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? H
e 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.
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