His Chosen Wife. Anne McAllister

squinted at the clock—9:30 a.m.?

      She never slept that late!

      But then, as a rule, she didn’t lie awake half the night wondering if she’d lost her mind, either.

      Last night clearly she had.

      She’d shut the door on PJ, bolted it, then leaned against it, breathing as hard as if she’d run a marathon. A marathon would have made more sense!

      She would have prepared herself, she would have trained for a marathon.

      She hadn’t been prepared for PJ. Or for his refusal to sign the divorce papers. Or for his sister. Or for her agreement to go to his parents’ for the weekend.

      Or most especially for his kiss.

      Dear God, that kiss.

      She’d just been congratulating herself on having made it back to her room, if not emotionally totally intact, at least unscathed.

      And then he’d kissed her. And ten years of carefully paperedover need had come spilling out of her. Ten years of memories locked down and shut away had swamped her, and she had been powerless against the force of them.

      Of course, she’d had only a split second’s warning.

      She had seen something in his eyes at that last second when she’d started to close the door, something that looked hard and dangerous and tempting. But she’d discounted it. Had thought she was safe. Home free.

      Wrong.

      Very very wrong.

      Every time she’d closed her eyes all night long, she’d been swept back to that kiss. The way his mouth had awakened her, the way the press of his body had made her feel. She’d felt branded, possessed. And unthinking, she’d responded with a hunger of her own. It was a feeling she’d only experienced once before in her life. That night …

      Their wedding night.

      She had relived it all—that night and this for hours. It was no wonder she hadn’t slept much. It was a wonder she’d slept at all.

      “Did you say that or was I hearing things?” Jon said, jerking her back to something else she wasn’t prepared for.

      She had called him last night as she’d promised. She’d waited until she thought she could put together a coherent sentence or two, had hoped Jon would be there to say sensible things, to remind her about her father, about her life in Honolulu, and the world beyond PJ’s kiss.

      But she’d only got his answering machine, so she’d left a message. Now she said, “Um, yes. That’s what I said. You got it right.”

      She sat up straighter in the bed, pushed herself back against the headboard and willed herself to sound brisk and in control—not to mention “awake”—though God knew she wasn’t at all. She hadn’t fallen asleep until dawn. “I’m staying over the weekend,” she said.

      “What about the hospital benefit on Saturday? You didn’t forget.”

      She had actually. But she also remembered something else. “You said you couldn’t go to the benefit,” she reminded him. “When I was planning the trip I asked you about it, and you said it wasn’t a problem, that you couldn’t go, you were too busy.”

      “I am busy. But I need to go. Fogarty says I’m expected to show my face.”

      Fogarty was the head honcho in Jon’s practice, the senior doctor whose lead everyone else followed. “Then I guess you’ll have to show your face. But you’ll have to do it alone because I can’t be there.”

      “Ally, what’s going on?”

      “Something’s come up. Something important.”

      “What could possibly be more important? The benefit is important, Alice.”

      But it hadn’t been until Fogarty had decided it was. “I know. And I did ask,” she said again. “But I’ve made a commitment here now. I have some … unfinished business.”

      “I know you want that Castillo woman to take you on, but really, Ally, you have plenty of exposure elsewhere. And when we’re married, how are you going to keep all the shops supplied? When we have kids …?”

      They’d had this discussion before. And after they had children, Ally was certainly willing to put her career on hold and be a full-time mother. She had made up her mind some time ago that if she were ever fortunate enough to have children, she didn’t want someone else to raise them. If it were an economic necessity, she would certainly work to support them. But it wasn’t. Jon could provide the economic security for the family while the children were young.

      Until then, however, she wanted to work, to draw, to paint, to design, to sew.

      “When we have kids, I will put them first,” she said firmly. “But now I have to stay here until Monday.”

      And she wasn’t entirely averse to taking advantage of the fact that he had assumed it had to do with her art. After all, if she told him why she was really staying, he would like it even less.

      “Your dad is going to be disappointed. He was looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.”

      “I know.” Ally felt guilty, but she didn’t see any other option. “Well, I’ll see him Monday. And if you stop in to see him today, give him my love.”

      “I doubt if I’ll have time to stop by. I have a full day.”

      “I’ll give him a ring, then,” Ally said. “And I’ll call you as soon as I know what flight on Monday I’ll get in on.”

      “Right. I’ll try to be there to pick you up. But I have to go now. I have surgery in less than an hour.”

      “Right. Of course. Thanks for calling back. And I really am sorry about the weekend. I’ll talk to you later. Love you.”

      But Jon had already hung up.

      Ally sat there holding the phone in her hand, feeling sick.

      She knew she was letting him down. She knew he counted on her. Depended on her. Loved her. And she knew he didn’t understand about PJ. Probably he never would. She wished she’d been able to talk to him. It would have helped so much to have felt able to confide in him about what had happened, to admit that PJ’s refusal to sign the papers had unnerved her, that the meal he’d cooked had baffled her, that his sister had charmed her, that going to meet his parents was seriously rattling her.

      And then there was his kiss.

      Her senses still spun, her brain still whirled every time she thought about that kiss. But of course Jon was the last person she could talk to about any of that.

      Would PJ kiss her again this weekend?

      Did she want him to?

      If he did, how would she react a second time? Why was he doing it? What did he want? He didn’t love her.

      Did she still, somewhere deep inside, love him?

      And if she did, what then?

      CHAPTER SIX

      EVERYONE in the office knew about Ally’s arrival.

      PJ knew Rosie had told his sister. Hell, he’d wanted her to tell Cristina. But had she had to tell everyone?

      Not that anyone said anything. It was in the way they looked at him and in what they didn’t say that told him they all knew.

      The minute he’d opened the office door Thursday morning, the conversation had stopped. Rosie and the rest of them had been in deep discussion, and at the sight of him, the room went from full babble to total silence.

      They all turned and stared. No one said a word.

      “High-level top-secret meeting?” he asked blandly. “Or are you all speechless in admiration