He did not need reminding—with deft hands he stripped her naked and laid her in the centre of the wide bed. ‘Don’t move,’ he said in a deep, firm voice, and, standing up, he yanked off his shirt. ‘I want to look at you.’ He quickly stripped off the rest of his clothes, his heated gaze raking over her body the whole time.
Penny was transfixed; he was more beautiful, more magnificently male every time she saw him. Restlessly she moved her legs, her senses dizzy with desire.
‘No.’ He grasped her ankles and sat down on the side of the bed, his body angled towards her, and with tantalising slowness he pulled her closer. His silver eyes lingered over every inch of her, the lush, firm breasts, and flat stomach, until his strong hands curved the back of her thighs.
She sucked in a breath, her stomach clenching as he eased her leg over his lap and moved the other around his back, exposing her in every way. His heated gaze devoured her as his thumbs tracked her inner thigh and opened the velvet-soft flesh, brushing the throbbing centre of femininity. She groaned and his dark head swooped to lick and nip across the taut peaks of her breasts.
One hand reached for his shoulder and the other the tempting length of him against her thigh. ‘No, not yet.’ He slurred the words against her skin as he lavished kisses down over her stomach.
She was on fire, wild with excitement and yet shocked by the blatant eroticism of her position. She wanted to scream and beg him to stop, but her molten, shuddering body made a liar of her. Her back arched violently from the bed. Solo twisted and, grasping her ankles, placed them on his shoulders as he surged inside her already climaxing body. Grabbing her hips, he thrust deep and hard until he finally exploded, spilling his hot seed inside her.
They collapsed flat on the bed, satiated, and Solo murmured, ‘Dio! I needed that,’ and, rolling onto his back, went out like a light.
Penny couldn’t sleep. Her mind would not let her. He had forgotten the protection again, she realised, and sighed softly—not that it mattered any more… But Solo did not know that, and for a man as coolly controlled as Solo it was surprising. She had meant to tell him she was pregnant as soon as he returned—a visit to her GP yesterday had confirmed it—but one kiss from his beautiful lips and, as usual, sensation took over from sense.
Turning on one side, she gazed down at his sleeping form. He was flat on his back, one arm flung across the other side of the bed, the other above his head. Jet lag, probably. But even worn out he looked incredibly sexy. His hair rumpled, his thick black eyelashes resting on his bronzed cheeks, his sensuous mouth parted ever so slightly in sleep. The tiredness she had noticed earlier had gone, his striking features beautiful and younger somehow in repose.
Her gaze dropped lower, to his great nude body, and she groaned as her gaze moved slowly lower to where even at rest his magnificent sex tempted her touch. She swallowed hard, the memory of the incredible pleasure his body could bring her heating her blood all over again.
She lifted her hand towards his thigh and, with a stifled groan of shame, she flopped back down on the bed, and wriggled back into her nightdress, as if that would stop her wayward thoughts, and closed her eyes tight shut. When had she become such a sex addict she would actually contemplate waking a sleeping man?
Stop it, she ordered her erotic thoughts. Tomorrow she would tell Solo she was pregnant, she decided firmly. Their marriage might have been for all the wrong reasons, but that did not mean they could not make it a success.
Penny loved Solo, and he wanted her, he had come back early, and admitted as much, which was a good start, she told herself. In time he might love her, and in the meantime they would both love their baby. Solo would make a great father; one only had to watch him with James to see that. With her decision made, Penny fell into an exhausted sleep.
The distant ringing of a telephone echoed in Penny’s head. She murmured and her eyelids flickered. She heard voices and slowly opened her eyes.
Her sleep-hazed glance slid across to the other side of the bed. It was empty and Solo was standing naked a foot away with a mobile phone in his hand.
For a moment she wallowed in the luxury of studying his tanned back and firm buttocks caught in the rays of the morning sun shining through the window. She stretched languorously and felt a tiny curl of heat ignite in her belly. Yes, today she would tell him they were going to be parents, and that she loved him…
Then she heard his voice. ‘Yes, Tina, I know we only returned yesterday, but I want to go to Mexico. Under the circumstances I think it is necessary.’
Penny closed her eyes, ridiculously hoping to shut out the sound. Solo was talking to Tina and all of Penny’s new-found determination of the night before to try and make her marriage work took a nosedive; jealousy, fierce and primitive, made the bile rise in her throat.
‘Arrange the flight and get down here, as soon as possible. I’ll be waiting for you. Ciao, cara.’
Penny squeezed back the sting of tears, the heat in her belly turning to nausea. Her eyes flew open. She knew enough Italian to know he had the gall to call Tina darling in front of her, and anger hot and swift flooded through her; she looked at him, her eyes on a level with his thighs.
The fiend was physically aroused! With a gasp of outrage she shot off the other side of the bed and dashed for the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She fell to her knees in front of the toilet bowl and was quietly, wretchedly sick. The strap of her nightgown cut into the flesh of her arm, and, shoving it back on her shoulder, she raised her head.
The door handle was turning. ‘Penny, cara,’ Solo drawled. He had the nerve to call her darling as well—the lying swine!
‘Why have you locked the door? You can’t still be shy.’ She heard the amusement in his tone, and felt sick again. ‘I need to talk to you. I have to leave soon.’
Rising to her feet, she crossed to the vanity basin and washed her mouth out before answering. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ There was no way she was telling him she was pregnant now and, slipping on a towelling robe, she walked back into the bedroom.
He was still naked, but there was a subtle difference that didn’t surprise her in the least. She looked up at him with hard green eyes. ‘You wanted to say something.’
Solo’s silver eyes roamed over Penny. She looked so small and sexy with her magnificent blonde hair falling around her shoulders, her slender body swamped in his robe. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and take her back to bed. But he had to leave soon. ‘Yes, I have to go to Mexico on business. Some property I own needs checking. I’d ask you to go with me but I don’t think you would enjoy the flight,’ he teased.
Penny smiled back at him, a smile that never reached her gorgeous eyes. ‘You’ve got that right. Have a nice trip. I have some work to do,’ and she shoved past him and out of the room.
Solo stood frozen to the spot for a second, then, grabbing a towel from the bathroom, he dashed after her, wrapping the towel around his hips as he went. He caught her just before she reached her old bedroom, grasping her by the wrist and spinning her around to face him. ‘Now, what the hell was that about?’ he demanded angrily. ‘Have a nice trip—I thought after last night—’
‘You thought what?’ Penny cut in. ‘That you would indulge your enormous sexual appetite quickly before you left.’ Or before Tina arrived, was what she should have said, but the thought angered her too much. ‘Well, forget it, buster.’
‘I am not going to stand here and argue with you in the hall,’ Solo declared icily, straightening to his full commanding height, glacial grey eyes pinned to her flushed and furious face. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you this morning.’
‘Not you, that’s for sure,’ Penny snapped back, and before Solo could respond James came running out of his room.
‘Is it time for breakie?’
Breakfast was a tense affair; only the childish chatter of James disguised the silence between the two adults. Then Solo disappeared into the study, and Penny thought things could not get much
worse, but they did.
Feeling like death, dressed in jeans and an old blouse and with James at her heels, Penny answered the front door mid-morning to find Tina Jenson smiling down at her.
‘Hi, Penny. Solo is expecting me.’
Elegant in a smart grey suit, the skirt ending inches above her knees and revealing her long legs to the best advantage, she walked past Penny.
‘Hi,’ Penny mouthed automatically in shock and, closing the door, turned to see Solo exit the study, smile at Tina and take the other woman in his arms and plant a kiss on her lips.
Penny stood frozen, her eyes burning in their sockets. She was horribly conscious of her own inadequacy in comparison to the stunning Tina. Her stomach cramped with nausea, which she was pretty sure had nothing to do with her pregnancy.
‘Solo’s kissing the lady,’ James piped up. ‘She his wife as well, Penny?’
Out of the mouths of babes, Penny thought bitterly, glancing down at her brother, and murmuring under her breath, ‘she is somebody’s wife.’
‘Penny.’ Her name was a command. Penny jerked her head up, her startled gaze clashing with Solo’s. ‘I have to leave in an hour, and Tina and I have a lot to get through, so could you ask Brownie to serve coffee for two in the study?’
Bitterness turned to fury. Who the hell did he think he was talking to, the patronising pig? Grabbing James’s hand, she opened the door. ‘Sorry, darling, we are on our way to playschool and already late,’ she lied. ‘Have a good trip.’
Never in her life had she felt more hurt and humiliated, and, legs trembling, she almost dragged James outside. It was a beautiful June day, but it could have been raining cats and dogs for all Penny cared. She had never dreamt Solo could be so cruel as to bring Tina to her home, and kiss the woman in full view of her and James.
‘Come on, James,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘You and I are going for a walk.’
‘Nice car.’ James pointed to the blue sports car parked behind Solo’s BMW.
Penny didn’t have a violent bone in her body, but in an action totally out of character she kicked the car as she led James past it and wished it were Tina’s bum or, better still, Solo’s head…
Carrying a very tired James in her arms, Penny trudged back into the house five hours later.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ Brownie demanded. ‘Poor Solo had to leave without being able to say goodbye. As it was he changed the time-slot for the take-off of his plane twice, but he could not wait any longer.’
Penny put James down on a chair, and then glanced across the kitchen at Brownie. ‘There is nothing poor about Solo,’ she said. ‘And we had lunch at the vicarage, but I could do with a coffee.’
‘Sit down and I’ll see to it, you look all in.’ The concern in Brownie’s eyes made Penny want to cry. ‘Are you sure you are all right? I could put off going on holiday tomorrow, and wait until Solo returns if you need me.’
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ Penny said quickly. Religiously every year Brownie and her friend spent the last two weeks in June on holiday in the Lake District and Penny had no wish to spoil Brownie’s pleasure. ‘Don’t worry, just make sure you’re packed, and I’ll make sure I get the pair of you to the railway station tomorrow to catch your train.’
Penny went up to bed that night, and, lying in the huge bed that not twenty-four hours ago she had shared with Solo, she did cry. The tears trickled down her cheeks. She buried her face in the pillow, but the faint scent of Solo lingered on the fabric and she sobbed all the more. She felt as if her heart would break. She missed him with every breath she took, and she despised herself for loving him, still wanting him, when he had made it plain he did not feel the same.
A long time later, all cried out and tossing and turning in the huge bed, going over every nuance of her relationship with her arrogant husband, she finally realised Solo didn’t feel at all.
He was a self-declared loner. From an early age his emotions had been frozen in stone. He had never had anyone, and he didn’t need anyone. He was a law unto himself. Wealth and power and striking good looks had enabled him to go through life taking his pick of anything, be it a work of art or a woman, and he cared no more for one than the other.
With that sobering realisation, she also conceded sadly he was not capable of love. Tina might be the nearest he ever got to the emotion, but even that was false. Because a man of his wealth could have arranged for Tina to be divorced and married her years ago if he had really wanted to. Penny could almost feel sorry for Tina—she had worked for him for years and been a convenient body in his bed. Probably still was.
So what did that say about her marriage? Solo had never pretended their marriage was to be a long-term arrangement, and Penny expected it to be over sooner rather than later. Tina was in Central America with him now…
Penny loved Solo, but, knowing him as she did, she realised once he knew she was pregnant he would never let her go. Given his upbringing, he would move heaven and earth to make sure any child of his had what Solo saw as the perfect family: two parents and the best money could buy. It would never enter his head that love was the most essential ingredient, because he had never known it, never felt it, and, as she recalled when he’d demanded she marry him, had freely admitted he did not believe love existed.
Could she stand being married to a man, bearing his child, living with him, loving him, and yet knowing he would never love her? Wondering if he was being unfaithful every moment they were apart…for ever.
No, Penny decided as the early rays of the morning sun slanted across the bedroom. Her stomach rolled and she lay a protective hand across her abdomen. She loved her unborn child and she had more than enough love for two.
Penny washed her mouth out—she had been sick—and looked in the mirror. God, she looked awful, her face was white as a sheet, and she wished she could turn the clock back, and go back to living her old life, the way it had been before Solo had forced her into this impossible position. With her books and only James to take care of, life had been so peaceful.
Maybe she could… The thought that had been festering in her mind all night took root. She was a strong-minded woman, with a growing career—it was time she claimed back her independence.
Penny pulled on a bathrobe and went downstairs. Glancing around the huge hall, she realised she didn’t need this house, she didn’t need a fortune. In fact, until Solo had made his outrageous proposal she’d been quite resigned to leaving Haversham Park. She was perfectly capable of looking after herself, her brother and her baby.
She must not think of her husband, soon to be her ex. She had made her mind up—she would divorce him for adultery, and to hell with agreements, or prenuptials. No more the honourable Penelope, she was going to join the modern, money-grabbing world with a vengeance, she told herself as she set about preparing breakfast for James and Brownie.
It was exactly the right time. As of today Brownie was on holiday. A quick call to Jane in London, and she had no doubt her friend would let her and James stay until she could find somewhere more permanent. As for her arrogant husband, if he tried to get in touch he would find the house empty. He could sweat it out in Mexico with his mistress as long as he liked, as far as Penny was concerned. The longer, the better—it would give her more time to settle into a new life. Solo was a ruthless bastard and she had to stop imagining she loved him.
CHAPTER NINE
SOLO slammed the receiver down, and glanced across the hotel room to where Tina sat sprawled in an armchair. ‘Where the hell can she be?’ He ran a hand through his hair, and paced the room. ‘I’ve been calling all day every day since I arrived. I rang at night, knowing it was early morning in England, and sure I’d catch Penny before breakfast, or Brownie, even James—someone should have answered. I’ve called or had someone call for me every hour since, and nothing.’
‘You have only been away three days. Why the panic?’ Tina asked, watching Solo stride back and forward the length of the sitting
room of his hotel suite. ‘It’s not like you to get ruffled over a lady, even if she is your wife,’ Tina couldn’t resist teasing him. Solo, her usually coolly controlled, stony-faced boss, now looked anything but. He was definitely cracking up and it had nothing to do with work.
For three days he had dealt with the result of a fire in a luxury block of apartments he owned. Luckily no one had been hurt, but the occupants had been evacuated. But Tina guessed his stress had everything to do with his very beautiful young wife, Penny.
‘You don’t understand.’ Solo walked to the bar and poured a shot of whisky into a crystal glass, and, lifting it to his mouth, he downed it in one gulp, then threw himself down on the sofa. ‘You saw how Penny and I parted—she would not even get us a cup of coffee,’ he said flatly.
‘She was taking her brother to school,’ Tina prompted. She did not know Penny well, but she did know Solo had been a lot more hurt than he’d pretended when the girl had finished with him years ago. When she had seen Penny again in Solo’s office a few weeks ago, she had been surprised and worried Penny might hurt Solo all over again. It seemed she’d been right.
‘No. She didn’t have to take James to school, that was just an excuse. Penny was mad at you and me,’ Solo opined bluntly. ‘Because I let her think we were having an affair. Why else would I kiss you on the lips when you arrived?’
‘You what?’ Tina jerked up in the chair. ‘My husband would have something to say about that, never mind it would be incest. What on earth possessed you to let your wife think such a thing? Do you want to lose the girl?’
‘No…I don’t know.’ Solo rubbed a weary hand across his eyes. ‘Pride, jealousy, anger, or just plain stupidity, I guess.’ He looked across at Tina. ‘You might as well know it all. We didn’t break up four years ago because Penny had another man in her life, but because a friend of hers that lived in New York had filled her head with gossip about me, and scared her off. Including the rumour you were my mistress.’
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