His Chosen Wife: Antonides' Forbidden Wife / The Ruthless Italian's Inexperienced Wife / The Millionaire's Chosen Bride. Susanne James
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And Connie, apparently oblivious to any machinations that would have directed her toward PJ, seemed enthralled with sitting at Lukas’s feet and listening to his music. Elias and Tallie had come back out and were sitting on the other side of the fire, their arms around each other as they stared into the magic of the fire.
Ally understood. She didn’t want to leave the magic, either.
But she could do exactly what she’d always done as a child after she’d read one of those books that made her dream impossible dreams. She could take her dreams to bed with her.
But first, she reminded herself as she followed PJ up the stairs so he could show her to her room, she should call Jon.
She hadn’t called him all day. But it wasn’t too late. With the time difference, he would probably just be getting home from the hospital. Maybe she could communicate a little of what she’d felt today to him—this feeling of family belonging, joy, connection. Maybe he would understand.
Maybe, she dared hope, he would share her dream.
PJ took hold of the handle on one of the doors in the hallway. “Here we are.” He pushed the door open and held it for her. “My old room,” he said with a grin.
“Yours?” She looked around, intrigued. It had obviously been redecorated since PJ had lived in it. The walls were a freshly painted pale sage green. But the bookcase still had some books that the young PJ Antonides would have read, and the hardwood floors showed evidence of being used for more than walking.
“Used to have bunkbeds, too,” he told her. There was a double-size bed in the room now, with a taupe-colored duvet and heaps of inviting pillows. “I had the top one. Always wanted to be on top. Luke was stuck with the bottom.”
She could imagine him in here, her mind’s eye seeing the boy on the surfboard that Martha had painted. She wondered about the dreams he had dreamed as a child. He needn’t have dreamed ones like hers. They’d been his reality.
Then she realized he was just standing there looking at her. “What?” she said.
He shook his head, smiling, too. “Nothing.” But still he made no move to go.
“Where are you going to be?” she asked him.
He blinked. “What?”
She shrugged. “I just wondered where you were sleeping? Which room?”
“This one,” he said. “I’m sleeping in here. With you.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
PJ WAITED for the inevitable, “No!” and the predictable protest that would follow.
Ally stood stock-still in the middle of the bedroom, staring at him, her eyes wide, looking stricken. She opened her mouth, and he prepared himself for the argument, the refusal, for more of her damn “rules.”
Then just as abruptly her mouth closed again.
Her expression shifted subtly, becoming unreadable. Or at least unreadable to him.
Ten years ago Ally Maruyama had been an open book. Serious and sunny by turns, yes, but still fathomable. PJ had always understood where she was coming from, what she hoped for, what her dreams were.
This Ally was as fathomable as cement.
She kissed him like she wanted him. Hell, the way she’d responded to his kisses had nearly burned him to the ground. And she hadn’t been immune, either. That much he did know.
And yet she persisted in wanting the divorce.
And now she was looking at him, not saying anything. Just looking.
“I suppose you think I should have got you a separate bedroom,” he said gruffly, scowled as he deliberately began unbuttoning his shirt.
“No,” she said with maddening calm. “I’m sure that would have been awkward. Your mother would definitely have asked questions. I guess it just … didn’t occur to me. I’m an idiot.” Then she shrugged as if it didn’t matter. And damned if she didn’t just take hold of the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head!
PJ’s mouth went dry. She wasn’t going to kiss him, but she’d strip for him? God Almighty.
She wasn’t baring anything yet that she couldn’t bare in public. Beneath her top she had on a lacy ivory bra. It was at least as discreet as any bikini top. But he hadn’t seen her breasts, even in that state of coverage in ten years. He remembered them as small ripe handfuls that had begged to be kissed. Now they were fuller, riper. A woman’s breasts.
And he needed to kiss them again—now.
Like a slow fire, his desire had been simmering all day. From the minute he’d spotted her in the hotel lobby, he’d felt a quickening in his pulse, an awareness that he never felt with any other woman. He’d told himself it was just the heat of the moment, that it would fade.
But the trip out to the Hamptons hadn’t really dampened it. Talking with her, listening to her, finding out more about who she’d become after all these years—even when they were doing nothing more than that—actually seemed to deepen his awareness of her.
Seeing her with his family had made it deeper still.
If she’d been stiff and silent, treating them with distant politeness, he would have backed off. But even though she’d looked a bit overwhelmed at times, she’d slipped into the pool of Antonides family warmth and hadn’t come close to drowning.
She’d talked sailing with his father, canning tomatoes with his mother, and had been thrilled to discuss quilting with his aunts Narcissa and Maria. She and his brother Lukas had compared notes about riding camels in the outback of Australia. From the shy girl she’d been when he’d first met her, she had clearly blossomed. She seemed to enjoy them all.
And he knew they had enjoyed her. Even his grandmother, whose reaction he’d been a little wary of, truth to tell, had warmed to her.
She’d taken him by the arm after dinner and said, “You surprise me, Petros.”
And he’d stiffened because he didn’t want to hear what she might have to say. “How so?” he’d demanded, a bit more belligerent than he usually was with his grandmother whom he adored.
“You swim in deep waters.”
He’d frowned and narrowed his gaze. “What are you talking about, Yiayia?”
“Your wife.”
Which was exactly what he’d been afraid they were talking about. “Don’t be cryptic,” he’d told her. “If you’ve got something to say, just spit it out. Not that it’s going to make a damn bit of difference,” he’d added gruffly.
Her brows had lifted. Dark eyes bored into his. A small smile touched her face. “You have it bad,” she’d said.
“I have a wife,” he’d retorted.
“A beautiful wife,” she agreed. “A strong wife. But a wife, I think, who is still finding her way. Ne, Petros?”
His jaw had tightened. He’d lifted his shoulders slightly. He didn’t speak.
He hadn’t had to. Yiayia had always known what he was thinking, had always known what was important to him. She’d put her small but still-strong fingers over his and squeezed.
“I like her,” she’d said. “Your Ally is honest. When she knows the truth, so will you.”
What he knew right now, staring at Ally in her bra and capri pants, was confusion.
“What happened to the ‘no kissing’ business?” he said hoarsely.
She was rummaging in her suitcase, taking out some sort of nightshirt that didn’t look very sexy at all but still managed to make his blood hot. At his question, she turned, looking over her shoulder