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.
At least, that had been the plan. Now she said to PJ, “Call me if you change your mind. I’ll be in the city until Friday. Otherwise, I’ll see you in court.”
* * *
“You do have a wife.”
“I said I did,” PJ replied sharply.
It wasn’t news. He’d never said otherwise. It wasn’t his fault no one believed him. They’d always treated his assertion as if it were a joke.
It wasn’t a joke.
Or if it was, the joke was on him.
Sometimes he thought that his marriage to Ally was more like a dream—a distant recollection of one moment out of his life that seemed to have no connection to the rest of his life, except for one, which had ended badly.
He should have left it there. Or filed for divorce himself after their set-to at the gallery five years ago.
But he hadn’t. Why bother?
He’d certainly had no intention of marrying at the time. In fact having a wife in absentia had actually been convenient. He’d had a built-in reason for never getting serious. It had stood him in good stead in Hawaii back in his beach-bum days. But it had been even more of a godsend since he’d come back to New York and his parents had begun dragging out every available woman they knew.
“Don’t bother,” he’d said straight off. “I’m married.”
They hadn’t believed him, of course.
Where was his wife? Who was his wife? They’d dismissed it as a joke, too, until he’d shown them the marriage license.
Then they’d had a thousand questions, each nosier and more personal than the last. He’d only answered the ones he wanted to. He’d told them her name, where he’d met her, why he’d married her.
“A favor?” his father had sputtered. “You married her for a favor?”
“Why not?” PJ had said flatly, folding his arms across his chest. “She was between a rock and a hard place. She needed a way out. You’d have done the same,” he said bluntly. His father, for all his bombast, was a far bigger softie than any of his children. “Wouldn’t you?” he’d challenged the old man.
Aeolus had grunted.
“So when is she coming back?” he and Helena had both wanted to know.
“When she finds herself,” PJ had replied. That was probably the closest he’d come to telling a lie.
How the hell did he know when or what Ally would do? He’d have thought she’d be glad to see him when he’d turned up at her gallery opening. Instead she’d been stiff and remote and defensive.
She hadn’t even seemed like Ally. She’d been dismissive of Annie, completely misunderstanding his reason for bringing the other woman along. She hadn’t seemed at all like the girl he’d married. He’d told himself it didn’t matter, that he should just forget her.
But he couldn’t. She was always there—Ally and the one night they’d shared.
“You should go get her,” Yiayia told him. Yiayia was always full of ideas. The minute word of PJ’s marriage had come to her ears, she’d been busy figuring out how to bring them together again.
“No.” PJ was adamant. “Things are fine just the way they are.”
If he’d hoped they would be different, if now and then he had even begun to think about how to make them different, it wasn’t something he’d spent a lot of time dwelling on. Nor was he going to discuss it with Yiayia.
“Pah,” Yiayia had said. “What good is a wife when she is not here? It is not good for a man to be alone, Petros. And it is not good for a great-grandmother to be denied her rightful great-grandchildren, either.”
He’d glowered at her. “That’s what this is all about really,” he’d grumbled.
“Do you think so?” Yiayia said. Then she’d shaken her head in dismay. “You are hiding behind her skirts.”
“I am not! How the hell can I hide behind the skirts of someone who isn’t even here.”
“You use her not to deal with the women your father brings you.”
PJ shrugged. “I don’t want them.”
“Because you want her.”
“That’s not true!”
“So prove it. Not to me.” Yiayia cut off his protest before he could open his mouth. “For yourself. Go find her. See what she is like now. Bring her home. Or get a divorce.”
