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Antonides' Forbidden Wife
Anne McAllister
Step into a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations.His wife is back – in his bed!No one expected the woman who walked into PJ Antonides’ office to be his wife! But Ally is only back for one thing – a signature on their divorce papers. Ruthless businessman PJ won’t be signing anything. He won’t accept that Ally’s no longer his.And when the smouldering attraction between them moves from his boardroom to his bedroom, PJ knows that his forbidden wife is once again his for the taking…
He took a breath. Then another. Steadied himself. Or tried to. But his brain—and his body—were still focused on Ally.
Ally, who was back.
Ally, who was still his wife—who said she was in love with someone else.
But who kissed as if she loved him.
Award-winning author Anne McAllister was once given a blueprint for happiness that included a nice, literate husband, a ramshackle Victorian house, a horde of mischievous children, a bunch of big, friendly dogs, and a life spent writing stories about tall, dark and handsome heroes. �Where do I sign up?’ she asked, and promptly did. Lots of years later, she’s happy to report the blueprint was a success. She’s always happy to share the latest news with readers at her website, www.annemcallister.com, and welcomes their letters there, or at PO Box 3904, Bozeman, Montana 59772, USA (SASE appreciated).
ANTONIDES’ FORBIDDEN WIFE
BY
ANNE McALLISTER
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Janet
CHAPTER ONE
“MRS. Antonides is here to see you.”
PJ Antonides’s head jerked up at the sound of his assistant, Rosie’s, voice coming from the open doorway. He leaned his elbows on his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to hold off the headache that had been threatening all afternoon.
It had been a hellish day. Murphy’s Law had been written expressly for days like this. It was only two in the afternoon, but as far as he could see, anything that could go wrong, already had.
As the head of Antonides Marine since his brother Elias had, literally and figuratively, jumped ship two years ago, PJ was no stranger to bad days. He’d stepped into the job willingly enough, could never complain that he hadn’t known what he was getting into. He had known. And oddly he relished it.
But there were days—like today—when memories of his carefree years of Hawaiian sand and surf were all too appealing.
Mostly the good days outweighed the bad. For every disaster there was usually a bright spot. When something fell apart, something else worked out. Not today.
The supplier of sail fabric for his own design of windsurfers had rung this morning to regret that they couldn’t fulfill the order. A Japanese hardware firm who had been trying to track down a missing shipment reported cheerfully that it had never left Yokohama. And his father, Aeolus, had called to say he was flying in from Athens tonight and bringing house guests for the week.
“Ari and Sophia Cristopolous—and their daughter, Constantina. More beautiful than ever. Single. Smart. She’s dying to meet you. We are expecting you out at the house for the weekend.”
Subtle, Aeolus was not. And he never stopped trying even though he knew—PJ had told him often enough!—that there was no point.
A trickle of perspiration slid down the back of PJ’s neck.
Not that he wasn’t sweating anyway. The air-conditioning in the building hadn’t been working when they’d arrived this morning. The repairmen had left for lunch two hours ago and no one had seen them since. Everyone was sweltering in the July heat and humidity. The latest temp girl had gone home sick because she couldn’t stand the heat. An hour ago, PJ’s computer had stopped typing the letter A. Half an hour ago it had flat-out died. He was back to calculating requisitions with a pencil and paper.
The last thing he needed right now was a visit from his mother.
“Tell her I’m busy,” he said gruffly. “Wait. Tell her I’m busy but that I’ll be there Friday for dinner.”
Agreeing ahead of time to the inevitable dinner invitation—even though it meant meeting Ari and Sophia and their beautiful daughter—was a surefire way to prevent Helena Antonides from demanding to see him this afternoon.
“I don’t believe she asked,” Rosie said doubtfully.
“She will. My mother always asks.” In his thirty-two years on the planet, PJ couldn’t remember a weekend that Helena Antonides hadn’t demanded the presence of all of her children within a hundred miles. It was why he’d headed for Hawaii right after high school and hadn’t come back until two years ago.
“This isn’t your mother.”
He blinked at Rosie. “Not—?” He brightened and took a deep relieved breath. “Oh, well, if it’s Tallie—”
PJ had no problem with seeing his sister-in-law whenever she chose to drop in. His older brother Elias’s wife was still on the governing board of Antonides Marine and, as far as PJ was concerned, she was always welcome. She had good ideas, and she didn’t meddle.
She didn’t have time. While she had once been a hardworking full-time CEO, now she was a hardworking full-time mother. She and Elias had year-and-a-half-old twins: Nicholas and Garrett.
PJ brightened further at the idea that she might have brought his nephews to visit. They were a handful and a half, but he was always delighted to see them. But, he reflected, he didn’t hear the sound of anything breaking in the outer office, so he supposed she must have come alone.
No matter. He was always glad to have a visit from Tallie.
But Rosie was shaking her head. “Did you forget? Tallie and Elias and the boys are in Santorini.”
Oh, hell, yes. He’d forgotten.
Good grief! Surely it wasn’t his grandmother! Yiayia was ninety-three, for heaven’s sake.
She was hale and hearty, but she didn’t travel to Brooklyn on a momentary whim. On the contrary, since her ninetieth birthday, she had expected the world to come to her.
“Don’t tell me Yiayia is out there,” PJ muttered. But stranger things had happened. And she had been on his case recently.
“You’re old,” she’d said, shaking a disapproving finger at him last month when he’d seen her at his parents’ house on Long Island.
“I’m not old,” PJ had protested. “You’re the one who’s old!”
Yiayia had sniffed. “I already had my children. I want babies around. You will need to give me great-grandchildren.”
“You have great-grandchildren,” PJ told her firmly. “Four of them.” Besides Elias’s twins, there was Cristina’s Alex and Martha’s Edward. And Martha had another one on the way.
Yiayia had sniffed. “They are good,” she admitted. “But I want handsome babies like yourself, Petros, mou. It’s time.”
PJ knew what she meant, but resolutely he had shaken his head. “Forget it, Yiayia. Not going to happen.” Or the chances were a million to one that it would. “Forget it,” he said again.
But he could tell from her narrowed gaze and pursed lips that his grandmother hadn’t forgotten what he’d told her last year. And he began to regret sharing his plan with her. Surely she hadn’t decided to bring the battle to Brooklyn.
“Not your grandmother,” Rosie confirmed.
“I don’t know any other Mrs. Antonideses,” PJ told her irritably.
“That’s interesting,” Rosie said, looking at him speculatively, her dark eyes wide as her gaze flicked from him back through the open door toward the outer office beyond. “This one says that she’s your wife.”
“Mrs.…Antonides?”
For an instant Ally didn’t react to the name, just sat staring blindly at the magazine in her hand and tried to think of what she was going to say.
“Mrs. Antonides?” The voice was firmer, louder and made her jump.
She jerked up straight in the chair as she realized the secretary was speaking to her. “Sorry. I was just—” praying this would go well “—woolgathering,” she said, raising her brows hopefully.
The secretary was impassive. “Mr. Antonides will see you now.” But Ally thought she detected a hint of challenge in the woman’s voice.
Ally wet her lips. “Thank you.” She set down the magazine she hadn’t read a word of, gave the other woman her best hard-won cool professional smile and headed toward the open door.
Six feet of hard lean whipcord male stood behind a broad teak desk waiting for her. And not just male—a man.
The man she’d married, all grown up.
Ally took a surreptitious, careful, steadying breath. Then she swallowed, shut the door and pasted on her most cheerful smile. “Hello, PJ.”
Even though he was looking straight at her, his name on her lips seemed to startle him. He took a single step toward her, then stopped abruptly, instead shoving his hands into the pockets of navy dress-suit trousers. He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Al.” The nickname he’d always called her by. His voice was gruff.
“Alice,” she corrected firmly. “Or Ally, I guess, if you prefer.”
He didn’t respond, left the ball in her court.
Right. So be it. “Bet you’re surprised to see me,” she added with all the brightness she could muster.
One brow lifted. “Well, let’s just say, you didn’t make the short list of any Mrs. Antonideses I might have been expecting.” His tone was cool, edged with irony.
And while a part of Ally wanted to throw her arms around him, she knew better. And any hope she’d entertained that they might be able to go back to being pals was well on its way to a quick and permanent death.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she apologized quickly. “Shouldn’t have used your name, I mean. I don’t ordinarily use your name.”
“I didn’t imagine you did.” The edge again.
She let out a nervous breath. “I just…well, I didn’t know how busy you were. President. CEO.” She glanced back toward the main door where she’d seen a plaque with his name and title on it. “I thought you might not see me otherwise.”
His brows lifted. “I’m not the pope. You don’t need to request an audience.”
“Well, I didn’t know, did I?” she said with asperity, disliking being put on the defensive. “This—” she waved her hand around his elegant office with its solid teak furnishings and vast view across the East River toward Manhattan’s famous skyline “—is not exactly the �you’ I remember.”
It might not have been the Vatican, but it wasn’t a tiny studio apartment above Mrs. Chang’s garage, either.
PJ shrugged. “It’s been years, Al. Things change. You’ve changed. Grown up. Made a name for yourself, haven’t you?”
There was challenge in his words, and they set Ally’s teeth on edge, but she had to acknowledge the truth of them. “Yes.”
And she made herself stand still under the long, assessing gaze that took a leisurely lingering stroll up from her toes to her head, even as it made her tingle with unwanted awareness.
“Very nice.” A corner of his mouth quirked in a cool deliberate smile. “I’ve changed, too,” he added, as if she needed it pointed out.
“You own a tie.”
“Two of them.”
“And a suit.”
“For my sins.”
“You’ve done well.”
“I always did well, Al,” he said easily, coming around the desk now, letting her feel the force of his presence at even closer hand, “even when I was a beach bum.”
It was hard to imagine this man as a “beach bum,” but she knew what he meant. When she had known Peter Antonides, he had never been about the fast track, never cared about wealth and ambition. He’d only cared about living life the way he wanted—a life on the beach, doing what interested him.
“Yes,” she nodded. “I thought…I mean, I’m surprised you left it. It was what you liked. What you wanted.”
But PJ shook his head and shoved a lock of hair off his forehead as he propped a hip against the corner of his desk. “What I wanted was the freedom to be me. To get away from everyone else’s expectations but my own. I did on the beach. And I’m still free now. This is my choice. No one pushed me. I’m here because I want to be. And it doesn’t define me.” He paused, then fixed his gaze intently on her. “But I’m not the point. What about you? No, wait.” He shoved away from the desk. “Sit down.” He nodded to the armchairs by the window overlooking the East River. “I’ll get Rosie to bring us some coffee. Or would you rather have iced tea?”
She hadn’t come to sit down and be social. “I don’t need anything,” she said quickly. “I can’t stay.”
“After ten years? Well, five since I last saw you. But don’t tell me you just �dropped in’?” He arched a skeptical brow. “No, you didn’t, Al. You came specifically to see me. You said so. Sit down.” It wasn’t an invitation this time. It was an order. He punched the intercom. “Rosie. Can we have some iced tea, please? Thanks.”
Ally took a deep breath. He even sounded like a CEO. Brisk, no nonsense. In command. Of course he had always had those qualities, Ally realized. But he’d never been in charge of anyone but himself when she’d known him.
Reluctantly she sat. He was right, of course, she had come to see him. But she’d expected the visit to be perfunctory. And the fact that he was making it into something else—something social, something extended even by a few minutes—was undermining her plans.
It wasn’t personal, she assured herself. At least not very. And PJ didn’t care. She was sure about that. This was simply a hurdle to be jumped. One she should have jumped a long time ago.
She needed to do this, make her peace with PJ, put the past behind her. Move on.
And if doing so meant sitting down and conversing with him for a few minutes first, fine. She could do that.
It would be good for her, actually. It would prove to her that she was doing the right thing.
So she sat down, perched on the edge of one of the armchairs overlooking the East River and downtown Manhattan and tried to muster the easy casual charm she was known for.
But it was hard to be casual and polite and basically indifferent when all she really wanted to do was just feast her eyes on him.
PJ Antonides had always been drop-dead handsome in a rugged, windblown, seaswept sort of way. Not a man she’d ever imagined in a suit.
He hadn’t even worn one to their wedding. Not that it had been a formal occasion. It had been five minutes in a courthouse office, paid fees, repeated vows, scrawled signatures, after which they’d come blinking out into the sunlight—married.
Now she looked at him and tried to find the carefree young man he’d been inside this older, harder, sharper version.
His lean face wasn’t as tanned as she remembered, and the lines around his eyes were deeper. But those eyes were still the deep intense green of the jade dragon that had been her grandmother’s favorite piece. His formerly tangled dark hair was now cut reasonably short and definitely neat with very little length to tangle, though it was ruffled a bit, as if he’d recently run his fingers through it. His shoulders were broader. And though jacketless at the moment, apparently PJ really did own a suit. She could see its navy jacket tossed over the back of his chair.
He obviously owned a dress shirt, too—a narrow-striped, pale-gray-and-white one. He had its long sleeves shoved halfway up his forearms, as if, even in running a corporation, he was still willing to get down and dirty with whatever had to be done. Beneath his unbuttoned collar dangled a loosened subdued burgundy-and-gray-patterned silk tie.
Ally wondered idly if his other tie was equally conservative.
It wouldn’t matter. At twenty-two PJ Antonides had been a sexy son of a gun in board shorts with a towel slung around his neck, but at thirty-two in tropical-weight wool, an open-necked dress shirt and a half-mast tie, he was devastating.
And he made her want things she knew were not for her.
She shut her eyes against the sight.
When she opened them again it was to watch as PJ dropped easily into the chair opposite her and sat regarding her steadily from beneath hooded lids. “So, wife, where have you been?”
Wife? Well, she was his wife, of course, but she didn’t expect him to simply toss it into the conversation.
Her spine stiffened. “All over the place,” she said quickly before any tempting thoughts could lead her into disaster. “You must know that.”
He cocked his head. “Fill me in.”
She ground her teeth. “Fine. Prepare yourself to be bored. As you know, I started out in California.”
“You mean after you walked out?”
“You make it sound like I dumped you! I didn’t, and you know it! It was your idea…getting married. And you knew the reason! You offered—”
“—to marry you. Yeah, I know.” He shifted in the chair, then recited, “So you could get your grandmother’s legacy, foil your evil father and live your own life. I remember, Al.”
She pressed her lips together. “It wasn’t exactly like that.”
“It was exactly like that.”
“He wasn’t evil. Isn’t evil,” she corrected herself.
PJ shrugged. “Not what you were saying then.”
“I didn’t think he was evil then! I just…I just didn’t want him controlling my life! I told you what he was like. All �traditional Japanese father.’ He who must be obeyed. He thought he knew best—what I should take at university, what I should do with my life, who I should marry!”
“And you didn’t.” PJ shrugged. “So, what are you saying, that you were wrong?”
“No. Of course not. I was right. You know that. You saw me when—” But she didn’t want to go there particularly. So she started again. “I just…I understand him better now. I’m older. Wiser. And I’m back in Hawaii. I’ve been seeing him again.”
PJ raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
So Ally explained. “He had a heart attack a couple of months ago. I’ve always kept in touch with my mother’s cousin Grace. She knew. She rang me in Seattle, told me he was ill. It was serious. He could have died. And I knew I couldn’t leave things the way they were. I wanted to make peace. So I went back to Honolulu. It was the first time I’d seen him since…since…”
“Since he said you were no daughter of his?” PJ’s tone was harsh.
And Ally remembered how incensed he’d been when she’d told him what her father had said.
Now she had some perspective, understood her father better. But at the time she’d turned her back and walked away. Run away. And even now she tried not to think about the rift between them that had lasted so many years.
“Yes.” Because her father had said that. Her fingers twisted in her lap. “When I went back, I…I thought he might still act that way. Might just turn away from me. But he didn’t.” She lifted her head and smiled at the recollection. “He was glad to see me. He reached out to me. Held my hand. Asked…asked me to stay.” She blinked back the tears that always threatened when she reflected again on how close she’d come to losing her father without ever having made her peace with him. “And I have.”
“Stayed? With him?” PJ was scowling.
“Not at his house. I think he would like that, but no—” Ally shook her head “—it wouldn’t be a good idea. I’m an adult. I’m not a child anymore. I have my own apartment in downtown Honolulu. I’ve been back there since May. I did…go back to the beach and…look for you.”
His mouth twisted. “To see if I was still waiting for the perfect wave?”
“I didn’t know you’d left Hawaii altogether.”
“I can’t imagine you cared.”
Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t rise to the bait. “I went to your place, too.”
His brows rose a bit at that, but then he shrugged. “Did you?” His tone was indifferent. Clearly he didn’t care if she had or not. “There’s a high-rise there now.”
“Yes, I saw. And Mrs. Chang…?” She’d wondered about his elderly landlady.
“…went to live with her daughter before I left the island.”
“Which was a couple of years ago?”
He raised a curious brow. “I left Honolulu earlier than that. Oahu isn’t the only place with surf, you know.” He paused, and she thought he might explain where he’d been. But he only shrugged, then added, “I came back here two years ago if that’s what you mean. You’ve been doing your homework.”
“I saw an article in the Star about some former local turned billionaire—”
PJ snorted and rolled his eyes. “Blah, blah, blah. Newspaper writers like that sort of thing. Gives them a reason for living.”
“Everyone has to have a purpose.”
“Some people have better purposes than others.” He shifted in his chair. “We were launching a new windsurfer in a new venue on the island and—” he shrugged negligently “—my sister-in-law said we should promote it. Suggested I give them a local angle.”
The PJ she had known wouldn’t have done anything anyone else suggested. Apparently her surprise was evident.
“It was my choice,” he said sharply. “And look at its unforeseen consequence. I not only may have sold a few windsurfers, but my wife turns up on my doorstep.”
Back to the “wife” bit again. “Er, yes. Something we need to talk about.”
But before she could take advantage of the opening, there was a quick tap on the door and his assistant came in carrying a tray with glasses of iced tea and a plate of delectable-looking cookies.
She was completely professional and efficient, but her eyes kept darting between PJ and Ally as if she were in a minefield and either one of them might explode at any moment.
PJ didn’t seem to notice. “Thanks, Rosie.” He paused, then said, “I don’t believe you’ve met my wife. Not officially. Ally, this is Rosie. Rosie, this is Alice.”
Rosie’s eyes grew round as dinner plates. “You mean, she really is? You haven’t been joking? I mean…”
Rosie didn’t look like a woman who would be at a loss for words, but she seemed to be now. And Ally was at a bit of a loss, too, at the notion that Rosie’s surprise didn’t simply stem from her saying she was PJ’s wife.
He’d told his secretary he was married? Ally was sure she had misunderstood.
But then Rosie mustered a polite, slightly amazed smile and held out her hand. “I’m glad to meet you,” she said. “At last.”
Ally blinked. At last? So PJ had spoken of her? She turned confused eyes his way.
“Rosie runs the show here,” PJ said, not addressing her confusion at all. He smiled easily at his assistant. “Hold all my calls, please. And get Ryne Murray to reschedule.”
“He’s already on his way.”
Ally began to get up. “You’re busy,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to disturb you. I can just leave—”
“Not a problem,” PJ went on, still talking to Rosie as if Ally weren’t objecting at all. “When he gets here, tell him we’ll need to get together another time. My wife and I have things to discuss.”
“We don’t, really,” Ally protested.
“And then set up a time early next week.”
“Are you listening to me? I don’t want to upset your schedule. I don’t want to upset your life. The opposite in fact! I should have called first. I don’t want—” She started toward the door, but PJ caught her arm.
“It’s all right,” he said firmly. Then he smiled at Rosie. “That will be all, thanks.” And he waited until she’d shut the door behind her before he let go of Ally’s arm and settled back into his chair again. “Sit down,” he said. “And tell all.”
But she shook her head. “What did you do that for? Why do you keep saying that?”
“Do what? Say what?” He handed her a glass of iced tea, then nodded toward the cookies. “My sister-in-law bakes them. They’re fantastic. Try one.”
“I’m not here for a tea party, PJ! Why did you introduce me as your wife? Why do you keep saying I’m your wife?”
He took a bite of one of the cookies and swallowed before he answered. “You’re the one who told her that. I just confirmed it.”
“But why? And she already knew that you were married!” It was the last thing she’d expected. She’d imagined he’d be keeping it quiet. Instead every other word out of his mouth seemed to be the W word.
“Yes. You’re my wife, so I’m married,” he said simply, and punctuated the reality by taking another bite out of a cookie.
“Yes, but—”
He wiped powdered sugar off his mouth. “You’d rather I’d call you a liar?”
“No. Of course not.” Ally sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t imagine you shouted it from the rooftops. You didn’t say anything in the article about being married,” she reminded him. “On the contrary, the article said you were dating hordes of eligible women.” She could have quoted word for word exactly what it had said, but she didn’t.
“Hordes.” PJ gave a bark of laughter. “Not quite. I escort women to business functions. Acquaintances. Friends. It’s expected.”
“But they don’t know you’re married.”
“Hell, Al, most of the time, I barely even know I’m married!”
His exasperation relieved her and swamped her with guilt at the same time. “I know,’ she said, clutching the glass tightly in both hands. “I’m sorry. It was selfish of me, marrying you. We never should have. I—” she corrected herself “—never should have let you do it.”
“You didn’t �let’ me,” PJ retorted. “I offered. You just said yes. Anyway—” he shrugged it off “—it was no big deal.”
“It was to me.”
Marrying PJ had given her access to her grandmother’s legacy. It had allowed her the freedom to make her own choices instead of doing what her father prescribed. It had been the making of her. She owed PJ for her life as she knew it.
“Well, good,” he said gruffly. “So tell me all about it. We didn’t have much of a chance to talk…last time.”
Last time. Five years ago when she’d come back to Honolulu for an art opening, when he’d showed up with a gorgeous woman on his arm. Ally gave herself a little shake, determined not to think about that. “It was a busy time,” she said dismissively.
“So it was. You’re a household word now, I gather.”
“I’ve done all right.” She’d worked very hard, and she was proud of what she’d accomplished. But she didn’t want him to think she was bragging.
“Better than, I’d say.” PJ leaned back in his chair and ticked off her accomplishments. “World renowned fabric artist. Clothing designer. International entrepreneur. Business owner. How many boutiques is it now?”
Clearly he’d done some homework, too.
“Seven,” Ally said shortly. “I just opened one in Honolulu last month.”
She had gone to California to art school after leaving Hawaii—after their marriage—and to supplement the money from her grandmother’s legacy, she’d worked in a fabric store. Always interested in art, she’d managed to put the two together rather quickly and had begun to design quilts and wall hangings that had caught the public’s eye.
From there she had branched out into clothing design and creating one-of-a-kind outfits. “Art you can wear,” she’d called it.
Now her work was featured not only in her own shops, but in galleries and even a few textile museums all over the world.
“Impressive,” PJ said now. He balanced one ankle on the opposite knee.
“I worked hard,” she said firmly. “You knew I would. You saw that I had.” Five years ago, she meant.
“I did,” he agreed, lounging back in his chair, and regarding her intently as he drawled, “And you didn’t need any more favors from me.”
Ally stiffened. But she knew that from his perspective she was the one who had been out of line. “I was rude to you that night.”
It had been the last time—the only time—she had seen PJ since the day of their marriage.
She’d come back to Honolulu for her first local public art show. It had been in the heady scary early days of her career when she certainly hadn’t been a “household name” or anything close. In fact the show itself had doubtless been premature, but she’d wanted desperately to do it, to prove to her father that she was on her way to making something of herself, and—though she’d barely admitted to herself—she’d hoped to see PJ, too, to show him that his faith in her had not been misplaced. So she’d jumped at the chance to be part of the show when another artist backed out.
She’d sent her father an invitation to the opening and had waited with nervous pride and anticipation for his arrival.
He’d never come.
But PJ had.
Looking up all of a sudden to see him there across the room, big as life and twice as gorgeous as she remembered, had knocked Ally for a loop.
She hadn’t expected to see him at all.
When she’d known she was coming back, she’d casually asked a friend who had gone to the same beach with them about where PJ was now.
May had shaken her head. “PJ? No idea. Haven’t seen him in ages. But you know surfers—they never stay. They’re always following the waves.”
So the sight of him had been a shock. As had the sight of the woman on his arm.
She was, in a blonde bombshell way, every bit as gorgeous as PJ himself. With his dark hair and tan and her platinum tresses and fair skin, the contrast between the two was eye-catching and arresting. The artist in Ally had certainly appreciated that.
The woman in her didn’t appreciate him striding up to her, all smiles, hugging her and saying cheerfully, “Hey. Look at you! You look great. And your stuff—” he let go of her to wave an arm around the gallery “—looks great, too. Amazing. I brought you a reviewer.” He’d introduced the blonde then, took her arm and pulled her forward. “This is Annie Cannavaro. She writes art reviews for the Star.”
He had not said, “This is Ally, my wife.”
In fact, he hadn’t mentioned any relationship to her at all. Not that Ally had expected him to. She knew their marriage had been for her convenience, not a lifelong commitment. He’d done her a favor.
But standing there, being introduced to the Star’s art critic, made her realize that PJ thought she needed another favor now. The very thought had made her see red. She was not still the needy girl she’d been when he married her!
He’d been perplexed at her brusqueness. But Ally had been too insecure still to accept his freely offered help.
And—a truth she acknowledged to no one, barely even to herself—seeing PJ with another woman, a far more suitable woman for him than she was, had made it a thousand times worse.
She’d been stiff and tense and had determinedly feigned indifference all the time they were there. And she’d only breathed a sigh of relief when she’d seen them go out the door. Her relief, though, had been short-lived.
Right before closing, PJ had returned. Alone.
He’d cornered her in one of the gallery rooms, demanding, “What the hell is wrong with you?” His normally easygoing smile was nowhere to be found.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she’d replied frostily, trying to sidestep and get around him, but he moved to block her exit.
“You know damned well what I’m talking about. So you don’t want to know me, okay. Maybe you’re too much of a hotshot now. Fine, but that’s no reason to be rude to Annie.”
“I wasn’t! I’m not—a hotshot.” Her face had burned furiously. She’d been mortified at his accusation. “I just…I didn’t mean to be rude. I just don’t need your help. You don’t need to keep rescuing me!”
“I’m not bloody rescuing you,” he’d snapped. “I thought you’d like the exposure. But if that’s the way you see it, fine. I’ll tell her not to write anything!”
“You can tell her what to write?” So it was true!
He’d said a rude word. “Forget it. Sorry I bothered.” He spun away and started out of the room.
But she couldn’t let him go without calling after him, “Is that all?”
He looked over his shoulder. “All? What else could there be?”
Ally’s mouth was dry. She had to force the words out. “I thought…I thought you’d be bringing the divorce papers.” She’d feared there was a quaver in her voice, but she tried not to betray it.
PJ stared at her. She met his gaze even though it was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“No,” he said at last, his voice flat. “I don’t have any divorce papers.”
“Oh.” And there was no accounting for the foolish shiver of relief she’d felt.
Still they’d stared at each other, and then she’d dragged in a breath and shrugged. “Fine. Well, I just thought…whenever you want one, just let me know.” She’d tried to sound blasé and indifferent.
“Yeah,” PJ said. “I’ll do that.” And he’d turned and walked away.
She hadn’t seen him again, hadn’t heard from him, hadn’t contacted him—until today.
Now she said carefully, “I apologize for that. I was still trying to find my own way. I’d depended on you enough. I didn’t want another handout.”
“Is that what it was?” There was a rough edge to his voice. The cool irony of his earlier words was past.
Their gazes locked—and held—and something seemed to arc between them like an electric current.
Or rather, Ally assured herself, more like a sparkler on the Fourth of July—bright and fizzing, ultimately insubstantial—and definitely best ignored.
Determinedly she gave her head a little shake. “I’m sure that’s what it was,” she said firmly. “I shouldn’t have done it, though. Anyway, I’ve found out who I am and what I can do. And I owe it to you. So I came to say thank you belatedly and—” she reached down and picked up the portfolio she had set by her chair and opened it just as she’d rehearsed doing “—to bring you these.”
She slid a file of papers out of the portfolio and held it out to him.
He took the file, looked at it, but didn’t open it. “What are they?”
“Divorce papers. About time, huh?” She said it quickly, then shrugged and grinned as brightly as she could, willing him to grin back at her.
He didn’t. His gaze fixed on the file in his hand, weighing it, but he didn’t say a word.
“I know I should have done it sooner,” she went on, papering over the awkward silence. “I’m sorry it took so long. I thought you’d do it. You could have had one at any time, you know. Well, almost anytime. After I turned twenty-one anyway. I told you so, remember?”
He still didn’t speak. He didn’t even blink. His face was stony, his expression unreadable. And so she babbled on, unable to help herself. “I know it’s past time. I should have taken care of it ages ago. It’s a formality really—just confirming what we already know. I don’t want anything from you, of course. No settlement, naturally. But,” she added because she’d already decided this, “if you want a share of my business, it’s yours. You’re entitled.”
“I don’t.” The words cut across hers, harsh and louder than she expected.
“Well, I wanted to offer.” She took a breath. “Okay, then it will be even easier.” She reached inside her portfolio for a pen. “In that case, all you really need to do is sign them. I can take care of the rest.”
“I don’t think so.”
The rough edge was gone now. PJ’s voice was smooth and cool, like an ocean breeze. Ally looked up, startled.
He was sitting up straight in the chair and was regarding her steadily.
“Well, of course I’ll understand if you want a lawyer to look them over….” Still she fumbled for the pen.
“I don’t.” Still cool. Very cool.
She frowned, rattled. “Well then—” Her fingers fastened on the pen at last. She jerked it out and thrust it at him, giving him one more quick smile. “Here you go.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t take it.
And of course, she realized then, he didn’t need one. He already had a pen in his shirt pocket. She felt like an idiot as she gestured toward it. “Of course you have your own.”
But he didn’t get it out. Instead PJ dropped the papers on the table, then looked up and met her gaze squarely. “No divorce.”
CHAPTER TWO
“WHAT? What do you mean, no divorce?”
“Seems pretty clear to me. Which word didn’t you understand?” He raised an eyebrow.
Ally stared at him, unable to believe her ears. “Ha-ha. Very funny. Come on, PJ. You’ve had your joke. You made your point. I was rude. I’m sorry. I’ve grown up, changed. Now just sign the papers and I’ll be on my way.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” She was rattled now. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Sure it does.” He shrugged. “We’re married. We took vows.”
“Oh, yes, right. And we’ve certainly kept them, haven’t we?”
The brow lifted again and he said mildly, “Speak for yourself, Al.”
She gaped at him. “What are you saying?”
“Never mind.” He looked away out the window, stared out at Manhattan across the river for a long moment while Ally stewed, waiting for him to enlighten her. Finally he looked her way again. “I’m just saying we’ve been married for ten years. That’s a long time. Lots of marriages don’t last that long,” he added.
“Are you suggesting that more people shouldn’t see each other for ten years? Or five,” she added, forcing herself to add that one disastrous meeting.
He shook his head, smiling slightly. “No. I’m saying we should give it a shot.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe her ears. “Give what a shot?”
“Marriage. Living together. Seeing if it will work.” Deep green eyes bored into hers.
Ally opened her mouth, then closed it again. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Not now! Not ever, for that matter. That had never been the plan. Not for her, and certainly not for PJ.
“We don’t know each other,” she pointed out.
“We were friends once.”
“You were a beach bum and I was the counter girl where you bought plate lunches and hamburgers.”
“We met there,” he agreed. “And we became friends. You’re not trying to say we weren’t friends.”
“No.” She couldn’t say that. They had been friends. “But that’s the point. We were friends, PJ. Buddies. We never even went out! You certainly didn’t love me then! And you can’t possibly love me now.”
“So? I like what I see. And a lot of marriages start with less.”
He made it sound eminently sensible and reasonable—as if it were perfectly logical for two people to go their separate ways for ten years and then suddenly, without warning, pick up where they left off.
Maybe to him it was. After all, he’d married her with no real forethought at all. It had been useful to her, so he had done it.
She shook her head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Of course it is. We don’t live anywhere near each other. We have entirely different lives.”
“I’m adaptable.”
“Well, I’m not! I’ve got a life in Hawaii now. I’ve come home, settled down. I like it there. I’ve worked hard to get where I am, to do what I’m doing. It’s time to take the next step.”
“Which is?”
“Get a divorce!”
“No.”
“Yes! I’ve got to,” she said. “I…I’m getting a life!”
“Finally?” His tone was mocking.
She wrapped her arms across her chest. “I had other things to do first. You know that.”
“And now you’ve done them, so you want a divorce.” A brow lifted. “Why now?”
“Because I’ve found you, for one thing,” she said with a touch of annoyance. “And why wait? It’s not as if we’ve got a relationship. On the contrary, we have nothing.”
“We have memories.”
“Ten-year-old memories,” she scoffed.
“And one five-year-old one,” PJ reminded her.
Ally’s face burned. “I’ve apologized for that!”
“So you have. Thank you,” he said formally. “Anyway, it’s not my fault we didn’t keep in touch,” he pointed out. “You’re the one who didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
“Mea culpa,” Ally muttered. But then she added, “Maybe I should have kept in touch, but—”
But doing so would have been a temptation she didn’t want to have to deal with. Marrying PJ had been one thing—it had been a few words recited, a couple of signatures scrawled. It had been a legal document, but it hadn’t been personal. Not really.
That night, though—that one night with PJ—had destroyed all her notions of their marriage being no more than an impersonal business proposition. It had made her want things she knew she had no business wanting, things she was sure PJ definitely didn’t want. She knew he’d married her to help her out.
To change the rules after the fact wouldn’t have been fair.
She shook her head. “I just thought it was better if I didn’t.”
“No distractions,” PJ translated flatly.
“Yes,” Ally lied. “But times change. People change as you said.” She gave him the brightest smile she could manage under the circumstances, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“So what’s the real reason, Al?”
The question cut across the jumble of her thoughts exactly the way his suggestion that he marry her had cut across the morass of worries she’d wallowed in all those years ago.
She hadn’t counted on that, any more than she’d counted on this.
She’d assured herself that seeing PJ again would be a good thing. That it was the right thing to do—the polite thing to do—come and ask him face-to-face to sign the divorce papers rather than simply mail the papers to him.
She’d been convinced that seeing him again would bring closure.
She’d convinced herself that she would walk into PJ’s office and have changed enough to feel nothing more than gratitude to the man she had married ten years before.
And even if she’d still felt a twinge of regret, she’d been sure he would be delighted to comply with her request. After all, being married to her was holding up his life, too. With the papers signed, they would go their own ways and that would be that.
Now she watched as PJ took a sip of tea and cocked his head, waiting for her answer.
“I’m getting married,” she said at last.
PJ choked. “What?”
“I said, I’m getting married. Not everyone considers me a charity case,” she said sharply. His eyes narrowed, but she plunged on. “I’m…engaged. Sort of.”
“Isn’t that a little…precipitous? You already have one husband.”
“It’s not official,” she said. “It’s just…going to happen. After. Which is why I brought the divorce papers. So you could sign them. It’s a formality really. I could have sent them by mail. I just thought it was more polite to bring them in person.”
“Polite,” he echoed. His tone disputed her assertion.
“I am polite,” she defended herself. “I didn’t imagine you’d have any interest in…keeping things going. It’s not as if we’ve ever had a real marriage.”
“We did for one night.”
Her teeth came together with a snap. “That wasn’t…real.”
“Felt pretty real to me.”
“Stop it! You know what I mean!”
He sighed. “Tell me what you mean, Al.”
“I mean it’s time to move on. I should have done something sooner. Contacted you sooner. But I thought you would…and then five years ago, I was sure you would…and then I just…got busy. And after I came back to Honolulu, I wasn’t sure where you were and I didn’t think it mattered and then things got…serious. Jon…proposed and…”
“He didn’t know you were married?”
“He knew I was. I guess he thought it was in the past,” she added awkwardly. How did you tell someone you were seeing that you still had a husband, you just didn’t know where?
“And you didn’t bother to set him straight?”
“It never came up.”
PJ’s eyes widened. “Really?” Patent disbelief.
“We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about it!” she snapped. “What was there to say? He said he’d heard about my marriage from his brother and I said yes. There was nothing else. He, well, he assumed it was over. And I…said it was.”
PJ raised an eyebrow.
“Well, it has been—in everything but the formalities. It never even really got started!”
“Oh, I think you could say it got started, Al.” The look he gave her reminded her all too well of the night that had been anything but platonic.
“It was one night!”
But what a night. Especially for a wedding night that wasn’t supposed to have happened at all.
Making love with PJ hadn’t been part of the deal—the original deal. She’d never intended to consummate their marriage. And PJ had never mentioned it, either.
But after the ceremony, when she’d gone home to tell her father she was married, he had just stared at her and, after what seemed an eternity, he said, “You’re married?” Even longer pause. “Really?”
And long after he’d walked away from her, those two words had still echoed in her head.
Was it a marriage? Was saying words and scrawling signatures enough to make it a marriage? Or was there more to it than that?
Of course there was. Ally had always known that.
She’d seen the deep love of her parents. She’d witnessed the shattering pain her father had felt at her mother’s death. Her marriage to PJ, in that light, was a sham indeed.
And while she knew ultimately why they had married, she felt compelled by her father’s doubt and, even more, by her own convictions, to want a “real marriage” with PJ Antonides.
And so that night she had gone to PJ’s apartment.
She could still remember the incredulity on his face when he had opened the door and found her standing there. “Ally? What’s up?”
“I…” She’d swallowed hard. “I need another favor.”
“Yeah, sure, name it.” He’d shrugged, still looking at her strangely because, of course, he hadn’t expected to see her at all.
Her fingers had twisted together, strangled each other, as she looked up into his eyes. “Could you, um, please make love to me?”
He’d looked at her, stunned. And for so long, that she’d been tempted to turn tail and run. She’d tried to explain. “I know why you married me. I know you’re doing me a favor, putting your name on a piece of paper, But I…I just want it to be real!”
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared.
“I know making love doesn’t make it �real’—not like other marriages,” she said hastily. “And I know it won’t happen again. I just thought—if you wanted…” Her voice trailed off. “Maybe you don’t find me attractive. I understand. I—”
“Don’t be stupid,” PJ said harshly. He grasped her hand and drew her in.
And Ally’s breath caught in her throat. “I don’t expect—”
“Shh,” PJ’s voice was a whisper, a breath—that began on his lips and ended on hers.
The touch of his mouth, warm and persuasive against hers, made Ally’s legs weak, made her mind spin, made her clutch his arms, then wrap hers around his back and hang on for dear life as he pushed the door shut behind her and steered her to his bed without ever breaking their kiss.
And then he made love to her.
Ally had expected it to be quick and uncomfortable and perfunctory—one coupling to make their marriage “real.” And, because she supposed that PJ would enjoy sex, she’d considered that to be the one small thing she could give him.
As far as she went, as a virgin, Ally had no real experience to draw on. And everything she’d heard had made “first times” sound something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
On the contrary, PJ had made it the most amazing night of her life.
Making love with PJ, sharing intimacies with PJ she’d never shared with anyone, had been such an incredible experience that she had never been able to forget it. She hadn’t wanted to.
There had been nothing quick or perfunctory about it. PJ had been gentle and thorough, touching and caressing her in ways that made her ache with longing for him. His gentleness had made her want to weep at the same time it had made her exult with the joy of finding out what her body was all about.
And if there had been a bit of discomfort the first time, it was nothing in the face of the concern PJ expressed, his determination to make it good for her, too. And he had. All night he had.
If she hadn’t been already half in love with PJ Antonides, she certainly would have been by the next morning. Not that she could tell him so. That, too, would have been changing the rules.
But it didn’t stop her thinking about him. Didn’t stop her loving him from afar. Didn’t stop her reliving those memories. They were memories she’d lived on for years.
For a long time those memories had made her doubt that she would ever be able to look at another man.
The fact was, she hadn’t really looked at another man until she’d met Jon.
And she still had no idea if it would be the same with Jon as it had been with PJ. She hadn’t wanted to find out. She hadn’t made love with Jon.
“I can’t,” she’d told him firmly when she’d also told him that she was legally still PJ’s wife. “I can’t make love with one man when I’m still married to another.”
“I admire your scruples,” Jon had muttered. “Get the damn divorce so we can get married, then.”
And so she was.
She loved Jon. In his way he was exactly what she wanted and needed—a kind man, a caring man. A man who wanted a wife and a family. A man who was tired of being a workaholic, just as she was.
“We’re good for each other,” Jon had said not long ago. “We want the same things.”
They did. Something she and PJ had never done. Would never do. They wanted different things. As soon as the divorce was final, she was going to marry Jon, make a life with him. And she was going to have children with him. She was going to give her father the grandchild he longed for.
And she would make new memories, wonderful ones that would supercede those of one night in PJ’s arms.
“It was a deal we made,” she told PJ firmly now. “It was never a real marriage.”
“It was,” he said. “And you know it.”
She’d thought so then, but now she shook her head. “I was immature. Marriage is a lot more than one night in bed.”
“Of course it is. But it’s all we had. You left.”
“Would you have wanted me to stay?” she challenged. “I don’t think so! You didn’t want a marriage then, PJ, and don’t pretend you did! You wanted to surf and cut class and hang around on the beach. You know that.” She glared at him, defying him to contradict her.
His lips pressed together. And he didn’t speak for such a long time that Ally found herself sitting on the edge of her chair, wondering if he might actually do that.
But then he shrugged lightly. “You’re right.”
She let out a harsh breath, deflated and relieved at the same time. “Of course I’m right.”
But even knowing that, her gaze locked with his. And Ally couldn’t help it. She found herself once more remembering the night, the tenderness, the passion, the emotion, the unexpected intimacy—and how very real it had felt.
PJ cleared his throat and looked away. He took a long swallow of his iced tea and said briskly, “So who’s the lucky guy?”
“You remember Ken? That guy my dad wanted me to marry…”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ally.” The words exploded from him. “You’re not going to marry him!”
“No, of course not! I’m not going to marry him! He’s already married. He has three kids. But he also has a younger brother. Jon’s a doctor.”
“A doctor.” The words dropped like stones into a pond.
“A cardiologist,” Ally clarified. “Very well respected. Not my dad’s doctor, but in the same practice. I met him when he was filling in on rounds and came to see my dad. We hit it off. We like the same things. We want the same things.”
“And so you’re going to marry him? Just like that?” PJ’s tone was scathing.
“I married you �just like that’! A whole lot faster, in fact.”
His mouth twisted. “For ulterior motives,” he reminded her. “Do you have ulterior motives this time, Al?”
“No!”
“So you’re in love with him?”
“Of course I’m in love with him!” she said quickly. “He’s a wonderful man. Hardworking. Intelligent. Clever. He cares about people. Tries to heal them. To give them a new lease on life. He respects me and what I’ve accomplished. I respect him. It’s a good match. And it’s the right time for both of us. We both want a home, a family, children. I don’t want my family to be just Dad and me. Neither does my father. He’s over the moon about Jon.”
“I’ll bet.”
She bristled at his tone. “I’d marry him even if Dad didn’t like him. Jon is a great guy.”
“Which doesn’t change the fact that you’re still married to me.”
And there they were—back at the divorce papers again. The divorce papers PJ wasn’t signing. The divorce papers that were sitting on the table between them. The divorce papers that even now he refused to look at. And Ally knew from the stubborn jut of his jaw—the same one she’d seen when he’d been determined to ride waves in surf sane men back away from—that he wasn’t going to change his mind now.
She let out a breath and stood up. “Fine. You don’t have to sign them.” She picked up her portfolio. “I can do it without your consent.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek, but he didn’t answer, just looked at her.
She plucked her business card out of the portfolio and tossed it on top of the divorce papers. “Really, PJ, I—”
But his expression was entirely shuttered. Okay, so she’d been wrong to come. Jon had been right when she’d told him where she was going. If he’d been taken aback that she was still married, he’d been even more upset at her notion of coming to see PJ and giving him the papers in person.
“Don’t open a can of worms,” he’d said. “You could get hurt.”
But she’d insisted it was the right thing to do. PJ had done her a favor once. The least she could do was say thank you when they ended their marriage.
At least, that had been the plan. Now she said to PJ, “Call me if you change your mind. I’ll be in the city until Friday. Otherwise, I’ll see you in court.”
* * *
“You do have a wife.”
“I said I did,” PJ replied sharply.
It wasn’t news. He’d never said otherwise. It wasn’t his fault no one believed him. They’d always treated his assertion as if it were a joke.
It wasn’t a joke.
Or if it was, the joke was on him.
Sometimes he thought that his marriage to Ally was more like a dream—a distant recollection of one moment out of his life that seemed to have no connection to the rest of his life, except for one, which had ended badly.
He should have left it there. Or filed for divorce himself after their set-to at the gallery five years ago.
But he hadn’t. Why bother?
He’d certainly had no intention of marrying at the time. In fact having a wife in absentia had actually been convenient. He’d had a built-in reason for never getting serious. It had stood him in good stead in Hawaii back in his beach-bum days. But it had been even more of a godsend since he’d come back to New York and his parents had begun dragging out every available woman they knew.
“Don’t bother,” he’d said straight off. “I’m married.”
They hadn’t believed him, of course.
Where was his wife? Who was his wife? They’d dismissed it as a joke, too, until he’d shown them the marriage license.
Then they’d had a thousand questions, each nosier and more personal than the last. He’d only answered the ones he wanted to. He’d told them her name, where he’d met her, why he’d married her.
“A favor?” his father had sputtered. “You married her for a favor?”
“Why not?” PJ had said flatly, folding his arms across his chest. “She was between a rock and a hard place. She needed a way out. You’d have done the same,” he said bluntly. His father, for all his bombast, was a far bigger softie than any of his children. “Wouldn’t you?” he’d challenged the old man.
Aeolus had grunted.
“So when is she coming back?” he and Helena had both wanted to know.
“When she finds herself,” PJ had replied. That was probably the closest he’d come to telling a lie.
How the hell did he know when or what Ally would do? He’d have thought she’d be glad to see him when he’d turned up at her gallery opening. Instead she’d been stiff and remote and defensive.
She hadn’t even seemed like Ally. She’d been dismissive of Annie, completely misunderstanding his reason for bringing the other woman along. She hadn’t seemed at all like the girl he’d married. He’d told himself it didn’t matter, that he should just forget her.
But he couldn’t. She was always there—Ally and the one night they’d shared.
“You should go get her,” Yiayia told him. Yiayia was always full of ideas. The minute word of PJ’s marriage had come to her ears, she’d been busy figuring out how to bring them together again.
“No.” PJ was adamant. “Things are fine just the way they are.”
If he’d hoped they would be different, if now and then he had even begun to think about how to make them different, it wasn’t something he’d spent a lot of time dwelling on. Nor was he going to discuss it with Yiayia.
“Pah,” Yiayia had said. “What good is a wife when she is not here? It is not good for a man to be alone, Petros. And it is not good for a great-grandmother to be denied her rightful great-grandchildren, either.”
He’d glowered at her. “That’s what this is all about really,” he’d grumbled.
“Do you think so?” Yiayia said. Then she’d shaken her head in dismay. “You are hiding behind her skirts.”
“I am not! How the hell can I hide behind the skirts of someone who isn’t even here.”
“You use her not to deal with the women your father brings you.”
PJ shrugged. “I don’t want them.”
“Because you want her.”
“That’s not true!”
“So prove it. Not to me.” Yiayia cut off his protest before he could open his mouth. “For yourself. Go find her. See what she is like now. Bring her home. Or get a divorce.”
He ground his teeth, but Yiayia just looked at him serenely. Finally he’d shrugged. “Maybe I will.”
“�Maybe’ builds no fires to keep me warm. �Maybe’ gives me no great-grandbabies.”
“Fine, damn it,” he said, goaded. “It’s our tenth anniversary in August. I’ll track her down. Take her out to dinner to celebrate.”
And sort things out once and for all.
Yiayia smiled and patted his knee. “Bring her home to meet us. It is good she meets your family, ne, Petros?”
PJ hadn’t answered that. But he knew she was right about one thing.
He was thirty-two years old now. Not twenty-two, or even twenty-seven. He was ready to be married to someone who was actually present in his life. And though some of the women his father turned up with were actually quite nice, he still hadn’t forgotten Ally.
And now Ally was back.
“She’s gorgeous,” Rosie said now.
“Yeah.”
In fact, gorgeous didn’t cover the half of it. Ally had always been amazing looking. He’d been struck by that the first time he’d seen her behind the counter at Benny’s taking orders.
The combined genes of her Japanese father and her Chinese-Hawaiian-Anglo mother had come together to make Alice Maruyama an absolute beauty with a porcelain complexion, high cheekbones beneath wide slightly tilted dark eyes, with the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen.
Her shining black hair had always been neatly tamed, nicely brushed, pinned down or pulled up.
Except for the night he’d made love to her. And then it had been a lavish black silk curtain, loose and lush, that begged him to thread it through his fingers, bury his face in it, rub his cheek against it.
The second she’d walked through the door this afternoon, his fingers had itched to undo that sleek librarian’s knot at the back of head, let down her hair and do all those things again.
Good thing he had a well-honed sense of self-preservation. Good thing he’d learned something from going to see her at her gallery opening wearing his heart on his sleeve. He’d been a fool for her once. He wasn’t doing it again.
But he wasn’t letting her walk blithely away, either.
There was still something between them. Electricity. Attraction. Unfinished business.
Had she ever spent a night like their wedding night with bloody Jon? His fingers balled into fists at the thought.
How could she just walk in here and toss divorce papers at him? Why should she want to marry another man?
What the hell was wrong with the one she had?
And how could she be sure their marriage wouldn’t work if they’d never even tried?
“—wants you to call her.” Rosie’s voice cut through his irritated thoughts. “She called while your, um, wife was with you.”
PJ’s thoughts jerked back to the present. “Who? What?”
Rosie gave him a long-suffering look. “Cristina,” she repeated patiently. “Your sister?” she added when he didn’t respond. “She said Mark just got back from San Diego and wants to discuss that new powerboat line he’s been looking at so she wondered if you’d like to come to dinner.”
Dinner. Cristina. Mark.
PJ dragged his brain back to business, determinedly putting Ally on a sidebar long enough to make sense of what Rosie was telling him.
His twin sister Cristina’s husband, Mark, worked for Antonides Marine as well. They had a brownstone not far from his place in Park Slope and sometimes it was easier to talk business over the dinner table than in the office. It was, after all, a family business.
Ally wanted family. She’d said so. She didn’t just want it to be her and her father anymore. She’d said that, too.
Well, hell, PJ thought, cracking his knuckles. If Ally wanted family, he had more than enough to go around.
“Call Cristina back and tell her I can’t make it,” he instructed Rosie. “Tell her I’ll catch Mark in the office tomorrow.” He smiled a cat-who’d-eaten-the-canary smile. “Tell her I’m busy tonight. I’m fixing dinner for my wife.”
“So, did you get it?” Jon asked.
“Not yet,” Ally said, pacing around her hotel room. She hadn’t wanted to call without things being settled, but when they didn’t she knew she had to call anyway. She just hoped she didn’t have to listen to Jon say, I told you so. “I will,” she promised, but it didn’t forestall the discussion.
“Didn’t you go see him? I thought you knew where he was.”
“I do know where he is,” she said. “I saw him. And I will get it. I just didn’t…think it was right to waltz back into his life and fling divorce papers at him first thing.”
“I knew this was a bad idea.”
“It was not a bad idea,” Ally retorted. “He was surprised.”
“To see you or to get the papers?”
“Well, both, I guess. Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll sign them. PJ doesn’t react well to pressure.”
She should have remembered that. Should have recalled why he’d said he’d come to Hawaii in the first place: to get his family off his back.
She should have been less…pushy. She should have simply chatted with him, got him to talk, acted interested in what he was doing now, what had happened to him in the past ten years, how he’d come to be where he was and doing what he was doing.
The trouble was—and the very reason she didn’t do it was—that it wouldn’t have been an act.
She had gone to PJ’s office hoping that their encounter would be polite and perfunctory. In a best-case scenario she would have felt no more connection to him than she had to Jon’s brother, Ken.
She would certainly not have felt an instant stab of lust and longing. Her eyes would not have fastened on PJ’s well-dressed body and lingered, cataloguing every inch of it. And they would definitely not have mentally undressed that body while her brain wondered as they did so how the man in the suit would compare with the naked twenty-two-year-old she had spent her wedding night with.
Not something she should be contemplating now, either.
“So when?” Jon asked. “I’ll be having dinner with your dad tonight. He’ll want to know. I was hoping to be able to tell him it was a done deal and you were on your way home.”
“I won’t be home until the weekend. You both know that. I’m going to be visiting a gallery here, too, talking to Gabriela, the owner. This trip wasn’t all about PJ.”
“No. It’s about us,” Jon reminded her. “It’s about you finally putting the past behind you and moving on. You are moving on, aren’t you, Ally?”
“Of course I am.”
“Well, I’m only saying…your dad’s heart isn’t strong. It’s not going to hold out forever. And I know you—and I—wanted him to be at our wedding.”
Ally swallowed against the lump in her throat. Yes, she did know her father’s condition was delicate. And she knew how happy seeing her married to Jon would make him. And she did want him to be happy. She wanted them all to be happy.
“I’m working on it.”
“Good. I’ll tell him that. Then hurry up and get home. I miss you. I work twenty hours a day when you’re not here.”
Ally knew the feeling. “I’ll do my best,” she promised. “I’m getting another call. It might be Gabriela. I’d better take it.”
“Forget Gabriela. Forget the gallery. They aren’t that important. Not now. Get the papers signed.”
“Yes. Maybe this is PJ,” Ally suggested hopefully. “Maybe he’s already signed them and is telling me when to pick them up.”
“Let’s hope.” Jon sounded encouraged. “Talk to you tomorrow. I’ll tell your dad you’ve got everything under control.”
Ally hoped it was true. She punched the connect button on her phone. “This is Alice Maruyama.”
“Have dinner with me.” The voice was gruff and male and needed no identification.
She’d heard it only an hour before, but if she hadn’t heard PJ Antonides’s voice for ten years, she would have recognized it. There was a sort of soft, lazy, sexy edge to it that made her toes curl.
“Who is this?” she said with all the starch she could muster.
He laughed. “Check your caller ID. Come on, Al. Don’t be a bad sport. You never used to be a bad sport.”
“This has nothing to do with sports. It has to do with you signing the divorce papers.”
“So convince me over dinner.”
“PJ…”
“Are you chicken, Al? Afraid?” It was the same old taunt he’d used years ago. In the same teasing tone.
When she had met him she’d never surfed in her life, and he’d been appalled.
“Never surfed? And you live where?” He’d stared at her, stunned. She’d just handed him his order from the lunch counter and expected him to move along, but he stayed right where he was, ignoring the line behind him.
“Not everyone who lives in Hawaii surfs,” she’d said haughtily.
He’d shrugged. “Guess not,” he’d agreed. Then he’d slanted her a grin. “And why should you if you’re chicken?”
“I’m not chicken!”
“Then come out with me,” he’d suggested. “I’ll teach you.”
“I have work to do.” She’d waved her arm around, pointing out the fact that she had responsibilities, even if he didn’t. “I can’t just walk out and go play with you.”
“So come tomorrow morning. Better surf then anyway. I’ll meet you here at seven.” He’d tipped his head, the slow grin still lingering, green eyes dancing. “Unless you’re—”
“I am not chicken!” Ally said it then. She said it again now. “Fine. I’ll have dinner with you. We can catch up on �old times.’ And you can sign the papers. Where shall I meet you?”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“I’d rather meet you there.”
He paused, then said, “Fine. Suit yourself.” He gave her a street corner in Brooklyn. “You can take a cab or the subway. Either way, I’ll meet you at the Seventh Avenue subway stop.”
“I’ll go to the restaurant.”
“I’ll be at the subway stop. We can walk from there. Seven o’clock. It’s a date.”
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS not a date.
Ally had never been on a date with PJ Antonides in her life—unless you counted their date to meet at the courthouse where they got married, which she wasn’t, she thought irritably, jerking clothes out of her suitcase, trying to find something suitable to wear.
Not that it mattered. It wasn’t a date, despite what he had said. And they weren’t a couple!
She was annoyed. With PJ. But even more with herself. And even more that she was annoyed and had let him get to her.
She was kicking herself now for having done the polite thing and come to give him the papers in person. Jon was right. She hadn’t needed to. She could have sent them through the mail. And if he hadn’t signed them, oh, well. She’d have proceeded with the divorce anyway.
Of course, she still could. But it was worse now, having stirred the pot, so to speak. And she couldn’t understand why he was being obstinate. She’d thought her task would be simple.
She’d expected that PJ would be delighted to see her, that he would tease her a bit—as he always had done—then, still joking with her, he’d sign the papers, maybe buy her a cup of coffee, then give her a wink and a wave as she walked out the door.
Her only qualm about seeing him again had been wondering what her own reaction would be.
PJ had turned her world upside down the night he’d made love to her. He had made her want things she hadn’t suspected existed—things that she’d tried to put out of her mind ever since.
Worse, he had made her want him.
And, on a physical level, her body still did.
Which was why she was putting on a tailored black pantsuit and knotting her hair up on top of her head—tamping down and buttoning up—to remind herself that this was not about physical desire.
It was about commitment and family and eternity.
It was about ending their sham of a marriage so that she could move on and make a real one with Jon.
“Just remember that,” she told her reflection, staring intently into her dark eyes and willing herself to be strong. “PJ doesn’t love you. He’s just getting his own back.”
She was fairly sure that was what this reluctance was all about. He was making her pay, no doubt, for having been rude and distant the night he’d come to her opening.
“He doesn’t love you,” she repeated once more for good measure, then added severely, “and you don’t love him, either.”
The subway ride from her midtown Manhattan hotel to the Seventh Avenue stop in Brooklyn wilted her pantsuit. A straphanger’s charm bracelet snagged her hair. She was disheveled, unkempt and perspiring by the time she emerged onto the street. She wished he’d told her what restaurant they were going to so she could have gone there and repaired the damage before she met him again.
But he was already there waiting when she appeared. He was still wearing the trousers and shirt he’d worn at work. His jacket was slung over his shoulder. His tie was gone. The power was still there. It was like seeing the wild animal let out of his cage.
Ally caught her breath.
“Right on time,” he said approvingly. “No trouble getting here? You look great.”
That was so patently a lie that Ally laughed.
He grinned. “Ah, a real smile at last.”
“It’s just that I’m so delighted to be here,” she said sarcastically.
He laughed. And before she realized—or prepared, or dodged—he swooped around, ducked his head down and kissed her.
It was a quick kiss—a street-corner kiss. A smack of lips, an instant’s worth of the taste of enticing sexy male and nothing more. It was the sort of kiss that happened every day on thousands of street corners around the world. Nothing earth-shattering about it.
At least, no one else’s world shattered.
Only hers.
Because that one brief touch of PJ’s lips brought everything back. The memories she’d wallowed in at first, then spent years sublimating or suppressing, crashed back in on her as if the years of constructing defenses had never even happened.
That one instant, that one taste—his lips on hers, his scent filling her nostrils—and for a split second she was back in Hawaii, back in PJ’s apartment, back in his arms.
She swayed, stumbled.
He caught her before she could fall on her face. “Are you okay?”
Of course she was, but he kept his arm around her as she wobbled on knees of jelly. And she gripped his shirtfront as she righted herself, then let go as she straightened and pulled away. “I’m fine. It’s the heat. And…and I just t-tripped, that’s all.”
“You sure?” He was so close. She could see each individual eyelash. They were long and thick and wasted on a man. He bent close again, looking worried and solicitous.
Ally stepped back quickly, out of kissing range. Definitely out of kissing range!
“It was hot in the subway. The air-conditioning wasn’t working on the train. Where are we going? Is it far? I need to splash some water on my face.”
“Not far.” He still had his arm around her as he steered her along Flatbush Avenue and into a grocery store.
She frowned. “Where are you going?”
“Just have to get a few things. Come on.” He came back and snagged her wrist to take her with him. She pulled out of his grasp, but followed as he picked some steaks, salad vegetables, a loaf of country bread and fresh olives. Then he hesitated a moment, as if weighing his options, and grabbed a couple of ears of corn on the cob.
Suspicion began to dawn. “Why are you shopping now?”
“Because until an hour ago, I didn’t know I was having company for dinner.”
“We’re not…I mean…you’re cooking?”
“No end to my talents.” He slanted her a grin as he grabbed a fresh pineapple off the display and tossed it to her.
Instinctively Ally caught it but protested as she did so. “You don’t have to cook for me,” she said quickly. “Let’s go out. I’ll buy dinner.”
“No. You won’t. Come on. No trouble at all. I like to cook.”
“But—”
But he was already leading the way toward the checkout. “Hey, Manny. How’s it going?” he said to the teenager who began to ring up the groceries.
“Ain’t. Too hot,” the boy said. “Dyin’ in here. Better outside. Don’t forget. Softball tonight.”
“Not me. Other plans.”
The boy’s gaze lit on Ally and he looked her up and down assessingly. “Nice,” he said with an approving grin.
“My wife,” PJ said.
Ally stiffened beside him. He didn’t have to keep telling everyone.
The boy was clearly surprised. His eyes widened. “No joke?”
“Yep.”
“No,” Ally said at the same instant.
Manny blinked. PJ’s scowl was disapproving.
“Only officially,” she muttered.
PJ’s jaw tightened. “Officially counts.” He pulled out his wallet and paid for the groceries. “Hit a homer for me.”
Manny grinned and winked. “Hit one yourself.”
Ally’s cheeks burned as she followed PJ out of the store. “Why do you keep telling people I’m your wife?”
“Because it’s the truth?” he suggested.
“But not for long.” She practically had to lope to keep up with him.
“You’re here now.”
“Just for the night. I’m leaving Friday.”
“Stop thinking so damn far ahead, Al.” PJ shifted the grocery bag into his other arm and took her by the elbow as they turned the corner onto one of the side streets. His touch through the thin fabric of her jacket made her far too aware of him. And she jumped when his lips came close to her ear and said, “Interesting things can happen in a night if you let them.”
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