Antonides' Forbidden Wife

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.