His Chosen Wife: Antonides' Forbidden Wife / The Ruthless Italian's Inexperienced Wife / The Millionaire's Chosen Bride
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She had been as astonished to turn the corner in the gallery and find herself staring at an eight-foot-by-eight-foot painting that essentially took up a whole wall, a painting that captured summer in Central Park.
It was as if the artist had distilled the essence of New York’s famous park—its zoo, its boats, its ball diamonds, fields, walkways and bike paths. The detail was incredible. Every person—and there were hundreds—was unique, special. Real.
And studying it while Gabriela went on at length about its talented creator, Ally wished she’d gone back to look at the mural in PJ’s apartment to find herself in it.
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Gaby had asked eagerly.
“I have, actually,” Ally had said. “I saw a couple of her murals earlier this week. She’s amazingly talented.”
“You can tell her so,” PJ said when Ally repeated her comment to him. “She’ll be delighted to hear it. I’m glad she’s painting on something smaller than buildings these days. Easier for her, now that she’s staying home with a kid.”
It was easy to talk to PJ about her work and about his. And since his family figured largely in the company, she found that it was easy to ask about them. He talked readily, telling stories about growing up in a large boisterous family that made her laugh at the same time that she felt twinges of envy for the childhood he had known. It was so different from her own.
And while the thought of meeting a host of Antonideses was unnerving under the circumstances—she felt like a fraud—she found that the more she heard, the more eager she was to meet them.
More than once she said, “You’re making that up,” when PJ related some particularly outrageous anecdote, many of them having to do with things he and his brothers did or pranks he played on his sisters.
And every time he shook his head. “If you don’t believe me, ask them.”
“I will,” she vowed.
The stories he told surprised her because PJ had always seemed distant from his family in Hawaii, determinedly so. But now he seemed to actually relish the time he spent with them.
“I thought you wanted to get away from your family,” she remarked as they headed east through one suburb after another until finally they got far enough beyond the city that there were actually cultivated fields and open spaces here and there.
The sun was shining. A breeze lifted her hair. The summer heat that had been oppressive in the city was appealing out here.
“I did,” PJ said. The wind was tousling his hair, too. “They’re great in small doses. Like this weekend. But I needed to be on my own. So I left. To find myself. Like you did,” he added, glancing her way.
She hadn’t thought about that before. She’d been so consumed by her own life in those days that she hadn’t really thought about what motivated anyone else. PJ’s proposal had been a favor, but had always seemed more of a casual, “Oh well, I’m not marrying anyone else this week,” sort of thing.
She hadn’t realized that he’d equated her situation with his own.
“Did you realize that then?” she asked.
“It occurred to me.” He kept his eyes on the road.
Ally turned her eyes on him, understanding a bit better what had motivated him. Which should, she reminded herself, make it easier to resist the attraction she felt.
She’d been a “cause” for him then. Nothing more, nothing less. And this weekend her chance to pay him back. On Sunday he would take her back to the city. Monday she would catch a plane back to her real life.
And what PJ told his family afterward was not her problem. But the weekend could be a problem unless they discussed it ahead of time.
She turned to PJ. “Before we arrive, we need to get a few things straight.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“WHAT sort of things?” PJ slanted her a wary glance.
She had seen signs for various Hamptons—West Hampton, Bridgehampton, East Hampton—so she knew they were getting near now. She didn’t know which PJ’s parents lived in, but the knowledge that she’d be meeting them soon banished her pleasure at the surprising ease of the journey and was replaced by jittery nerves and a definite edginess.
“Rules,” she said.
“Rules?” he repeated, sounding incredulous. “What sort of rules?”
“No kissing.”
His head jerked around. Disbelieving green eyes stared at her. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said, feeling her cheeks begin to heat.
“Not right, I didn’t,” PJ muttered under his breath. “I’m your husband,” he reminded her.
“Only for the moment,” she said primly.
“You can kiss me like you did and still want a divorce?”
Now her face really was burning. “You caught me off guard. And I never said you weren’t appealing. It’s just …” she hesitated. There was no way she could discuss this with him. They weren’t speaking the same language. “I won’t say that I’m filing for divorce. I’ll leave that up to you.”
“Big of you,” he muttered. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. His knuckles were white.
“I just—” she plucked at the hem of her skirt “—don’t think we should lead them to expect that we’re a couple.”
“Ally, in their eyes we are a couple. We’re married.”
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“Well, too bad. You’re here now,” PJ said as he flipped on the turn signal and, the next thing Ally knew, they were off the highway and heading south. She clenched her fists in her lap and tried to settle her nerves. She took a deep breath intended to calm her.
“You’re not going underwater,” PJ said. “Relax. They don’t bite. I don’t either,” he added grimly.
“You kiss,” Ally muttered.
“And damn well, or so I’ve been told,” he retorted, then tipped his head to angle a look at her. “You didn’t seem to have any complaints.”
“You kiss very well,” she said primly, staring straight ahead. “And you’ve proved that.”
He made another right turn, then a left. They were getting closer and closer to the shore, running out of houses. And she was running out of time. She turned to entreat him. “I don’t want us to make this any more difficult than it is, PJ.”
He slowed the car and looked straight at her. “I didn’t realize it was such a terrible imposition.”
“It’s not! It’s—” she couldn’t explain. She couldn’t even make sense of her tangled feelings herself “—not difficult. But it is awkward. I feel like a fraud. That’s why I don’t want kissing.”
He let the car roll to a stop now. They were sitting in the middle of the road. Fortunately there was no traffic. He let his hands lie loosely on the steering wheel for a long moment before he drew a long breath, then said quietly, “Is it when you kiss me that you feel like a fraud, Ally?”
He didn’t wait for her to answer. He gunned the engine and they shot down the road another hundred yards and then he swung the car into a large paved parking area behind an immense stone and timber pseudo-English-style two-story house.
“Home sweet home,” he said, and without glancing her way, he hopped out of the car.
Challenged by PJ’s question, Ally sat right where she was, feeling as if she’d just taken a body blow to the gut. But before she could even face the question internally, let alone articulate a reply to PJ, he jerked open the door on her side of the car and said tersely, “Come and meet my parents.”
Knees wobbling, and not just from being stuck in a car too long, Ally got out. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d expected—apart from being nervous—when he introduced her to his parents. Probably she hadn’t even let herself think that far.
But whatever fleeting notions she had, they didn’t come close to what she got.
“Good luck with your ‘no kissing’ rule,” PJ said just before he turned to face the horde of relatives descending upon them.
And the next instant, they were surrounded.
“Ma, Dad, this is Ally. Al, these are my parents, Aeolus and Helena,” PJ said and somehow he swept them together.
And instead of politely shaking hands and saying, “How do you do?” as Ally had expected, she was instantly enveloped in Aeolus’s hearty embrace, her cheeks were kissed, her body was squeezed, her hands were pumped.
“And so you are real!” he said jovially, dark eyes flashing with humor. “My boy is just full of surprises!”
And somehow he managed to wrap PJ into the same fierce hug so that she might not have kissed him, but she certainly had plenty of body contact before Aeolus struck again, this time drawing his wife into their midst.
PJ’s mother was not quite as effusive as her husband. But her expression, though clearly inquisitive, was warm and her smile was just as welcoming.
“A new daughter,” she murmured, taking Ally’s cheeks between her palms and looking straight into her eyes. “How wonderful.”
And just as she was smitten by guilt, Ally was kissed with gentle warmth. Then Helena stepped back, still smiling and slid an arm around Ally’s waist, drawing her away from PJ and his father. “Come,” she said, “and meet your family.”
Her family.
More guilt. More dismay. And yet, how could she not smile and allow herself to be passed from one to another. There were so many, all dark-haired, eager and smiling, as they shook her hand, kissed her cheeks, told her their names.
Some names she recognized—PJ’s siblings, Elias and Martha, their spouses and a swarm of little boys who must be more of PJ’s nephews. There was another brother, some aunts, cousins, friends.
She heard Mr. and Mrs. Cristopolous’s names, but they were just part of the blur. She did get a bead on Connie, though, the woman Aeolus hoped his son would marry.
Connie Cristopolous was the most perfectly beautiful woman Ally had ever seen. She was blessed with naturally curling black hair. Ally’s own, stick straight, couldn’t compare. Not only did it curl, but it actually seemed to behave itself instead of flying around the way most of the women’s hair did. Her complexion was smooth and sun touched. Her features—a small neat nose, full smiling lips, deep brown eyes—were perfect. And she had just enough cheekbone to give her face memorable definition, but enough fullness in her cheeks to make her face warm and feminine.
She smiled at Ally and greeted her warmly. “So glad to meet Peter’s wife,” she said in a lightly accented voice that reminded Ally of the spread of warm honey. Even her thick luxuriant eyelashes were perfect.
Maybe she was a perfect shrew, too. But somehow Ally doubted it. PJ’s father didn’t look like the sort of man who would have chosen a shrew as a potential daughter-in-law. Ally suspected Aeolus Antonides had terrific taste in women.
She slanted a quick glance at PJ, who was being mobbed by his aunts and mauled by his brothers. He didn’t seem to be noticing Connie. But no doubt he would.
Maybe he would even marry her. After all, she could be his, once the divorce was final.
The thought made Ally stiffen involuntarily, and she narrowed her gaze at the other woman, as if she could discern at a glance whether she was worthy of a man like PJ. Would she love him?
Would he love her?
The question made Ally stumble as she was being led up the steps to the house by a couple of PJ’s aunts.
“Are you all right, dear?” one asked her, catching her by the elbow to make sure she didn’t fall.
“F-fine,” Ally stammered. But she wasn’t all right. The truth was that while she might be able to cope with the idea that PJ didn’t really love her, she didn’t want him falling in love with anyone else, either.
Mortifying, but true.
“Come and meet Yiayia.” The aunts drew her into the house.
The house PJ had grown up in was as lovely and warm within as it was without. There was a lot of dark wood paneling, floor-to-ceiling bookcases and a massive fieldstone fireplace, which could have been oppressive but was softened by overstuffed sofas and chairs and balanced and lightened by high ceilings and French doors. These faced south and opened onto a deck that led to a lawn, then down a flight of wooden steps to the sand—and the ocean and horizon beyond.
Ally, seeing that, felt a moment’s peace. She would have preferred to stop there, admire and take a breath, try to regain her equilibrium.
But the aunts were towing her on through the dining room and into the kitchen where a small still-dark-haired elderly lady was in the middle of a rather elaborate baking project. Her hands were stuck in something that looked like honey and ground nuts. A very sticky business.
Ally wondered how they would handle the requisite hug.
But though the older woman looked up when they came in, her eyes, bright and curious as they lit on Ally, she made no move to take her hands out of the bowl. She simply looked Ally over.
It was clear she needed no introduction to the new arrival. She was already assessing her carefully. She did not smile.
And Ally, who was still feeling overwhelmed, was almost grateful. And her gratitude had nothing to do with avoiding the sticky stuff.
“This is Yiayia,” one of the aunts said. “Grandma,” she translated in case Ally couldn’t.
Ally could. PJ hadn’t said much about his grandmother. He’d indicated that she would be there, but nothing more.
She smiled at the old woman who didn’t smile back. She was still studying Ally closely and in complete silence. Ally wondered suddenly if PJ’s grandmother spoke English.
Well, if she didn’t, they’d certainly figure out another way to communicate. The family seemed big on kisses and hugs. At least, all of them but Grandma.
“Hello,” she said at last, when it was clear that PJ’s grandmother wasn’t going to take the conversational lead. “I’m so glad to meet you. I’m Alice. Or Ally if you prefer. Or Al if you’re PJ,” she added with a small conspiratorial grin, inviting PJ’s grandmother to share a grin with her.
She was surprised to discover how very much she wanted the old lady to smile.
“Alice,” PJ’s grandmother said quietly at last, her gaze still fastened on Ally’s face. But even then her expression didn’t change. She turned and looked up at the aunts. “Alice will help me. Go now.”
They looked at her, then at Ally, then at each other and, with only that much hesitation, they nodded and left.
Outside Ally could hear a multitude of voices, laughter, scuffling. But no one came into the kitchen. In the kitchen it was just she and PJ’s grandmother. It felt like having an audience with the pope.
Like going to see her own father who was distant and formal and also rarely ever smiled. Ally almost breathed a little easier. This was more what she expected.
And then suddenly the door opened and PJ strode into the room. At the sight his grandmother burst into an absolutely radiant smile. And when he crossed the room in three long strides to pick her up bodily, sticky hands and all, and kiss her soundly, she crowed with laughter, then put her honey-coated hands on each of his cheeks and kissed him right back.
Ally felt her mouth drop open.
Both PJ and his grandmother turned toward her. “So, what do you think of my wife, Yiayia?” he said. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”
“A beauty,” his grandmother agreed. She was still smiling, still patting his cheek with her sticky hand but her eyes were shrewd when they met Ally’s. “So, this is Alice.” It sounded like a pronouncement.
PJ nodded. He was still smiling, but there was a seriousness in his expression that told Ally something else was underneath the smile.
“You went to get her?”
“She came to me.”
“Ah.” His grandmother’s brows lifted. Her gaze softened a bit, a hint of a smile touched her face. “Ne. This is better.”
Better? Than what? Ally could tell there was a subtext to the conversation, but neither PJ nor his grandmother enlightened her. And all the vibes she was getting said it wasn’t better at all. She was very much afraid that PJ’s grandmother, like his sister Cristina, was misunderstanding the situation.
“So, you have come,” the old lady said, approvingly. “At last.”
“Don’t give her a hard time, Yiayia. She’s had things to do.”
“More important than her husband?”
“Important for her,” PJ said firmly. “Like when I went to Hawaii for school. That was important for me. You understand?”
The old lady eyed him narrowly for a long moment, then slanted a gaze of silent judgment at Ally, who stood motionless and didn’t say a word.
“Ne. I understand, yes,” she said. She sighed. “You are happy now?”
PJ grinned. “Of course I’m happy now.” He took her fingers and nibbled the honey off each one, making her laugh again. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve got two of my favorite women right here in the room with me. You’re making baklava.” He nodded at the project underway on the counter. Then he sniffed the air. “Mom’s made roast for dinner. And there’s no way Dad can foist any more women off on me.”
His grandmother laughed, reassured. “Wash your face and go help your brother with his twins. Tallie must put her feet up and rest. She’s going to be a mother again.”
“Really?” PJ was clearly delighted. “When?”
“In the spring. Go now. Leave your wife,” she said after he’d washed his hands and face and had turned toward Ally. “Alice and I will talk.”
“But—”
“Go,” his grandmother ordered. “Trust me. I will not eat her.”
Still he hesitated for a moment. “She’s worse than Cristina,” he said to Ally. There was a warning look on his face.
“We’ll be fine. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make baklava.”
Yiayia smiled and nodded. “I will teach you.”
“Just be sure that’s all you do,” PJ warned his grandmother. He dropped another kiss on her forehead, then with a quick smile at Ally, went out the door, yelling for Elias.
They both watched him go. Then as she cleaned her hands and began to layer the filo and melted butter with the honey mixture, PJ’s grandmother said something in Greek.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t understand,” Ally said, coming closer and picking up the brush to help butter the layers as Yiayia spread them out.
“I said,” Yiayia repeated clearly, in English this time, “he is my favorite.”
She smiled fondly out the window where they could both see PJ rescuing his older brother who was being used as a human climbing frame by his toddler-aged twins. “All of my grandchildren I love, ne? But Peter I love the most.” She turned to Ally and shook her head.
“I don’t say that to anyone else,” she went on. “But I know. He knows. He is the most like my dear Aeneas. Strong and gentle like his grandfather. He makes me laugh. He makes me happy. He is a good man.”
“Yes.” Ally knew that. She’d always known it.
“A man who deserves to be happy, too,” Yiayia added.
“Yes.”
“He says he is.”
“I hope he is,” Ally agreed quickly, then felt more was needed. “I want him to be happy,” she said fervently. And that was the truth. “I know he was happy to come home for the weekend.”
“Now that you are here and his father knows what he says is true. But that is not what I mean. He says he is happy, but I wonder …” Her voice trailed off and her gaze turned to the windows again as she watched PJ and Elias on the lawn playing with the little boys. They all were laughing.
“He looks happy,” Ally said stoutly.
“Ne.” Yiayia agreed, nodding. “But then I ask myself—” she looked archly at Ally over her spectacles “—why does a man who is happy and in love, kiss his old wrinkled yiayia and not his lovely wife?”
As tough as the old woman was, Ally liked her.
She felt guilty for not confessing her plans. But she’d promised PJ she wouldn’t mention the divorce. And the truth was, even if she hadn’t promised, she wasn’t sure she could have got the words past her lips.
It felt like a sacrilege to even think it, much less bring it up. And she completely forgot about it after another ten minutes of conversation, during which PJ’s grandmother changed the subject and asked about her art and her retail business.
Her questions weren’t casual. They demonstrated she was not only knowledgeable but that PJ had obviously told her a great deal about what Ally did.
“He is very proud of you,” she said.
“He made it possible.”
Yiayia smiled. “And now you make him happy.” Her eyes met Ally’s over the pan of baklava. They were back to “happy” again. And this time Yiayia’s words very definitely held a challenge.
But before she could figure out how to respond, PJ’s grandmother said, “Here comes Martha. You will love Martha.”
And as she spoke, the door from the deck swung open and Martha stuck her head in. She carried her toddler son on her hip.
“Oh, good, you are here,” she said to Ally. “I’ve been looking for you.” Then, “Can you spare her, Yiayia? I want to get acquainted with my sister-in-law.”
When they’d first met, Martha had simply beamed and kissed her. Was she now about to grill Ally the way PJ’s grandmother and Cristina had?
But before she could demur, Yiayia said, “You go, both of you. Hurry now, Martha, or your mother will put you to work.”
“God forbid.” Martha laughed. “Come on,” she said to Ally. “We’ll go down on the beach. Eddie can eat sand.”
She led the way and, bemused, Ally followed.
“I saw one of your murals at Sol Y Sombra,” she told Martha. “It was amazing.”
And any concern she might have had about Martha’s reaction to her relationship with PJ evaporated right then. Martha’s face lit up. “You were there?” And when Ally explained, her eyes widened. “Gaby’s showing your work, too?”
She was clearly delighted and peppered Ally with a thousand questions—about her art, about her shops, about her focus. And she was absolutely thrilled to meet PJ’s wife.
“Dad didn’t think you really existed,” she confided. “It’s so cool to discover you do. And even cooler that I like you!”
If Cristina had been suspicious, Martha was just the opposite. She was eager to welcome Ally into the family. She practically danced along the beach as they followed Eddie from one pile of flotsam and jetsam to another.
“We’ll have to get together. Maybe in Santorini—or we could come to Hawaii sometime, Theo and Eddie and I,” she said, eyes alight with possibilities. “Theo would love that. He sails. He and PJ bonded over PJ’s windsurfer. They have a lot in common. And apparently we do, too.”
And what was Ally supposed to say? No, they didn’t?
“That would be fun,” she managed. And she was telling the truth when she said it. It would be absolutely wonderful, if only …
Something of her hesitation must have shown through, because Martha immediately said, “Don’t let me bully you into it. Theo is always telling me I shouldn’t just assume.”
“No,” Ally said quickly. “I really would love it. I just … We don’t know what we’re doing yet, PJ and I. We have to … discuss things.”
“Of course,” Martha said quickly. “It must be so weird, getting back together after all these years.”
Ally nodded. “We don’t really know each other …”
“Why did you stay away so long?”
And how, Ally wondered, could she even begin to answer that?
“There always seemed to be things to do,” she said, “and PJ married me so I could do them.” She knew that all the Antonides clan had heard the story of her grandmother’s legacy by now. But she didn’t know how much else any of them knew. She shrugged and turned to stare out to sea. It was easier that way than when she had to look into Martha’s face. “And once I finally got going, I was a success. I ended up on a fast track. Doing what he’d expected me to do. And—” she shrugged “—as that was what we’d married for, I just … kept doing it. I guess I thought he would have moved on. Got a divorce.”
“Could he?”
Ally nodded. “If he had filed and I didn’t respond, yes. He could have got a divorce without my ever having to sign anything.”