.
    But Devlin Maher was a spiteful man and when Quinn had rejected his advances he promised he would find someway to pay her back. When she and two other secretaries had been away on a two-day computer-training course, Quinn had been found in the hotel reception at two in the morning. When she explained that she often sleep walked the hotel staff where sympathetic. Unfortunately one of the secretaries told Devlin who then bent the truth and started stories about her, adding fuel to his own lies.
    Every year the company held a staff Christmas party at one of the large hotels in Manchester City centre. Over the night a number of the male staff walked passed her and told her their room number, some even went as far as to leave their key with her. At first she took it as a joke, a not very nice joke but still a joke. It was only when she was in the restroom and she over heard a group of women from the office talking that she realised what the significance of the room numbers meant. Distraught she went to her room with every intention of packing her case and going home immediately; to her dismay when she reached her room there were two of the men from the