His Chosen Wife

Did she still, somewhere deep inside, love him?

And if she did, what then?

CHAPTER SIX

EVERYONE in the office knew about Ally’s arrival.

PJ knew Rosie had told his sister. Hell, he’d wanted her to tell Cristina. But had she had to tell everyone?

Not that anyone said anything. It was in the way they looked at him and in what they didn’t say that told him they all knew.

The minute he’d opened the office door Thursday morning, the conversation had stopped. Rosie and the rest of them had been in deep discussion, and at the sight of him, the room went from full babble to total silence.

They all turned and stared. No one said a word.

“High-level top-secret meeting?” he asked blandly. “Or are you all speechless in admiration of my tie?” He flapped his silver-and-black-striped tie at them and raised a sardonic brow.

One of the architects grinned, flashing his gold tooth, then shook his dreads and headed for his office. “Sorry, boss. Not my style.”

The others turned red and mumbled something before vanishing, as well, leaving only Rosie to meet his hard stare unflinchingly.

“Did you put out a bulletin?” he asked acidly.

“Mark was already here this morning,” she said. No further explanation was needed.

“Ah. Sorry.” He grimaced and headed for his office. He hadn’t slept most of the night. He’d prowled and paced and remembered. Lay down. Got up. Relived. And this morning he was edgy and he knew it.

“Ryne Murray will be here at nine,” Rosie said to his back.

“Let me know when he gets here.” He spoke without turning around, happy to close the door behind him before Rosie could decide that, even though it was business as usual, she was still entitled to ask questions.

He wouldn’t mind the questions, PJ thought, tossing his jacket over the back of his chair, then going to stare out the window, provided he knew the answers.

But whatever she might ask about Ally—and he knew that all of Rosie’s questions would deal with Ally—PJ didn’t have any answers at all.

No, not true.

He had one: he still wanted her.

When he’d married her, PJ had expected nothing. And that was pretty much exactly what he’d got.

After the ceremony—if you could even call it that—where they’d said their vows at the courthouse, when they’d come back outside into the bright Honolulu sunlight, he’d suggested a celebratory dinner.

“After all,” he’d told her, grinning, “it’s not every day we get married.”

But the smile Ally returned had been tremulous at best. “I don’t think so. I just—well, I really need to tell my father I’m married.”

As that had been the point of the whole exercise, PJ hadn’t argued. “Okay. I’ll come with you. Moral support.”

He’d thought she’d jump at the chance. But she’d declined that, too, shaking her head and saying gravely, “Thanks, but you’d better not. I don’t think it would be a good idea. This is between him and me. It wouldn’t be fair to bring you into it.”

He was already in it. He’d married her, hadn’t he? How much more “in it” could he get? But he knew that hadn’t even occurred to her. He wasn’t sure that it ever would.

But he hadn’t argued. He’d married her for her sake.

To his way of thinking she deserved the same freedom to find herself that he’d got by moving away from his family. The fact that he didn’t have to marry anyone to achieve it was lucky for him. If she didn’t want it to be his business, well then, it wouldn’t be his business, he’d decided.

It wasn’t as if this was some love match. It was just the sort of thing one spur-of-the-moment impulsive friend would do for another.

“Okay. Suit yourself,” he’d said.

But for a long moment neither had moved. Their gazes had locked, and perhaps a faint notion of what they’d just done inside the courthouse occurred to Ally then.

If it had, though, she thrust it away, saying, “I probably won’t see you again. I’ll be leaving in the morning.”

He’d nodded. “Yeah, sure.” Then he’d cracked a grin. “Well, good luck. Have a good life.”

She’d smiled, too. And they’d both laughed a little awkwardly. She’d said something about he should feel free to get a divorce whenever. And then she’d stuck out her hand to say farewell.

He could still remember that. She’d married him—then shaken his hand. He remembered her touch. Her grasp had been soft and gentle. Just the slightest pressure. Her palm was cold and clammy even though the temperature had been hot that day. He’d wanted to warm it as he’d squeezed her fingers in his big rough callused hand.

He’d wanted to warm her. And so as soon as she moved to ease her fingers out of his grasp, he let them go, only to reach out an instant later and wrap his arms around her, draw her slender body against his and touched his lips to hers.

It wasn’t intended to be a moment of erotic passion.

It was supposed to comfort, encourage, sustain. And yet, the taste of her, the feel of her soft lips under the hard pressure of his awoke something wholly unintended.

“Warm” didn’t even begin to cover what he had felt. And which of them was more shaken when at last he broke it off, he could not have said.

Ally had stared at him, her eyes wide and astonished. She looked stunned, which was no more than he felt.

And then she said, “I have to go,” and turned and ran down the sidewalk as if all the demons in hell were after her.

And PJ had stood there wondering what had hit him.

He had still been wondering when he’d gone to bed that night—his wedding night.

The very notion seemed like some sort of perverse joke. He’d avoided going home for hours. He had gone surfing at dusk, then out drinking with a couple of buddies, doing his best to put it out of his mind.

But he’d still been thinking about it—about her—when he’d heard a light knock on the door.

His landlady, Mrs. Chang, was usually in bed before now. But sometimes she came to get him when she needed something on a high shelf or wanted him to open the lid on a jar.

He wasn’t much in the mood for Mrs. Chang tonight. He’d been “useful” already once today: he’d married Ally.

But when the knocking continued and grew even more persistent, he got up and opened the door, then stood stock-still and stared at Ally standing there looking at him with wide unreadable eyes.

“What’s wrong? Did your old man—”

She swallowed again and gave her head a little shake. “No. I just thought that, um, it’s our wedding night and—could you make love with me?”

You could have knocked him over with a breath. He stared at her in astonishment, knowing he should ask her to repeat it, but not wanting to have his dearest dream snatched away when she repeated whatever it was she’d actually said.

But then she went on, “I just … it’s a marriage, PJ—and I don’t know, it doesn’t seem like a marriage. But I thought it might if … I just want it to be real.”

A slow smile had dawned. He’d shaken his head, dazed and delighted, astonished at the strange turns of fate, and not about to question his good luck.

“It will be my pleasure,” he’d assured her.

And his responsibility. Loving Ally was no problem at all. Being responsible for making her first time—and he was sure it was her first time—good was something else. He was young. Eager. Not untried, of course. But definitely not the most skilled of lovers.

But this was Ally, and she was depending on him. She was trusting him. And he was determined to love her the way she deserved.

He did ask, “Are you sure, Al? Are you sure this is what you want?” because he didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding.

She’d nodded jerkily, gulping again, looking terrified. “It is,” she insisted. Then, at his look of skepticism, she’d said it again. “I mean it, PJ. I want to.”

And then, as if she were determined to convince him, she’d put her hands on his bare chest and leaned in to press a tentative kiss against his lips.

And he’d been lost.

PJ had made love with a few women in his life. It was enjoyable tactile exercise—and nothing felt better. But he learned very quickly that making love with Ally went far beyond that. It wasn’t just exercise. It didn’t just feel good.

It felt right.

As he unbuttoned her shirt, he found his own fingers trembling. And when he pressed kisses along her jawline and licked the edge of her ear, her tiny gasps sent his heart into overdrive. He almost couldn’t get her shirt off. They might have been tangled in it forever if she hadn’t finished unfastening the buttons and skimmed it away, then pressed closer to him.

Her skin was petal soft. And warm. Not cold and clammy as her hand had been when she’d offered it outside the courthouse. Now her skin was hot satin beneath his fingers. He stroked and kissed, nibbled and laved. Her small breasts were perfect in the scrap of rose-colored lace that was her bra. But they were even more enticing when he freed them.

And when she arched beneath the touch of his lips on first one nipple and then the other, his own desire almost betrayed him right there.

He backed off, pulled away to take deep harsh breaths, to regain control. He dropped his head so that his hair brushed against her breasts, so that his mouth was barely more than an inch from her navel.

He felt her fingers in his hair, gripping, tugging. “What?” he muttered.

“Y-you’re breathing.”

An anguished laugh made it past his lips. “Barely.”

“On me,” she whispered, as if the feel of his hot breath shocked her.

He pressed a kiss to her abdomen. Trailed his tongue down lower. And even lower.

“PJ!” Her whole body was quivering. Her fingers felt as if they were about to snatch him bald.

“Mmm.” He gritted his teeth, nuzzled her with his nose.

“You can’t! I’m not—I’ve never—”

“Of course you haven’t.” He raised his head, pressed one more quick kiss on her belly, then stretched out beside her, cradling her into his chest. “Next time.”

“N-next?” Her voice was practically a squeak.

He smiled. “Oh, I think so. Yes.”

But this time—her first time—he would take her there slowly and gently with all the care he was capable of, and he’d make every stop along the way.

He kissed her again, feathered light kisses over her shoulders, then up her neck to her face. He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her mouth.

And the kiss they’d shared that afternoon, startling though it had been, paled in the face of the kisses they shared now.

And the operative word was sharing. He wasn’t the actor and she the “acted upon.” Awkwardly but eagerly she kissed him back. Her hands roved over him, running down his back, tracing the line of his spine, sliding just for an instant beneath the waistband of the shorts he wore.

Shorts that were confining. Annoying. Shorts that he needed to shed. He sat up and made quick work of the skirt she had on, tugging it down over her hips and tossing it aside, then doing the same to his shorts.

As his erection lifted, eager and unconfined, he saw Ally’s eyes widen. Her hand reached out as if she would touch him, then pulled back.

He settled back onto the bed again and stretched out next to her. “Go ahead.”

She looked at him doubtfully. But then she lifted her hand and ran a single finger down the length of him.

It was his turn to arch and suck in a sharp breath.

Ally snatched her hand back. “Did I hurt you?”

“You didn’t hurt me. It feels—” he shook his head, making a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh “—wonderful.”

Though it might kill him if he let her do it again.

“So, it’s all right if I—” and she did it again, then circled him lightly with her fingers.

His breath came quick. His heart pounded. He bit his lip. “Maybe you’d better hold off a bit,” he managed.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” She looked stricken.

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “I like it. Too much. Let me … show you.”

He might—possibly—be able to manage that. Giving Ally pleasure was just as exciting as having her touching him. More so, really. It was wondrous to watch her face as he stroked down her sides, as he circled her knees and trailed his fingers back up the insides of her thighs.

She moved restlessly, and he slid a thigh between her legs, opening her to his exploration. Ally’s fingers gripped the sheets. Her tongue slid between her lips as he slowly stroked closer and closer to the center of her.

He closed his eyes at the wet warmth he found there. He drew in a slow careful breath, smiling as he heard her suck in a much sharper one. He stroked deeper.

Her hips lifted. Her breath came fast. She gritted her teeth. “PJ! Oh, dear heavens!”

And he drew her into his arms as she shattered, too stunned to speak. He could feel her heart slamming against his, which had a serious staccato beat of its own. She was trembling as he kissed her, and then, still shaky, she pulled back.

“You,” she whispered. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Besides, we’ve got all night,” PJ said. “That was for you.”

He so much wanted to give Ally something. And, truthfully, the giving was the most amazing reward in itself.

But Ally wasn’t content with that. She wanted to give to him, as well. Insisted on it. Soft hands stroked his body, learned his lines, his angles, his muscles even as he was learning hers.

And when he thought he might die for the mere pleasure of her fingers on him, she said, “Now, I think,” and shifted her body, opened her thighs and urged him down between them.

PJ wanted to go slow, wanted to make it last. But the softness he eased into was heaven. The heat consumed him, raised him up, then burned him down at the same time.

“I can’t—” he muttered. But he managed. Just. Eased in carefully. Held himself rigid. Excruciatingly still. Allowed Ally to adjust, to accommodate. To open to him, welcome him.

“Is this … all?” she whispered after a moment.

“All?” He almost laughed.

She moved experimentally, drew him deeper. A breath hissed between her teeth.

“Are you all right?” He could barely get the words out.

“I will be,” Ally promised. She moved again. And again.

His own breath caught in his throat. “Ally!”

“Love me,” she whispered and rocked her hips so that he felt again the tightness of her body around his.

That was all it took. Lose control? He had no control. Had nothing to lose but himself. And he did—in her.

He loved her eagerly, desperately, giving and taking simultaneously. They both did—caressing, stroking, touching, moving together until he had no idea where one of them ended and the other began.

It was only when Ally tumbled to sleep in his arms and he pulled back just enough to look at her sleeping face in the moonlight that spilled through the window that he felt the coolness of separation where the breeze touched his heated skin.

Ally didn’t stir. Her black hair drifted against his pillow. He lifted a strand and touched it to his lips.

Then he’d just lain there, shattered, unable to tear his eyes from her, drinking in the sight, dazed and confused at having had a wedding night after all.

And wondering what the hell he had just done.

The intercom’s buzz jolted him abruptly, and he realized he was standing at the window of his office, staring unseeing out at the Manhattan skyline.

There was no moonlight, no bed, no Ally.

He reached over and punched the button on the intercom. “What?”

“Ryne Murray is here.”

“Give me a minute.”

But a minute wasn’t going to do it. 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 like she loved him.

* * *

Where was he?

Ally paced the length of the lobby for what seemed the hundredth time. It very well might have been.

She’d come downstairs at just past ten, having already paced around her room enough to wear a path in the carpet. Even though PJ wouldn’t be there until noon, she’d needed to check out before eleven, and being around a lot of people and watching the passersby, she hoped would distract her, settle her down.

It didn’t. A three ring circus underfoot wouldn’t have distracted her. A herd of elephants tapdancing on Forty-second Street probably wouldn’t have distracted her. She only thought about PJ—about spending the weekend with PJ—and grew more and more apprehensive.

She got a cup of coffee from the hospitality center. Having something in her hands would help. It would keep her from biting her fingernails, if nothing else. She sipped it and burned her tongue, muttered under her breath, paced some more.

She should have said she would meet him in the Hamptons. There were jitneys that traveled back and forth between the city and the Hamptons. She needn’t have committed herself to a full afternoon in the car, just she and PJ.

But it was too late now.

She would have needed to make a reservation. And she would have had to tell him. And calling PJ was not on her list of things she wanted to do.

She knew he’d say, “Chicken, Al?”

And she wasn’t. Really. She wasn’t. Just … wary. Edgy. Nervous.

She would go through with it. Of course she would. But it would help if he would get here so she could stop fretting about it and start resisting.

“Ready?”

The sound of his voice right behind her made her jerk. Coffee splattered on the floor, on her shoes, on her shirt, on her hand.

“Oh!” She spun around and sloshed it on his shoes, too. “Stop sneaking up on me.”

“I wasn’t sneaking. You were walking away. I couldn’t run around in front of you and say, ‘Here I am,’ could I? Are you okay?” He took the coffee out of her hand and set it down on a table while she tried ineffectually to mop herself up.

“I’m fine. Terrific. Never been better.” She was muttering while she scrubbed at her shirt, then sighed and gave it up for a lost cause. “I need to change.” She gave her still-stinging hand a shake.

“Let me see.” PJ caught her fingers in his and examined her hand. It was red where the coffee had burned. But somehow the stinging from the burn was less intense than her awareness of his touch.

Abruptly Ally tried to pull her fingers away. But PJ held them fast and grimaced. “You should have some ice.” He lifted his gaze, meeting hers. “And a kiss to make it better?” He grinned lopsidedly.

Ally snatched her hand out of his. “Ice, yes. A kiss, no.”

“Don’t want a repeat of last night, Al?” His tone was teasing.

But Ally had spent the night in far too deep a funk where kissing PJ was concerned. She compressed her lips. “I’ll just get some ice and change my shirt and we can go.”

Before he could reply, she took a fresh coral-colored pullover top from her suitcase, then, leaving the case with PJ, hurried to the ladies’ room where she changed quickly, glared at her reflection in the mirror, exhorted herself to shape up, stay calm, cool and collected and, above all, resist PJ Antonides’s charm.

Then she got a plastic bag of ice from the ice machine in the refreshment center, put it on her face before she put it on her hand. And then she made her way back to the lobby.

PJ had put her suitcase in his car—a late-model midsize SUV with a surfboard on the roof.

She stared at it. “I’ll bet you’re the only person in New York City with a surfboard on his car.”

“I’m probably not,” he said. “You’d be amazed at what you see in the city. How’s your hand?” He opened the door for her and she climbed in, glad it was a good-size car and that she would be able to keep her distance.

“It’ll be fine.” She fastened her seat belt. He fastened his, then slid the car out into the crush of midtown noontime traffic.

Ally loved the city, but she never ever considered driving there. Honolulu was stress enough. But PJ maneuvered through the traffic as easily as he picked out and rode the waves he surfed.

“I become the wave,” he’d told her once.

“Do you become the traffic?” she asked him now.

He slanted her a quick grin. “How’d you know?”

She resisted the grin and silently congratulated herself. “You make it look easy.”

“I manage.” He made a wry face. “It’s not the most relaxing way to spend a Friday afternoon.”

“You should have let me take one of the jitneys. I could have met you out there.”

“No. I don’t mind. Besides, it will give us a chance to spend some time together.”

Precisely what Ally would have preferred not to have. But she said, “Yes. Are there going to be lots of people there?”

“Enough,” PJ said grimly. “All the immediate family. The grandkids. My grandmother. A couple of my mother’s sisters. One of my dad’s crazy aunts. She’s a widow, but her husband was the cousin of Ari Cristopolous, which is why my dad decided he could justify inviting them that weekend.”

“But he really invited them because of … you … and the daughter?”

“Not that he’d ever admit it,” PJ said cheerfully.

“Won’t he be upset?”

PJ shrugged. “He knows now. Ma has to have told him. And he never stays upset long. He’s pretty easygoing.”

“But what about the Cristopolouses? And their daughter? Won’t they be expecting …?”

“An unattached son?” PJ did a rapid tattoo with his fingers on the steering wheel, grinning. “Yep. Poor ol’ Lukas.” Ally stared. “Lukas?”

“My little brother.” PJ rolled his shoulders and sighed expansively. “Bless his heart.”

Ally gave him a long skeptical look.

He just laughed. “Lukas won’t mind. He never minds when people throw beautiful women at him.”

“Do people often throw beautiful women at him?”

“Mostly beautiful women throw themselves at him. It’s a little annoying.” PJ shrugged. “They think he’s good-looking. No accounting for taste. Tell me,” he went on, “what happened yesterday at the gallery? With Gabriela del Castillo?”

Ally was curious about this brother whom women threw themselves at. It was hard to imagine anyone better looking than PJ. But then, maybe women threw themselves at him, too. She wanted to ask. But she didn’t want to know. So she focused on the question he’d asked her.

“We had a really good meeting. I took half a dozen pieces—fabric art, quilted pieces, collages—and she accepted them all.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, a couple of Thai beaches—very stylized. A couple of New Zealand ones. A bit of Polynesian Maori influence. And some landscape collage type things—a New York skyline at night.”

One she didn’t tell him about, was a much more personal piece—and one of the earliest she’d done. It had been her memories of the morning after the night they’d spent together, the view from his window toward the sea, the sand, the sunrise, the lone surfer on his board riding toward shore.

All the longing she’d felt that morning had gone into that piece. It had accompanied her everywhere. She’d shown it in several galleries, had had offers to buy it, had never sold. Couldn’t bring herself to do it.

But she’d offered it for sale at Gaby’s. She’d carried it with her too long. Like the marriage she was ending, it was time to part with it. So she’d told Gaby all the pieces she’d brought were for sale.

“I’m sending her more when I get home, and she’s going to do a whole show—we’re calling it Fabric of Our Lives.”

PJ whistled. “That’s fantastic.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “Where is the gallery? What’s it called?”

“Sol y Sombra Downtown. To distinguish it from another called Uptown she has on Madison Ave. Downtown is in Tribeca. The original is in Santa Fe.”

Once she got talking about it, she couldn’t seem to stop. And PJ encouraged her. He asked questions, listened to her replies, drew her out, seeming genuinely interested. And maybe because he was the only person to have shown any interest at all, she kept on going.