Listed: Volumes I-VI

by Noelle Adams

  He lifted his head and stared down at her pale face.

  Then he pressed his palm against her forehead, her cheek.

  She was cool.

  Terror seizing him, he fumbled for the pulse in her neck, and he let his breath out with a whoosh when he felt her steady pulse. Then he saw her chest rise and fall slowly with her breathing.

  She was asleep. Her fever must have finally broken.

  She hadn’t left him yet.

  ***

  Paul felt like he was drugged, like he couldn’t even open his eyes.

  He fought through the dark fog of sleep until he was able to blink in the dim light of the room. He was in his own bed in their Philadelphia apartment, where he’d collapsed in absolute exhaustion after they’d arrived home late the previous night.

  He’d slept like the dead for several hours, and now he was waking up alone in the big bed.

  Last night, Emily had insisted that she sleep in her own room so he could get some rest too. She’d been so weak after her prolonged fever and the long flight that he hadn’t had the heart to argue with her, no matter how much he would prefer to be close to her.

  If she’d slept with him, he would have kept waking up throughout the night to check on her.

  A glance at the bedside clock told him it was already eight in the morning. He couldn’t believe he’d slept so late. He jumped out of bed and hurried down the hall to Emily’s room.

  The door was partway open, so he pushed in. He let out his breath when he saw Emily sleeping peacefully in the darkened room. When they’d landed last night, he’d sent Amy home to rest, and Lola, their regular night nurse, had sat with Emily through the night.

  When she saw him, Lola got up from her chair and walked over to where he was standing. “She’s been sleeping fine,” she said softly. “No fever yet.”

  Paul nodded, his eyes devouring the outline of her Emily’s body under the covers. He wanted to touch her, to check on her, but he was afraid of waking her up. “Thanks,” he murmured. “She can sleep another hour.”

  He’d made an appointment for them to meet with Dr. Franklin at ten that morning. He was prepared to use any means necessary to ensure that they pursue more aggressive treatments against the virus. Clearly, the initial experimental treatments weren’t working, and they only had a very small window of time to do anything at all. It wouldn’t be long before Emily’s fever returned, and Paul was almost certain that the next fever would kill her.

  He went to shower and dress, and then he took his coffee and a protein bar to his study to get through some email. He was woefully behind on his work at Simone’s, which was not a good way to prove himself worthy of the added responsibilities they’d given him.

  He couldn’t bring himself to care, though. It was almost impossible to think of anything but Emily.

  He exerted all the force of his will and was able to focus enough to work through a lot of his email quickly and efficiently. He was actually surprised by how much he’d done when there was a tap on the office door, and he checked his watch to see it was almost nine o’clock.

  He turned and smiled at Ruth when she came into the study with a pot of coffee to refill his mug.

  “It’s good to have you home, Mr. Marino,” she said with an answering smile as she poured the coffee.

  “Thanks. I’m glad to be home.”

  He meant it. The familiar surroundings were deeply reassuring. He didn’t let himself think about how sterile and empty they would be without Emily.

  “How is Mrs. Marino?” Ruth asked. “She seems to have slept good.”

  “I think she did. She needed it. She’s had a hard week.” He sighed and took a sip of coffee. “She’s been really sick.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t mind, sir, but I’ve been praying. I think she’s looking a little better.”

  He didn’t argue, but he knew that was only wishful thinking on Ruth’s part. Emily had lost more than five pounds in just one week, and she was still as white as a ghost. She didn’t look better. She looked worse.

  He tried to smile in response, but he couldn’t manage any words.

  Ruth’s face softened. “Don’t give up, Mr. Marino,” she murmured. “Not yet.” Then, as if she was afraid she’d overstepped her boundaries, she turned around and hurried out of the room.

  Paul swallowed and turned back toward his computer. He breathed, tried to clear his mind again so he could work for a few more minutes.

  Before he’d succeeded in focusing again, he heard another knock on the door. When he turned toward it, he was surprised to see Jonathon Marks, the head of the security firm he used, standing in the doorway of the office wearing a tailored suit, with a newspaper folded under one arm.

  Marks was eminently professional and discreet. He stopped by occasionally to inspect his security team, but he never bothered Paul for anything less than an emergency. “Good morning, Mr. Marino,” he said with a polite smile.

  “Good morning.”

  Never one to waste time on small talk, Marks got down to business. “Have you seen this yet?” he asked, unfolding the newspaper as he approached the desk.

  Paul shook his head. He hadn’t read a newspaper, watched the news, or checked any news sites for at least four days. The world might have gone to war, and he wouldn’t know about it.

  “I’m sorry,” Marks said soberly, laying that morning’s edition of a local paper out in front of Paul and pointing out a picture on the front page beneath the fold. “I don’t know how they were able to get the shot. The area should have been secure.”

  Paul focused on the image, and his chest tightened as he saw a picture of himself, carrying Emily to the car after their plane landed the night before. Emily looked limp in his arms, and Paul’s broken expression was more revealing than anything he would willingly have shown to the world. The caption beneath the picture called him “young” and “devoted” and talked about him spending his last days with his “brave, dying bride.”

  “Who has this?” he asked, his voice a little hoarse.

  “Everyone. I’m sorry, sir.” It was Marks’s second apology in less than two minutes—a record for the competent man.

  Paul cleared his throat. Marks and the team had done an excellent job over the last months in keeping the press at bay. Paul knew better than to think it was possible to close them out completely—not when the trial and his marriage had made him such a tempting target.

  Besides, he had more important things to be concerned about right now than having his privacy invaded.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It happens.”

  Marks blinked. “Thank you, sir. We’re working on—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Paul interrupted.

  Marks's face grew still for a moment. Then he said again, “Thank you, sir. May I ask about how Mrs. Marino is doing?”

  Paul’s jaw tightened reflexively. “Not well.”

  “Please tell her that we’re all thinking about her.”

  Paul swallowed again as the other man left his study. He had never realized that people cared about him—at all—until Emily came along.

  He let out a long breath and gave up on his email. He needed to get Emily up anyway if they were going to be at Dr. Franklin’s office by ten. So he forced himself to his feet and went to wake up his sick, exhausted wife.

  * * *

  Paul leaned his head back against the cushy leather sofa in Dr. Franklin’s office and closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn’t remember ever being so tired in his life. In a way, it was a relief. He was so tired even the pain was somehow muffled.

  Emily was sprawled out on the sofa with her head in his lap. He stroked her hair gently, but he thought from her breathing that she’d already fallen back to sleep.

  He’d had a hard time getting her up. She’d been so listless and lethargic that he and Lola had practically had to dress her. He’d called and asked Dr. Franklin if the doctor could come to the apartment instead. Dr. Frank
lin had been willing, but he’d suggested they come to the hospital as originally planned since he wanted to do some tests to see how the virus was progressing, and they’d be able to get results more quickly that way.

  So Paul had carried Emily to the car, and she’d fallen asleep on the ride over. She’d been barely conscious as Dr. Franklin examined her, took blood, and asked them questions, and she’d fallen asleep as soon as he’d left the office. He had returned again after a while and had taken more blood and performed a few new tests.

  Under normal circumstances, Paul would have demanded to know what was going on, but Dr. Franklin and the nurse had both looked sober and concerned, and Paul just couldn’t bring himself to hurry along any more bad news.

  So he and Emily were waiting alone in the office, while the medical team examined the test results and determined the best course of action.

  If Dr. Franklin returned in a few minutes and told Paul there was nothing else they could do—that they would just have to wait for the end—Paul would have no choice but to punch him in the face.

  He was getting more and more concerned about Emily. She didn’t have a fever. Her head was warm in his lap, but her skin wasn’t unusually hot. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t stay awake.

  As he was stroking her loose hair, his fingers accidentally got caught in a tangle, and he pulled on it before he realized what he was doing.

  Emily jerked and sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, gently untangling his fingers.

  “S’okay,” Emily mumbled, evidently trying to pry her eyes open. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re still waiting for Dr. Franklin to come back and tell us what treatment we’re going to try next.”

  “Oh.” Emily groaned as she made herself sit up. She sat very still for a moment and breathed, as if she felt dizzy, but then she twined her arms around his neck. “I’m not sure I’m up to any sort of major treatment. I don’t seem to have any strength left at all.”

  “You won’t have to do the work on whatever treatment he tries. You’ll do fine.” Paul wrapped his arms around her and pulled her gently into his lap so he could hold her. He tried to sound encouraging, but his stomach dropped like a rock. It sounded so much like she was giving up.

  He tightened his arms instinctively and tightened them even harder when he felt her begin to shake.

  “I can’t stand to leave you alone, Paul.” Her face was pressed against his shoulder. "But I'm so, so tired."

  “You haven’t left me,” he said thickly. “You haven’t left me yet.”

  “I know, but it won’t be long. I’m trying to hold on for you, and I’ll try new treatments for you, but I’m just so tired.”

  She sounded more than tired. She sounded battered. He wanted to beg her to stay with him, the way he had in Hawaii. There were limits, after all, to how far he could go, how much he could give.

  Even if it might mean prolonging her pain, he just didn’t want her to die.

  Since he knew that wasn’t what he was supposed to say, he forced out, “I want you to do what’s best for you. Don’t do anything for me. Think about you. Not me.”

  She lifted her head and pressed a little kiss on the side of his mouth. “Silly. You know better than that. That’s not how love works. I’ll always think about you.”

  He didn’t answer immediately. Just thought about what she said. Then his arms tightened around her again as he suddenly realized there were no limits after all to how much he could love, how much he could give, how much he would suffer to keep her from suffering.

  “Don’t do the treatments for me,” he said hoarsely, this time meaning it. “I don’t want you to keep going just for me.”

  Her face twisted and she would have responded, but Paul would never know what she was going to say. Dr. Franklin came back into the office.

  The man looked a little uncomfortable at having interrupted what appeared to be an intimate moment, but Paul released his desperate grip on Emily and rearranged her beside him on the couch.

  The doctor took the chair facing them.

  When he didn’t speak immediately, Paul got impatient. “Tell us.”

  “The results are not at all what we expected. That’s why we came to do the other tests. But the results were the same both times.”

  Paul frowned. “What’s so surprising about them?”

  “There’s been dramatic improvement.”

  “What?’ Paul demanded, every muscle in his body freezing in a clench.

  Dr. Franklin held out his hands and smiled vaguely. “This latest treatment we tried must be working. The improvement is…dramatic.”

  Paul stared, breathless and disoriented. His mind couldn’t even process the significance of what was said.

  “I’m going to call in for consultation from a couple of other doctors. I don’t want to draw conclusions too soon. We’ll continue this latest treatment, of course, and wait to see what happens, but these are better results than anyone anticipated.”

  Paul just kept staring. Couldn’t seem to breathe.

  “I don’t understand,” Emily mumbled, leaning against his side. When he looked down, her face was groggy and confused. She still barely looked awake.

  Clearing his throat, Paul said, “He says the virus is getting better. That maybe you’re on your way to being cured.” Even saying the words didn’t make them feel real. It was too much—too much to even begin to wrap his mind around.

  And he just couldn’t let himself believe it was true.

  Emily blinked up at him, looking as dazed and doubtful as he was. “But I still feel like hell.”

  Dr. Franklin said, “It could simply be the aftermath of having such a high fever for so long. Give it a few days, and we’ll see what happens. You may get another fever, but I wouldn’t expect it to be as bad—given what seems to be happening with the virus. If the improvement continues, then you should be feeling a lot better soon. There are no guarantees, of course, since this virus is such a mystery to us, but I would definitely say that there’s now more than a thin sliver of hope. We can think positively.”

  They talked for a few more minutes and arranged for another appointment. Paul’s mind was fuzzy and disoriented, and Emily appeared completely out of it.

  They were silent as they left the building and got into the back of the chauffeured car. They stared at each other for a few long minutes.

  Finally, Emily said, “I’m too afraid to hope.”

  “Me too,” Paul said, trying futilely to make his mind work with its normal quick, sharp efficiency. “Let’s just wait and see what happens in the next few days.”

  “I’m not dreaming or delirious, am I?

  “Not unless I am too.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  * * *

  When they returned to the apartment, Paul intended to work for the rest of the day until he’d caught up, but, as he helped Emily into bed, she pulled him into bed with her.

  He intended to just hold her for a few minutes until she fell asleep, but he ended up falling asleep too.

  As he woke up, he immediately realized something was different.

  He was incredibly uncomfortable, one of his arms asleep, his neck stiff from its awkward position, and his eyes throbbing from too much emotion and fatigue. And he was hard, his erection pressed against Emily’s soft, sleeping body—another kind of discomfort and one that wasn’t likely to be satisfied any time soon.

  Something had changed, though. It took a few minutes for his fuzzy mind to process what the change was.

  For the first time in weeks, he’d woken up without the weight of impending doom in his gut.

  For the first time in so long, he woke up feeling genuine hope.

  ***

  Paul’s gut clenched when he glanced at the caller ID of his ringing phone. He snatched it up. “Marino,” he said curtly, his heart starting to race in his chest.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Marino,” Dr. Franklin said on
the other end of the call. “How is Mrs. Marino feeling today?”

  “She’s fine. Still tired. Is everything all right with her tests?”

  “It’s still good. There’s almost no sign of the virus now at all.”

  Paul let out the breath he’d been holding. Dr. Franklin had called him every afternoon for three weeks to report on the blood sent over by the nurse in the mornings, but Paul got anxious every time, still unable to fully believe that Emily’s virus was gone for good. “Excellent,” he said, since Dr. Franklin was waiting for him to say something.

  “We’re going to keep close watch on her,” Dr. Franklin said, sounding relaxed and pleased. “But at this point I think we can be optimistic. Although the virus is so new we’ll never have any guarantees, all signs are pointing toward the idea that it is gone for good. I think you and Mrs. Marino can start acting as though she's not going to die from it.”

  Paul swallowed. “She’s still not feeling up to par.”

  “That’s to be expected. The fevers took a lot out of her physically, particularly the final ones that were so high for so long. But there’s no permanent damage, and she’s slowly regaining her strength. In another couple of weeks, she’ll be feeling like herself again.”

  They talked for a couple more minutes before Paul hung up. Then he sat and stared at his computer screen, trying to make himself feel happy.

  He was happy. Of course he was. He’d wanted nothing more in the world than for Emily to live, but his relief was so deep and the miracle so unexpected that he was having more trouble processing it than he’d expected.

  He still expected it to be snatched away at any minute.

  And he still wasn’t sure what the future held for him and Emily.

  He cleared his throat and made himself stand up. He’d been working in his office since early morning, and his stiff muscles protested the move as he walked down the hall toward Emily’s bedroom.

  According to Ruth, who’d brought in Paul’s lunch an hour or so ago, Emily had gotten tired and gone to take a nap.

  She was gradually gaining strength, but she still tired easily. However, that didn’t worry him as much as the way she’d been so quiet for the last couple of weeks. Paul kept telling himself it was natural. She’d been sure she was going to die, and the transition would take a while to sink in. She had her whole life to live now when she hadn’t expected it.