Listed: Volume VI (9 page)

Emily
had daydreams like everyone else, but she’d long since given up hoping they
would come true. It was fine. She had a perfectly decent life, good friends,
and a great father. She didn’t need anything more.

There
were Lauras in the world, and there were Emilys.

And
the Emilys would never get the prince.

***

A month later, Emily
sat stiffly in a hospital room and watched her aunt die.

When
she first starting getting the fevers, she’d been restless, sometimes violent
in her delirium. She wasn’t anymore. She just lay in the bed, so pale she
matched the sheets, and she never even opened her eyes.

Maybe
it was the medication, or maybe her body was simply shutting down.

Emily
made a point of never lying to herself.

She
was her aunt. She was all the family she had in the world.

And
she was going to die before the week was over.

She’d
been sitting by her aunt’s bed for the last several hours in a numb stupor, but
a motion from the doorway managed to catch her attention.

When
she turned her head, she saw Paul standing just outside the door, in all of his
cool, expensive sexiness.

She
hadn’t been expecting visitors, and she just blinked in his direction, trying
to get her mind to work.

He
made a slight inclination with his head toward the hallway.

After
verifying that her aunt’s condition hadn’t changed, she heaved herself to her
feet and walked on unsteady legs. Under normal circumstances, she would have
resisted his summoning her with just a gesture of his head, but she didn’t have
enough energy to argue today.

“Is
she okay?” Paul asked after she’d joined him in the hall and they walked to an
empty waiting area nearby.

She
gave a silent half-shrug.

Her
aunt wasn’t okay.

“I
didn’t realize it had gotten so bad. I wish someone had told me.” Paul’s eyes
were sober, strangely quiet, in a way she’d rarely seen them.

“She
just kept getting worse. It happened fast.”

“I
would have come back from Switzerland right away if I’d known.” He’d been
skiing with friends for the last couple of weeks.

She
gave another shrug. “What could you have done?”

“What
do the doctors say?”

“They
still have no idea. They’re assuming it’s a virus, since it didn’t respond to
any of the antibiotics they’ve tried. They had the CDC in and everything, but
no one has seen anything like it.”

“Has
anyone else gotten sick?”

Emily
shook her head. “It doesn’t seem to be contagious that way. They say it doesn’t
pass from person-to-person contact. They have no idea what’s going on.”

“And
the fevers are the only symptom?”

“That’s
it. No symptoms except the fevers. But they just get higher and higher and last
longer and longer, and they’re going to kill her soon.” She thought she’d cried
as much as she could, but her voice still broke on the last word.

Paul
glanced away, his expression strangely tight. “I’m sorry.”

She
believed him. He’d played around most of his life, but he wasn’t a bad-hearted
guy. “Yeah.”

“Have
they…” Paul trailed off and started again. “Have the doctors considered the
possibility that this isn’t random?”

“What
do you mean?”

“I
mean you and your father are witnesses against Vincent Marino.”

It
was so strange to hear Paul talk about his own father so distantly, as if he
were a stranger.

“I
know that, but I’m the key witness, and I’m not sick. Besides, they tested for
poisons and toxins and everything. They think it’s a virus.”

“I
didn’t mean he’d been poisoned. My father traffics in arms, among other things,
and he doesn’t just sell guns and missiles. For a while, he’s been interested
in the development of biological weapons.”

She
gasped. “You think he did this to my aunt on purpose?”

“I
don’t know. It might not have been on purpose. Maybe your aunt was exposed to
something accidentally on the job. I just want to make sure the doctors look
into every possibility. Is it all right if I talk to them?”

Emily
nodded, horrified by this new possibility.

It
made a bleak sort of sense, though.

Everything
terrible that had happened to her in the last year was because of Vincent
Marino.

Paul
glanced down the hall toward her aunt’s room. “Do they just have the one uniform
stationed at her room?”

“Do
we really have to go through this whole thing again?”

“It’s
not enough.”

Emily
was too tired and drained to have another argument about security.

Paul
seemed to recognize this and took advantage of it. “One half-competent cop isn’t
enough to keep you and your aunt safe. I’m not any sort of professional, but I
could take that cop out without blinking.”

For
a strange moment, Emily was attracted to him. Not in the old way—the kind of
movie-star idolization—but in an intense, visceral surge prompted by the
masculinity he exuded.

The
weird response came and went in just a moment, since she wasn’t in any sort of
condition to process or indulge it.

“And
then you and your aunt would be dead,” Paul concluded, still looking down at
the uniformed police officer stationed at her aunt’s door.

Emily
didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.

“I’m
serious,” he continued, turning his gaze back to her. “You may not believe it,
and the feds may not believe it, but I know my father better than any of you.
He’s perfectly capable of killing anyone he sees as a threat to him.”

She
shrugged with one shoulder. “My aunt is almost dead anyway.”

“But
you aren’t, and you’re still a threat to my dad if you testify against him. I
don’t know what they’re thinking, just putting one half-assed cop on—”

“Would
you stop?” she burst out. “I’m so sorry that my aunt dying is putting a crimp
in your little vendetta, but I’ve got other things to worry about right now.”

Paul’s
expression changed. “I didn’t mean—”

“I
know. I know you didn’t.” She exhaled, suddenly as limp as a popped balloon.
She swayed on her feet, and Paul reached out to put a supportive arm around
her.

It
wasn’t tender or gentle, but it was strong, and she needed it.

“When
was the last time you ate?” he asked.

She
sneered at him faintly, too weak to give his presumptuousness the snide
response it deserved.

Evidently
realizing she wasn’t going to answer, Paul went back to their previous subject.
“I’ll understand if you decide you don’t want to testify against him now, given
what’s happened.”

“No.
I still want to do it. Your dad doesn’t get to win, just because everything
else has gone to shit.”

Paul’s
handsome features relaxed slightly. “Thank you.”

“I’m
not doing it for you.”

“But
still…” He cleared his throat. “Can I please do something for you?”

She
looked up at him, surprised.

 “Can
I hire security to protect you until the trial is over?”

She
just stared, wondering why she didn’t feel the immediate defensiveness she’d
felt when he made the same offer before.

Paul
gestured with his head toward a big man in a suit who stood several paces away.
Emily had assumed he was related to one of the patients in the hospital, but
she suddenly realized he was a bodyguard. “They’ll be discreet. They won’t get
in your way. And they’ll keep you a lot safer than law enforcement seems
capable of.”

She
swallowed and thought about it. Then made a helpless gesture with her hands.
She just couldn’t care about such things when her aunt was dying down the hall.

Paul
reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. His grip was warm and heavy. “I
might not be able to do anything to help your aunt, but I can keep you safe,
Emily. Let me do it.”

For
a moment, she couldn’t look away from him. She’d never seen Paul so utterly
earnest.

“Can
you trust me?” he asked, when she still didn’t answer.

Maybe
there was no reason to trust him, since Paul had done little in his life but
waste time, money, and relationships, but she did anyway. “Yeah.”

“You’ll
let me keep you safe?”

“Yeah.”

He
squeezed her shoulder before he dropped his hand. “I won’t let you down.”

***

Three weeks later,
Emily buried her aunt with a simple graveside service.

The
Masons opened their home afterwards so people could give Emily their support
and comfort.

She
liked these people. Some of them she even loved. But she didn’t want to talk to
any of them. She didn’t want to see them.

She
wanted to hide under the covers and wake up from this endless nightmare.

After
an hour and a half, she couldn’t take any more sympathetic smiles or soft
voices asking how she was. She felt too hot. Claustrophobic. She slipped away
from the crowded rooms where people were mingling and eating from paper plates.

She
went outside to the front porch and breathed deeply of the summer air, trying
to catch her breath since it seemed impossible to cool down.

She
hadn’t cried all day, but the world felt like a gray, slow-motion dream.

“Are
you ready to leave?”

She
stiffened at the unexpected voice and turned her head to see Paul standing on the
walk that led up to the house. He wore the dark suit he’d worn to the graveside
service and stood with his normal confident, almost arrogant stance.

He
hadn’t come over to Chris’s house with her after the graveside service. She
didn’t know why but didn’t care enough to ask.

 “I
shouldn’t,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse like she’d overused it,
although she hadn’t really been talking that much.  “They went to so much
trouble.”

“They
did it for you. They’ll want you to do whatever you need to do.”

Emily
looked longingly at the chauffeured car—which was the vehicle Paul had started
to use now that he went around with bodyguards all the time.

She
still didn’t think Vincent Marino was capable of violence against her. Or
against his own son.

But
Paul evidently did.

She
wondered what it was like for him to believe that his father might try to kill
him.

She
didn’t have the emotional capacity at the moment to wrap her mind around it.

“Let’s
go,” Paul said. He held out one hand in a subtle beckoning gesture.

Emily
took a step toward him before she remembered her manners. “I need to tell Chris
and his folks first. I need to thank them.”

“I
can tell them, if you want—”

“No.
I’ll do it.”

She
went back into the too-hot, crowded house and managed to explain that she
needed to leave. The Masons looked at her in kind pity, and Chris gave her an
awkward but sincere hug.

He’d
given her a surprise party in this house for her seventeenth birthday. Less
than a year ago.

He’d
given her a birthday kiss at the end of the evening, and she’d had dreams for
weeks afterwards that he was finally starting to develop feelings for her.

He
wasn’t. It was one of those daydreams that just died.

All
of them did eventually.

Now
she could hardly remember being the girl with such a crush on him.

Paul
was waiting by the car when she returned.

When
they got in and the driver pulled away from the curb, she leaned her head back
against the seat and closed her eyes.

She
was so incredibly tired. Her mouth and her eyes felt so dry.

Paul
sat in the seat beside her, and she could feel his presence. He wasn’t a
naturally quiet person, so he must be trying to give her some space.

He
was used to being the prince of whatever room he walked into. Which was why she
was vaguely surprised that he’d been so helpful for the last few days, taking
care of all the logistics so she didn’t have to do anything but just show up.

On
that thought, she opened her eyes. “Thanks.”

“For
what?”

“For
helping me out with all the arrangements. For everything.”

He
glanced away, looking uncomfortable. “It was nothing.”

“It
wasn’t nothing to me.”

When
he didn’t respond, she changed the subject. “Any luck with getting a job?

“Actually,
yes, thanks to you.”

“Thanks
to me?”