His Chosen Wife. Anne McAllister

needs to go home to bed,” he said. Alex was back in his arms, head against his father’s shoulder, looking weepy and out of sorts.

      “Yes. And we should let these two enjoy each other’s company.” Cristina smiled warmly at Ally and then at PJ who, seeing the smile, raised his brows quizzically.

      Cristina stood up and went over to him, going up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I like your wife,” she said. “A lot.”

      The vehemence of her declaration seemed to surprise him. But then he just looked bemused. “She checks out okay, then?”

      Cristina swatted his arm. “You knew she would. You married her. You are such a dark horse.”

      “Me?”

      “Such a romantic. Riding in to save her like a knight on a charger.”

      PJ reddened. “I never—”

      “A knight? PJ?” Mark’s brows rose. He regarded his brother-in-law with wonder.

      “A knight,” Cristina said firmly. “Who’d a thunk it? Come on. Let’s go home.” She linked her arm in Mark’s. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”

      At the door, she turned back and looked at Ally. “I want to hear more about your art. And the clothes. They sound fantastic. We didn’t even get into that,” she said to her brother. “But we will. There’s plenty of time now.” She went out, then turned to back Ally. “You can fill me in on the weekend.”

      “The weekend?” Ally stared.

      “Oh, I know everyone else will want a piece of you, too. But we’re going to talk.”

      “I’m not—”

      “Are you going up Friday?” Cristina asked her brother.

      “Yes.”

      “No!” Ally blurted.

      “We’re still discussing it,” PJ said smoothly.

      Cristina laughed and patted his cheek. “Enjoy the discussion. And the making up after.” She winked. “We’ll be there Saturday. See you then.”

      “Yes,” PJ said.

      “No!” Ally said.

      “Oh, this is going to be fun,” Cristina said happily. Then as PJ began to close the door, impulsively his sister darted back in to plant a quick kiss on Ally’s cheek.

      Her eyes were shining and she squeezed Ally’s hand as she said, “I just want to say how happy I am for both of you. And … welcome to the family.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “NO!” THE door had barely shut behind Cristina and Mark before Ally had the word out of her mouth. “I am not going to your parents’ house.”

      “Al—”

      “No!” She whirled away from where she’d been standing beside him near the door, stalking across the room, needing to put as much space between them as possible.

      Only when she was as far as she could get did she turn and glare at him. “You did this on purpose!”

      “Did what?” How could he look so innocent? So completely guileless.

      “You set me up! You invited your sister here so she would jump to all the wrong conclusions and then back me into a corner where you think I’ll be forced to go to your parents’ house with you! Well, I won’t!”

      “I didn’t invite my sister here.”

      Ally snorted. “Then how did she know to come? She knew I was here.”

      “They invited me for dinner tonight. I had to decline.”

      “And you just happened to mention—”

      “I didn’t even talk to her. I asked Rosie to call her.”

      “And Rosie just happened to mention—”

      He shrugged. “If she did, you can blame yourself as much as me. Who came in and announced she was my wife?”

      Ally’s teeth came together with a snap. “In my office we prize confidentiality.”

      “In mine we prize people,” he said mildly, putting her back up even further. At the same time she knew he was right. She’d told his assistant who she was. She’d used the relationship first.

      “Besides, it doesn’t make any difference. You weren’t a complete surprise. They knew about you.”

      Ally couldn’t even imagine how that conversation must have gone. “So it seems. And what did you say, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m married, but I seem to have mislaid my wife’?”

      His lips pressed into a thin line. “The first part, yes. The second didn’t come into it. It just … happened. When I came back and decided to stick around, Dad and Mom started throwing women my way. I said I wasn’t interested. They said, ‘Oh, God, he’s gay.’” His mouth twisted. “I suppose I could have let them think that, but it seemed smarter to tell them the truth. So I said, ‘No, I’m married.’”

      “And they didn’t say, ‘Show us your wife’?”

      “Of course they did. But I couldn’t, could I?”

      “So what did you do?”

      “Told them a shortened version of what happened. Said I’d met you in Hawaii. That we were friends. That you needed to get married. That I married you.”

      “You said I needed to get married? Oh, for God’s sake, do they think I was pregnant?”

      “It did occur to my mother,” he admitted. “She asked, rather hopefully, as I recall, if she was going to have another grandchild. Cristina had just had Alex. I said no. I said you needed to stop your father meddling in your life, and marrying me was how you’d done it. No big deal.”

      Ally’s eyes widened. “And they were okay with that?”

      “Well, it wasn’t their idea of a best-case scenario. They like their children to marry people they can meet and who will have loads of little Antonides babies.” He gave her a wry smile and a shrug. “That’s the way they are. But what were they going to say?”

      Ally couldn’t imagine. She knew what her father would have said. It wouldn’t have been pretty. She shook her head. She prowled restlessly around PJ’s living room, feeling off balanced. Awkward. Guilty.

      She’d never really considered how their whole marriage scene would play out for PJ. It had always been about her. Her needs. Her hopes.

      “Of course they wanted to meet you,” PJ went on. “They wanted to know where you were. What you were doing. When we were going to get back together.”

      Ally cocked her head. “And you said …?”

      “I said I didn’t know.” He lifted his shoulders, spread his hands. “I didn’t, did I? The truth.”

      Ally grimaced. The truth was supposed to set you free, wasn’t it? She didn’t feel free at all. She felt trapped, hemmed in.

      She picked up the softball on the bookcase and slapped it against her palm. “And now Cristina assumes I’m going to the family reunion with you.”

      “It’s a natural assumption.”

      “And what will they think when we get a divorce? They’ll have expectations,” Ally went on. “Cristina certainly has expectations!”

      “She likes you.” He still sounded almost surprised at that.

      Unaccountably, the thought made Ally bristle. “You thought she wouldn’t?”

      “Nothing Cristina does surprises me. But I didn’t know if she’d