Listed: Volume III (4 page)

He
smiled at her groggily. “Hi.”

“Hi,”
she replied, her smile deepening with something tender at the
uncharacteristically sweet expression on his face before he oriented himself.

She
saw on his face the moment he realized where he was. “Damn,” he breathed,
rolling over onto his back and retrieving the arm that had still been slung
over her belly. “I can’t believe I fell asleep. Are you all right?”

Emily
gave a little snort at his predictable inquiry about her health. “I feel great.
Not sick today.”

“Good.”
He rubbed his face with his left hand, obviously trying to wake himself up.

For
some reason, Emily was distracted by the sight of his wedding ring on his
finger—her ring—and something she hadn’t noticed yesterday. He’d undone his
cuffs and pushed the sleeves of his dress shirt up his arm when he was helping
her in the bath. But the cufflink was still attached to his sleeve. He’d been
wearing the Damascene cufflinks she’d given him on their wedding day.

For
some reason, the sight of the wedding band on his hand and the cufflink she'd
picked out on his sleeve made her chest tighten.

He
dropped his hand, completely unaware of her diversion. “I should get up.”

“It’s
still pretty early,” she murmured, surprised when her voice came out thick. She
cleared her throat. “They don’t start up until nine-thirty, right?”

“Right.”

“Even
I have enough time to be ready by then.”

Paul
turned to look at her, his eyes sober. “I don’t think you should try to make it
to court today. You haven’t had any time to recover.”

“But
they’ll probably get to my testimony today. I have to come!”

“I
talked to Hathaway, since we didn’t know when you’d be well. He said we could
rearrange the witnesses so that I’d testify before you do. That way, you
wouldn't need to be there until tomorrow.”

Emily
rolled over on her side, frowning at him. “But Hathaway thought I should
testify before you, didn’t he?”

“Originally,
yes. But he can make it work this way, and it would give you another day to
recover.”

“I
don’t need another day to recover. I want to testify whenever it will be best
for the case. I’m really all right, Paul.”

His
eyes scanned her face with that scrutiny that left not the tiniest detail
unobserved. “They still have to get through several other witnesses. There’s no
way they’re going to need you until mid-afternoon. Why don’t you rest some this
morning and come after the lunch break?”

Emily
started to argue, mostly because she didn’t like to feel weak. Then she
remembered that the last time she’d had a bout of fever, she’d slept for most
of the following day. She might not be prepared to give articulate testimony
after she’d gotten exhausted from sitting in court all day. So she said
reluctantly, “I guess that would be all right, if you don’t think they’ll need
me before then.”

“They
won’t.” He relaxed on the bed again, obviously having no pressing desire to get
up and start the day.

She
scooted over a little and fit herself against his side, reaching to stroke his
chest over his shirt. She didn’t know if he really liked it—he was always a
little stiff when she initiated any touches—but at least he didn’t jerk away
like he used to. She couldn’t help but think it might be good for him to open
himself up to being close to someone again.

“I
should get up,” Paul murmured, after a few minutes. His arm wasn’t really
holding her, but it had ended up draped around her. “I need a shower.”

He
did kind of need a shower, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He also needed
to shave. “It doesn’t take you long to get ready,” she said, “You have plenty
of time.”

He
let out a long exhalation, which she could feel in his chest. “They’re coming
after me.”

Emily
raised her head to look down at him, her hand growing still, her fingers
spanning one side of his ribs. “What do you mean?”

He
met her eyes. “My father’s defense team. They’re going to come after me.
Decimate
me
to save my father.”

Her
heartbeat had accelerated as she processed his words. “But that doesn’t make
sense. You have nothing to do with his trafficking, smuggling, drug-dealing,
and everything.”

“It
doesn’t matter. They’re going to argue that I’m pursuing some kind of vendetta
against him and have created this entire case because of my childish need to
get back at him.”

“That’s
ridiculous!” She was outraged by even the thought of it and horrified at the
idea of Paul having to suffer through such a cross-examination. “How could you
have fabricated the entire case? I thought they would try to cast doubt on my credibility,
since I’ve got more direct evidence than you do. That’s what they did at the
deposition.”

“I’m
sure they’ll do the same thing. They’re not going to take it easy on you, but
I’m going to be their real target.”

“But
I don’t understand. They should go after
me
, not you.” Her hand was
still resting on the curve of his ribcage—his body warm and substantial beneath
her hand, the thin fabric of his shirt soft as it stretched over his skin.

“They’re
going to use our marriage as evidence of my ongoing manipulations. They’ll
argue that I convinced you to lie for me.”

“But
you didn’t. We’ll just tell the truth. You haven’t done anything wrong, Paul!”

His
eyes, for just a moment, were open wounds. “But I have. I’ve done so many
things wrong in my life. And they’re going to dredge up every one of them.”

“But
none of them have to do with the case,” she insisted, her voice growing
slightly shrill in her absolute indignation. “Anything else will be
irrelevant.”

“It
won’t matter. They’ll make it relevant.” He gave her a little smile. “At least
this means they won’t be as hard on you. I’d rather go through it than have you
go through it.”

She
choked on her outrage. “
I’m
supposed to be going through it. Not you.”

She
sat up, breathing heavily and trying to think through what Paul had just told
her. She hated Vincent Marino.
Hated
him. Not just for what he’d done to
her, but for what he was still doing to his son.

When
her eyes rested on Paul again, she saw he was gazing up at her with something
soft in his eyes. “You look like you could strangle him,” he murmured, the
corner of his lips twitching slightly. “Although I’m not sure your hands would
fit around his throat.”

She
wanted to smile back, but she frowned at him instead. “I’ll have you know my hands
aren’t that little.”

Paul’s
smile widened, and he reached over to pick up her left hand. He held it against
his much larger one and gave her a significant look. Her hand did look small
and pale next to his.

She
just scowled at him. Then she couldn’t help but smile. She lay back down,
wrapping an arm around his belly. She loved how the flat, firm muscles felt
beneath her forearm and how it rose and fell slightly with his breathing.

“I
should get up,” Paul said again, still giving no indication of actually moving.
“I never stay in bed this late anymore.”

“It’s
not even seven,” she murmured, idly stroking his belly the way she’d been
stroking his chest earlier. She really liked how he felt this morning—relaxed,
masculine, real, human.

The
covers had slipped down when she sat up, and now they were pushed down to
Paul’s thighs instead of his hips. As she was watching her hand slide over his
abdomen, her gaze slipped lower, and she noticed a bulge at the front of his
trousers.

She
swallowed hard and managed not to jerk in surprise, sustaining her light
caress.

Paul
was hard. The knowledge gave her a thrill of delight and hope before she could
talk herself down with logic.

It
might not mean anything. Probably didn’t. Men woke up hard all the time, evidently.
It was likely just an incidental thing and didn’t have anything to do with her.
Paul had never shown any interest in her physically.

She’d
offered herself to him, and he’d refused.

She’d
tried to be as attractive as possible on the first night they shared a bed in
Egypt, in the hopes that maybe sex would just happen naturally. For a moment,
as they’d been talking in bed, she’d actually thought it would. He’d just
wanted to go to sleep, though. She'd been very disappointed.

Paul
was gorgeous, sexy, experienced, and charismatic in every way. And Emily
wasn’t. She knew how much he cared about her now, but he just didn’t think
about her that way.

He
wouldn’t have gotten hard because she was pressed up beside him, stroking his
belly.

Quite
involuntarily, her hand slipped a little lower on his belly, just above the
waistband of his trousers. She never would have been daring enough to move it
even lower, but she wanted to. She really wanted to.

“Okay,”
Paul said, a resonance to his voice she didn’t recognize, “No more
procrastinating. I really do need to get up. I’ve got some work to do before
court.”

She
rolled over and pulled back her hand, feeling ridiculously rejected but trying
to hide it. She watched as he got out of bed and headed out of her bedroom.

If
he wanted her—if he wanted her even a little—it would have been so easy for him
to make a move.

He
must have just woken up hard.

*
* *

It was late in the
afternoon, and Emily had been in the witness stand for almost two hours now.

She
was starting to feel like she might faint.

She
was just so ridiculously tired. Two days of fever must have taken more out of
her than she’d realized, and it was much harder than she’d expected to keep
from getting angry when the defense attorney’s questioning became more and more
aggressive.

Plus,
she had to deal with it all in front of Vincent Marino, who was sitting quietly
behind the defense table, his cold eyes never leaving Emily's face. She'd
looked at him directly once, and his grizzled face and smug expression had deeply
disturbed her, so she avoided looking at him again.

Hathaway's
direct examination had gone fine. They’d practiced all of her answers, and she
was able to express herself clearly, calmly, and convincingly. Even when the
defense attorney, a smarmy man named Edgar Barton, got up to cross-examine her,
she’d still felt fine. She’d responded to all of his questions—even his rude
and inappropriate ones—without faltering.

But
she was starting to feel really tired now. The room seemed to be getting hot,
even though she’d felt perfectly comfortable for most of the afternoon. She’d
gotten so thirsty that she’d finished the glass of water that Hathaway's
assistant had poured for her when she’d taken the stand.  No one seemed to care
that her water was gone, but she still had a lot of talking left to do.

“So
you’re telling me, Mrs. Marino,” Barton continued, “that you overheard evidence
of a crime and were just going to keep it to yourself?”

“I
was threatened by Mr. Marino, and I was scared. So, yes, for a while I kept it
to myself.” Her mouth was dry now, and she tried to swallow to conjure up some
saliva. There was an almost full pitcher of water on the defense’s table. And
another one on the prosecutor’s table. And another one near the jury box. She
would have thought that someone would be considerate enough to refill her
glass.

“So
you just woke up one morning and suddenly decided that justice was more
important than fear?”

“No,
I didn’t just wake up and decide that,” she said, coughing a little on the last
word. She wondered if she could just ask for more water. Surely that wouldn’t
be out of order. “He burned down my house.”

This
statement got an objection, and there was a brief discussion until the judge sustained
the objection.

“My
house was burned down,” she rephrased. “And I was sure he was the one who did
it. That’s what changed my mind.”

Barton
must have finished with this particular line of questioning, since he moved
suddenly to an entirely different topic. Hathaway had warned her that the
sudden shift was one of the attorney’s most effective strategies, but she still
had trouble orienting herself when he jumped to something entirely new.

“Did
you know Mr. Marino before you overheard this alleged conversation?”

She
blinked. “Yes. I’ve known of him all my life. Everyone in our neighborhood knew
him.”

“But
did you know him personally?”

“Personally?”

“Personally,
yes,” Barton continued, as if she were not quite mentally competent. “Other
than by reputation, did you know him personally?”

“I’d
never had any personal conversations, but I’d seen him in person,” she said
slowly, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “He came into my dad’s
store a few times.”

This
was evidently what he’d been waiting for, since he pursued it. “As a customer?”