Listed: Volume III (6 page)

He
arched his eyebrows and smiled at her—mockingly, tauntingly—as if he couldn’t
believe she’d just said what she’d said.

But
she had meant it. She’d meant all of it.

*
* *

That evening, Emily
took a long bath and pulled on her pajamas. Then, feeling restless and at loose
ends, she’d wandered around looking for Paul.

He
hadn’t said anything about her redirect testimony, but she hadn’t expected him
to. He was a private man, and he wouldn’t know how to respond to her earnest
declaration.

Emily
didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, so she wasn’t about to bring it up
herself.

He
wasn’t in his office, and he wasn’t in the kitchen or main living area. She
eventually found him in the media room, stretched out on the sofa and working
on his laptop. He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, and his feet were
bare.

He
usually worked in his office, so she was surprised to see him in this room. She
was actually glad, though, since it meant she had an excuse to join him.

She
walked over to the couch and lifted up his feet to make room for herself to sit
down. Then she replaced his feet in her lap.

He
cocked an eyebrow at her questioningly.

“Well,
I wanted to watch TV, and you were taking all the room,” she explained.

“How
are you feeling?” he asked, closing his laptop and putting it on the side
table.

“I’m
fine. Tired, but fine. What about you?”

“I’m
fine too.” He clicked on the television and started to flip the channels.

She
wasn't sure he was telling her the whole truth. Tomorrow, he would have to take
the witness stand and be ripped to shreds by Barton in front of his father.
Since his feet were in her lap, she took one of them with both hands and
started to massage it.

Paul
jerked in surprise.

“I
give good foot rubs,” she said, although she wasn’t entirely sure if her foot
rubs were good or not.

But
who would turn down even a mediocre foot rub?

He
looked dubious, but he didn’t pull his foot away, so she massaged it as
skillfully as she could. Paul kept flipping the channels, but she could hear
his breathing slow down as she kneaded his foot. Then it felt like his body was
relaxing.

After
several minutes, she switched to the other foot. Eventually, Paul landed on a
cable news channel and left it there. When she looked over again, his eyes were
closed.

He
wasn’t asleep though. Occasionally his breathing would thicken to almost a
groan.

His
feet were like everyone else’s feet—not the most beautiful things in the world.
But she loved them. She loved how Paul’s body had softened. She loved that she
had the power to make him feel better.

Finally,
her hands got tired, so she let them drop by her sides. She looked at Paul’s
face and wondered if he'd fallen asleep after all.

Then
his eyes opened. He smiled at her, looking drowsy and content.

Her
heart surged with tender possessiveness at the thought that she might have made
him look that way.

She
wasn’t sure who moved first. Maybe they moved at the same time. But he reached
down the couch toward her and she climbed up toward him. She ended up stretched
out beside him, nestled between his body and the back of the sofa.

It
was so nice. All her life, she’d never known how nice it was just to cuddle up
next to a man, have him hold her against him, feel his heartbeat beneath her
ear.

She
might have died without ever knowing it.

She
wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, but eventually both of them did—because they
were still on the couch together when she woke up the next morning.

***

Emily’s stomach twisted
anxiously as she rode in the back of a chauffeured car to the courthouse the
following morning.

She
was even more nervous now than she’d been the day before. Her part of the trial
might be over, but Paul’s would start today.

She
was so worried for him.

He’d
barely said a word all morning, except for his normal greeting and inquiry
about her health. His face was calm, stoic, as he sat beside her in the back of
the car. He stared out the window, and someone who didn’t know him as well as
she did would probably think that he was perfectly composed, perfectly at ease.

But
he wasn’t.

When
she noticed him absently rubbing the back of his neck, she was concerned enough
to break the silence. “You didn’t get a crick in your neck or anything from
sleeping on the couch, did you?”

He
looked over at her, faintly surprised. “No. I’m fine.”

“Are
you sure? Because I know it was kind of cramped and—”

“Emily,
the couch is huge. I was perfectly comfortable.”

“Okay,”
she said, eyeing his calm face. She had no idea how he did it, how he masked
his emotions like that. She’d always found it so hard to hide what she was
feeling.

“Emily,
I’m really all right. You don’t have to look like I’m on my way to the
gallows.”

The
dry note in his voice was a relief. She relaxed into a smile. “I’m sure you’ll
do a lot better than me and not break down in tears or faint or anything.”

Paul
actually chuckled at that. “I sure hope I don’t faint.”

“You’ll
do great,” she murmured, leaning her head back against the seat as she gazed
over at him. “And it will be over by lunchtime.”

His
face sobered, and he looked at her reflectively. She could tell he wanted to
say something, but he didn’t say it.

“What
is it?” she asked.

He
cleared his throat. “What if…what if you leave the courtroom during my
testimony?”

She
gasped and stiffened her back. “No! Why would I do that?”

“There’s
no reason you have to hear all of it.”

“I
want to hear it. I want to be there for you.”

“I
know you do, and I appreciate it. But it’s not going to be pleasant. I’d rather
you not hear the whole, ugly rehearsal of every sin I’ve ever committed.”

“I
don’t care if it’s not pleasant. I’m not going to leave. It would look like
I’m…like I’m ashamed of you or something. I’m not ashamed.” She glared at him,
daring him to challenge her on this. “I’m not going to leave.”

Paul
just nodded and glanced away.

They
sat in silence for a few minutes until Emily asked, “Did you look at the
newspapers this morning?”

He
turned back toward her, his expression changing. “Yes. I did.”

“I
was too scared to look. What are they saying?”

In
response to a defense motion about how media coverage of the trial would expose
confidential corporate information to the public, the judge had closed the
courtroom to the media for most of the hearings, including both Emily’s and
Paul’s testimony. But naturally word would get out about trial proceedings
anyway.

“They’ve
got that we’re married and that you’re sick, so they’ve concocted a tragic love
story for us,” Paul said. “They’ve got that my dad was threatening you, but not
the reason, and he doesn’t come off well in the headlines trying to threaten a
teenage girl. Overall, they seem to be on our side. That may change at any
moment, of course.”

It
didn’t sound as bad as Emily had feared. “Maybe it won’t. I think we’re a lot
more sympathetic than your dad is.”

Paul
gave a soft huff of amusement. “No argument here.”

She
reached over and squeezed his arm. “You’ll do great today.”

“We’ll
see.”

*
* *

Emily shifted in her
uncomfortable seat, praying Paul’s cross-examination would be over soon.
Hathaway’s direct examination had been simple and brief, merely establishing what
Paul knew of his father’s illegal activities and how he knew it.

The
cross-examination was something else.

It
seemed to have gone on forever, and Barton showed no signs of wrapping it up.
Paul was doing a much better job than Emily had done—he’d been cool, clear, and
articulate in his responses to every question, and he gave no obvious signs of
being under stress or even of being particularly concerned by the nature of the
questioning.

But,
to Emily, he looked a little pale around the mouth, and there was a tension in
his jaw that shouldn’t be there. This was hard for him. Really hard. She wanted
it to be over.

Barton
had done exactly what Paul had predicted—dredged up every act of questionable
morality or dubious legality in his entire history. It wasn’t any fun for
Emily. She didn’t want to hear about every stupid, reckless thing Paul had done
as a teenager. She didn’t want to hear about all of the women Paul had fucked,
the drugs he’d taken, the cars he’d wrecked. She didn’t want to hear about the
things he felt guilty about, the things he knew he’d done wrong. But Barton
asked about them all.

Hathaway
jumped in several times to object to certain lines of questioning, and some of
those objections the judge sustained, but there was still too much that Paul
had to admit.

Paul
hadn’t looked at her. Not once. He hadn’t looked at his father either. His eyes
focused on Barton whenever the man was speaking, and then he would sometimes
move his gaze to the jury as he answered. Emily thought he was doing a
remarkable job—admitting his faults but not faltering on his testimony.

But
it was just going on for too long.

Then
Barton did one of his sudden shifts. “Do you have scars on your back, Mr.
Marino?”

“Yes.”
Paul didn’t look tense or surprised, but Emily was sure he was.

She
held her breath, appalled by this new line of questioning.

 “When
did you get them?”

“When
I was seventeen.”

“How
did you get them?”

“I
was arguing with my father, and I fell backwards into a china cabinet. The
glass panes broke and cut me up.”

“He
hit you?”

“No.
He pushed me back from him, and I fell backward.”

“So
you were attacking him?”

“No.”

“Then
why did he need to push you back?”

“I
don’t think he needed to, but I was in his face, and he didn’t like it.”

“Why
were you arguing?”

“I’d
just been arrested for drug possession.” Paul said the words matter-of-factly,
but she knew how much this incident haunted him, and she couldn’t imagine how
hard it was to have it all laid bare in a public courtroom.

“So
you were at fault?”

Paul
lifted his eyebrows. “For possessing drugs?  Yes, I was at fault for that.”

“That
was the reason for the argument, wasn’t it?”

“No,
it wasn’t. The argument wasn’t about the drugs.”

“What
was it about, then?”

“What
it was always about. I wasn’t the son that he wanted.”

“So
it was
his
fault?” Barton made the question dubious, as if he couldn’t
believe Paul’s pettiness.

“We
were both at fault.”

“But
you’ve always resented him for what happened?”

“Yes,
I’ve resented him.”

“But
you were the one who broke the law?”

“Yes,
I broke the law.”

“And
you were going after him in the argument, and all he did was defend himself?”

Since
that wasn’t a question, Paul just stared at Barton steadily and didn’t answer.

“You’d
asked him for help with—”

“No,”
Paul interrupted curtly. “I hadn’t asked him for help. I haven’t asked him for
anything since I was thirteen. I’ll never ask him for anything again.”

Barton
looked nonplussed by the reply—far more forthcoming than anything else Paul had
said during the cross-examination. He must not have thought of a way to use it,
however, since he moved on. “Let’s talk about August 23—four years ago. You
crashed your car that night, didn’t you?”

Before
Paul could respond, Hathaway broke in, “Objection, your honor. As I have
pointed out several times now, the witness is not on trial. Whether or not he crashed
his car is immaterial to the case.”

“It
goes to establishing a pattern of conflict between Mr. Marino and his father,”
Barton explained.

The
judge shook her head. “That pattern has been sufficiently established. Dial it
back, Mr. Barton. The objection is sustained.”

Emily
released her pent breath.

“Mr.
Marino,” Barton said, turning back to Paul, “Did you manipulate your way into
your current position?”

“Excuse
me?” Paul asked. Emily couldn’t tell if he was really confused by the shift in
topic or just stalling on purpose.