“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
