Read Listed: Volume I for Free Online Page B

anyone
coming on.
    “It
must have been really expensive,” she said, when it was clear no one else was
getting on the elevator with them. Her eyes strayed back down to the ring.
“Although I guess you can sell it back, after I…”
    Paul
almost choked on his indignation. “I’m not going to sell it back. It’s yours. I
bought it for you. Do you want the damned ring or not?”
    Her
eyes lifted to meet his at last. “Yes. Thank you.”
    Since
she still made no move to take the ring and they would reach the ground floor
soon, he picked up her left hand. Her hand seemed very small in his, and it was
cooler than he had expected. Resolved to do his duty no matter how foolish he
felt, he slipped the engagement ring on her finger.
    “There,”
he said, dropping his hand and stuffing the velvet pouch back in his pocket.
    “It
fits,” Emily murmured. She was still extending her hand and staring down at the
ring.
    “I
checked your ring size before I bought it.”
    “Thank
you,” Emily said, raising her eyes to his again. Her cheeks had flushed pink.
“Thank you so much.”
    She’d
always been an impossible mingling of contradictions—somehow coming across as
tough and vulnerable at once—and more so now than ever.
    “It’s
fine,” he mumbled, staring at the elevator doors which were just about to open
at last. He'd never been on an elevator ride that had lasted so long. “It’s no
big deal.”
    But
Emily seemed to think it was a big deal. As they left the building and
walked to the waiting car, Emily kept gazing down at her ring. Her left hand
was fisted, and she held it in her right palm, as if she were cradling her ring.
    Paul
experienced a painful pang in his chest—one that wouldn’t go away, even after
they’d gotten to their next stop—as he processed that Emily had been told she
had three months to live, but she was still able to be so sincerely grateful
because someone had given her a ring.
    Sometimes,
the universe could be bitterly unjust.
    And
not just to him.
    They
made it through the rest of the afternoon and evening without incident,
finishing all of the final details on their task list before they headed to the
airport for their flight.
    In
a moment of quiet, just before their plane took off, Paul couldn’t help but
think that, not long ago, his biggest concern had been taking the comprehensive
exams for his MBA while nursing the world’s worst hangover.
    Then
his mother had died and everything had changed.
    His
father was sitting in prison right now, waiting for a criminal trial to finally
bring him to justice. Paul had just given an engagement ring to a girl who was
dying from a brutal virus that had no cure. They were about to take off on a
red-eye flight to Europe. Tomorrow, he had to plan an entire wedding, hopefully
one that would somewhat satisfy a girl's lifelong daydreams, so she could cross
at least one thing off her bucket list. And tomorrow evening, at sunset, Paul
would get married.
    At
some point in the last few months, his life had taken a decidedly odd turn.
    ***
    Paul had just gotten
out of the shower when his phone rang, so for a frustrating twenty-minute phone
conversation he’d been wearing nothing but a towel slung around his hips.
    “Listen,”
he finally interrupted, “I don’t have time for all this now.  And I just can’t
believe a jury is going to doubt Emily’s testimony, just because she married
me. All you have to do is ask her to explain herself on the stand. I guarantee
that, once they hear about her aunt, her health condition, and the reasons she
married me, they’re going to be on her side and believe what she says.”
    “You’re
probably right,” Bill Hathaway replied. He was the assistant U.S. attorney
responsible for his father’s case. “I just thought I’d better bring it to your
attention.”
    Paul
rubbed a hand through his damp hair and tried to think through options and
consequences. “We’re getting married in just over an hour. You need