Author's Note: Okay, so I apologize for the delay in ALL my stories. After Jerry "The King" Lawler collapsed at RAW on Monday night my Muse decided to take a little "vacation". She disappeared for a week…not sure where she went, but I spent the time meditating, praying for Jerry, and getting ready for my wedding next month…There is so much to do! I think she's back so I'm gonna give this another crack…hopefully it works. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews and follows! Oh, and patience!


When Stephen walked into his hotel room with Paul, he saw Anna sitting on the bed and she didn't look happy. He quickly walked to her side and put an arm around her. He wanted to kill Phil for laying his hands on her again, he could see the bruises forming on her arm and it made his blood boil. Anna leaned against him and finally looked up at Paul.

"Alright, how are we going to do this?" she asked, her voice low and cautious.

Paul leaned against the wall and sighed, "I'm not really sure. Given the way Randy says Phil reacted to you losing the battle royal tonight, I'm a little worried about how he'll react to "Sheamus" competing for your affections."

"Paul, he's unstable, I don't feel safe working with him." Anna said, being honest with her boss. "I'll quit if you can't find a way to get me away from him, and soon."

"Anna, that won't be necessary." Paul said, "We're planning on AJ announcing a tournament to determine Punk's SummerSlam opponent on Monday. Sheamus will win the tournament and on SummerSlam night he'll face CM Punk."

"A month, you want me to wait another month?" she said, feeling herself get a little dizzy. "I can't wait another month."

"That's okay." Paul said, "You won't have to wait another month, you and Punk will be at ringside for every match of the tournament."

Anna nodded, "That's nice, but how does that get me away from Punk sooner than SummerSlam?"

"Because, tomorrow night, when AJ announces the last quarter-final match we expect Punk to get very angry that Sheamus is one of his potential opponents for SummerSlam." Paul said, "At some point, possibly when Sheamus wins, Punk will of course think this was all your idea and at that point Sheamus will interfere on your behalf."

"You're leaving an awful lot of this up to chance." Anna said, feeling more and more nervous as the conversation went on. "What happens if he attacks me at the beginning of the match? What happens if he gets out of control?"

"Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole are both aware of what's going on, along with Justin Roberts and all the referees." Paul said, "if anything happens and Sheamus can't get to you or it looks like it's going badly, they will get involved and get you to Stephen as quickly as possible."

Stephen could feel the tension in her body, she was ramrod stiff, which probably meant she didn't like this idea at all. If he was honest with himself, he didn't like it either, but he couldn't think of any other way to get her away from Punk and at his side.

"Paul, how many people in the company have you told about what's going on?" she asked, "Wade told me that our friends know, yours included."

"After what happened a few weeks ago I did pull Wade, Drew, Randy and a few other superstars into the office and let them know what had happened. I wanted Randy prepared for No Way Out tonight and to have a few additional eyes to make sure that nothing happened." Paul replied honestly, "I also let Jerry and Michael know what was going on so they could keep an eye out when you were down at the ring."

Anna nodded, it made sense, she just wished he'd said something to her; it was disconcerting knowing that people knew her personal business but not knowing exactly who knew and how much they knew.

Stephen held her close and they worked out a few more details, going over a few ways that the match tomorrow night could go. Finally, after talking for well over two hours Paul left them alone to talk and headed back to his room to call Stephanie; he knew his wife wasn't going to be happy about what was going on, but they needed to keep their employees as safe as possible.

Anna looked at Stephen and sighed, she hated seeing him looking so worried but she knew there wasn't much she could do about it. It was what it was and after tomorrow night nothing would be the same.