Read Online Listed: Volume VI by Noelle Adams - Free Book Online Page B

his
share in the company until he’d turned twenty-five.
    Emily
could hardly blame the woman for not risking everything her family had worked
for to a reckless bad-boy like Paul.
    “What
kind of job are you trying to get? Mail room clerk? Receptionist?”
    The
corner of his mouth turned up briefly, as if he were suppressing a smile. “I’m
not expecting to be appointed CEO at twenty-three, but I’m perfectly
well-qualified for some sort of position. The board just doesn’t trust me.”
    “Can
you blame them?”
    The
smile disappeared. “It’s my family’s company.”
    “Yeah.”
Emily thought about it for a minute, surprised and faintly pleased that Paul
was actually serious about his desire to work in his mother’s company. In all
the years she’d known him, he hadn’t appeared to take anything seriously. “Good
thing the press hasn’t caught wind of that. Evil board members heartlessly
shutting out grieving son from his birthright.”
    Paul
was leaning on the counter, but now he straightened up suddenly. His brows drew
together.
    “What?”
she asked.
    He
shook his head. He might have said something else, but just then Chris and
Laura Mason walked into the bakery.
    Emily
had been friends with Chris since they both could walk. He’d been the star of
the high school soccer team and had gotten an athletic scholarship for college.
For years, Chris had been her dream guy, but he’d just never been interested in
her that way.
    Laura
was his older sister.
    She
was gorgeous and built like a model, and she’d dated Paul for almost six months
last year, the longest he’d ever dated anyone. For a while, it looked like he
might have really fallen for her, but they’d finally broken up.
    Laura
was smiling as she approached, and she wrapped an arm around Paul in a
half-hug.
    Emily
turned to Chris, his square face and brown eyes familiar and comforting.
    “How’s
your dad?” he asked.
    “Even
worse. He seemed to have gotten better for a while, but then the flu or
whatever just came back.”
    Paul
and Laura drifted away, absorbed in their own conversation. With their dark
hair and movie-star looks, they were absolutely stunning together. Like they
matched.
    “What
were you doing with Paul?” Chris asked, frowning toward the object of his
question.
    “Just
talking. He was being obnoxious, demanding to know why I don’t have better
security.”
    “He
doesn’t really think his dad would…”
    Emily
shrugged. “Who knows what he thinks?”
    “Well,
just be careful around him.”
    “Around
Paul? He hates his father. He doesn’t want anything to do with him.”
    The
incident that had confirmed Paul as a prince in their neighborhood was when,
during the vicious divorce battle between his mother and father, he’d sided
entirely with his mother. He never accepted a dime from his father, not since
he was thirteen years old.
    “Yeah.
I know. But you know how he is with girls. He might try to…try to…” Chris
cleared his throat, adorably awkward at the topic. “Get in your pants,” he
concluded lamely.
    Emily
laughed out loud, in genuine amusement, her eyes straying to the corner where
Paul was smiling irresistibly at Laura.
    One
thing Emily knew very well.
    There
were Lauras in the world, and there were Emilys.
    The
Lauras were adored by all who saw them, winning admirers and lovers by doing
nothing more than flashing a smile. The Lauras married rich men and lived lives
of ease and safety.
    The
Emilys of the world had to scrimp for every penny. Even though they were smart
and nice and pretty enough, they still made it through high school without ever
having a real boyfriend—since no one of interest ever asked them out. The
Emilys of the world made stupid mistakes, like overhearing a mob boss’s
conversation about drug trafficking and money laundering. And, being too
stubborn to be intimidated into silence, the Emilys of the world ended up in
ridiculously melodramatic scenarios like becoming witnesses in