Wife: Bought and Paid For

by Jacqueline Baird

  Elation flooded Penny’s mind, and her mouth opened eagerly beneath his. His tongue flicked out to explore the moist, dark cavern of her mouth and hungrily she responded. She lifted her arms around his neck, her fingers streaked through his black curly hair, urgently clasping his skull as the kiss went on and on.

  Finally they drew apart, needing to breathe. Solo, his silver eyes glittering with an intensity that touched Penny’s heart, said, ‘And if you will forgive me and come back to me, I swear I’ll make you love me or spend the rest of my life trying.’ A faint dark colour burnished his high cheekbones.

  Penny could feel the tension in his body, and, although passion glazed her huge green eyes, she saw and recognised the vulnerability in Solo’s face. He had told her he loved her, he trusted her, but he still wasn’t sure of her.

  ‘You won’t have to try. I love you,’ she admitted with a beautiful smile. Her heart cried for this perfect man, so alone in the world he had never known love. Her husband was a magnificent male animal, and yet he was afraid to reveal his feelings. ‘I have loved you since the first moment I saw you,’ she declared, and it was there for him to see in the jade eyes blazing into his. ‘You have always had my heart, and I’ll never doubt you again or leave you again.’

  ‘I don’t deserve you,’ Solo husked, his silver eyes, suspiciously moist, fused with Penny’s, and then he kissed her almost reverently.

  A long moment later, curling her fingers in his silky black hair, Penny sighed happily. ‘That red dress has a lot to answer for,’ she quipped. ‘I wish I had kept it, because it got you to admit you love me, and I seem to remember you came to my house the day after I wore it and seduced me.’

  Solo slanted her a sardonic look. ‘Not really—as I remember you held out your hand and said, “Come on”.’

  ‘You know I didn’t mean it the way you took it,’ Penny shot back, giving a quick tug on his silky curls. Her arrogant husband was back. It was too much to expect for Solo to stay humble for long, and if she was honest she preferred him his usual dynamic self.

  ‘Ow. Woman, that hurt,’ Solo said, his eyes glinting devilishly down into hers. ‘But maybe you’re right. By then I was so desperate to have you that nothing could have stopped me. Almost four years without a woman is hell on the old libido,’ Solo husked, and lowered his head, stealing her mouth again in a kiss like no other they had shared before, a kiss of love and commitment freely given and a promise for the future.

  ‘I…you…Solo…really?’ She was filled with awe. ‘You didn’t…’

  ‘Believe it.’ He pressed her back against the sofa. ‘I was waiting for you, no one else would do.’ His mouth captured hers again as one hand slipped under the lapel of her robe, cupping her breast.

  Immediately Penny was aching for him, but, breaking the kiss, she pulled his hand from her breast and, holding it in her own, she looked into his eyes. There was something more she needed to know. ‘Then why after we made love the first time were you so cold, and demanded we marry on a temporary basis?’

  ‘Because I dare not face another rejection.’ The look he gave her was full of self-mockery and, lifting her hand to his mouth, he kissed the wedding band on her finger. ‘I figured once I got you wearing my ring and in my bed, time was on my side. I thought I had succeeded on our honeymoon, but when we got back to England and I suggested we could travel together and you turned me down flat…’ He let go of her hand and curved his own around the back of her neck, holding her face up to his, and looking deep into her green eyes. ‘It felt like another rejection, Penny, and I couldn’t take any more. I didn’t know whether to love you or hate you, all I knew was that you loved that old house a hell of a lot more than me.’

  She saw the flash of anguish in his eyes that he could not disguise, and her heart wept for him. This proud, wonderful man, so scared by his childhood, he didn’t believe anyone could love him, she realised. ‘So that was why you were in a temper. I wondered but I was afraid to ask, because I thought you were already tired of me.’ Penny traced the outline of his lips with a loving finger, determined to let him know it was all right to be afraid by revealing her own doubts. Love was a scary emotion, but she had to show him how much she adored him. ‘I loved our honeymoon and it was there on the tiny beach I realised I still loved you, Solo. I’d always loved you, and I did not want our marriage to ever end, still don’t,’ Penny admitted huskily.

  Solo looked at her with brilliant eyes. ‘You and I both,’ he declared in a voice that was not quite steady. ‘The last day at the cabin as we were leaving, you said you wanted to return one day. I looked at you, and wiped a tear from your cheek and said no problem, I would drive you across from England any time you wanted. But in my head I thought I would drive you to the ends of the earth if you asked. I was struck dumb. That was the moment, when I finally admitted to myself I loved you, and I was scared.’

  Penny closed her arms around his neck and smiled up at him, her eyes shining with love and something else. ‘I’m so happy I wasn’t just bought and paid for.’

  ‘Never.’ Solo lowered his dark head, murmuring huskily, ‘I love you as you love me.’ He covered her face and throat with tiny kisses. ‘And I’m never letting you go again,’ he declared adamantly, pulling her onto his lap and kissing her thoroughly.

  ‘I’m afraid you will have to,’ Penny suddenly cried, and slid off his lap and dashed for the hall cloakroom.

  ‘Penny, please.’ Solo followed her. She couldn’t leave him now; she couldn’t change her mind. For a second he froze. She was leaning over the toilet bowl being violently sick. Oh, Dio! What had he done to her now? ‘Penny, cara.’ He leant over her, placing a supporting hand around her head and another around her waist. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Penny straightened up, washed her mouth out at the vanity basin, and sank back against the hard length of his body. ‘I’m fine now for the rest of the day—it only lasts for a couple of minutes.’ She felt his arms wrap around her stomach, and smiled at his image in the mirror in front of her. Her stony-faced husband looked sicker than she felt, and she smiled. ‘I’m pregnant, we are pregnant.’ Suddenly she was lifted up in his arms and carried back to the living room.

  ‘Oh, my God, you better lie down.’ Solo deposited her on the sofa and knelt on the floor. ‘You’re sure?’ His silver eyes glistened ‘When, how?’

  A mischievous smile parted her full lips and, rising up, she pulled Solo up onto the sofa beside her. No longer shy but all sensuous woman, with a slender hand she traced the outline of firm jaw, then trailed one finger down his strong throat and lower to scrape over a cotton-covered, hard male nipple, and she felt his body shudder.

  ‘You know very well how, Solo.’ A tiny grin flirted around the edge of her mouth. ‘As for the when, probably the first time we made love.’

  Powerful hands burrowed under the towelling robe and pulled her close so her naked breast brushed his broad chest. Gleaming silver eyes burnt into hers. ‘You have made me the happiest man alive, and the randiest right at this moment.’ Solo groaned. His dark head dipped, and his mouth claimed hers as his hand cupped one firm breast.

  ‘Solo, you’re here! Are you coming to the zoo?’ James asked.

  A wave of frustration went through him. Solo quickly adjusted Penny’s robe, and crossed his legs. He looked balefully at the little boy standing in the doorway. Then it hit him. Very soon he might have a son of his own. ‘James.’ He grinned broadly. ‘Sorry, but I can’t come to the zoo with you today.’ Never one to miss a chance, as Jane walked in behind the boy he continued smoothly, ‘Penny isn’t feeling too well. So I am going to stay and look after her, while you and Jane go to the zoo.’

  ‘Nice try, Solo,’ Jane said with a glance at her friend’s and her husband’s flushed faces, and, guessing exactly what they had been doing, she was glad. ‘But Penny is driving.’ She grinned.

  ‘No problem,’ Solo drawled. ‘I’ll get the firm’s limousine to take you both—it will be much safer that way,
and you will have a man to help you around.’ His grey eyes gleamed wickedly at Jane. ‘The female staff are of the opinion the chauffeur is rather handsome and he’s single, Jane, but make sure you bring him back. I’m taking Penny and James home tonight.’

  Jane started to laugh. ‘I can see why Penny loves you—you’re a devil.’

  ‘Alone at last,’ Solo husked, walking towards Penny.

  Breakfast over, Jane and James had left in the limousine for the zoo.

  Penny, showered and dressed in a cotton print dress, was leaning against the kitchen sink having just finished washing the dishes.

  ‘I thought they were never going to leave. Let’s go upstairs.’ Penny agreed.

  ‘You really are devious.’ Penny gasped as Solo slipped her dress down over her hips. ‘I heard you tell the chauffeur not to come back until after six, and you’d pay him double.’ She grinned up at him, her eyes shining with love and something more.

  Solo laughed and pulled her into his arms. He had already stripped off, and his perfectly honed body gleamed golden in the daylight, his silver eyes sparked into hers. ‘So I have a lot of time to make up for.’

  ‘You’re incorrigible.’ Penny planted a kiss on his sensuous mouth, and nibbled on his bottom lip as his hands shaped her waist and thighs and slowly moved back up to remove her bra and cup her full breasts, his thumbs deliberately teasing the rigid, dusky peaks. Penny closed her eyes, breathing deeply as wave after wave of pleasure surged from her breasts to her thighs. Solo’s husky-voiced, ‘If I don’t have you soon I’ll die,’ had her eyes flying open just as they tumbled back on the bed.

  Solo looked into her eyes. He was breathing fast, his own eyes gleaming. ‘I love you, Penny,’ he said in a deep voice raw with feeling, then his mouth was on hers, hot, hard and insistent.

  Penny was swept along on a great tidal wave of desire. They made love with a breathtaking, compelling, frantic urgency, an uninhibited passion that only two people who truly loved could claim. They possessed each other. As morning turned to afternoon the only sounds in the room were the murmured endearments, heavy breathing, the occasional laughter and the hoarse cries of completion.

  Finally they clung together, sated and exhausted for the moment. Penny sighed. ‘You really don’t mind that I am pregnant?’

  Solo leaned over her, tipped up her chin with a finger and kissed her, and it was some time later before he answered her question. He said unsteadily, ‘I’m thrilled.’

  ‘But how…how could it happen? How could they not know?’ Solo demanded, looking tense and anxiously down into Penny’s sparkling green eyes. ‘The doctor, I mean… The hospital… I paid for the best…’

  Propped up in the bed in the master bedroom of their Italian home, Penny bit her lip to stop from laughing. Ever since she had given birth suddenly twenty-four hours ago and three weeks early in this very bed, Solo had hardly left her except to pace to the two cribs and stare. His legendary cool control had completely deserted him.

  ‘I seem to remember…’ she lifted a slender hand and ran it teasingly up his long thigh ‘…it had something to do with a “come on” and you.’

  ‘You know what I mean…’ Solo began, and paused, catching her hand on his thigh and sinking down to sit on the bed, his handsome features relaxing in a wry, if tired smile. ‘But twins, a boy and a girl, my darling, Paulo and Tina,’ he husked in wonder.

  He had flatly refused to call the boy Solo, but had agreed to Paulo. In fact he had felt like Saul on the road to Damascus, redeemed by the love of Penny over the past seven months. She was his life. Solo rarely travelled on business any more; he delegated. They split their time between England and Italy. James was like a son to him, and now this…

  ‘The best room was booked, I had it all arranged.’ He still had trouble getting his head around it. The shock of seeing Penny in pain, and his housekeeper deliver the baby boy, had hurt and then awed him, his heart flooding with love for the tiny infant. But ten minutes later when the girl had appeared he had fainted. That the doctor had eventually arrived and declared everything was fine had done nothing to dispel his shock.

  He lifted Penny’s hand to his mouth and pressed kisses to her palm, and then raised his head and gave her a serious look. ‘That’s it; we are never doing this again,’ he commanded forcibly. ‘I can’t bear to see you in pain.’

  Penny felt the ripples of excitement in her palm, and grinned. ‘No more sex, then.’ She chuckled at the sudden flash of panic in his silver eyes.

  ‘Witch.’ His lips curved in a sensuous smile. ‘You know what I mean.’ Leaning forward, he captured her mouth in a deep, devouring kiss.

  ‘Yes, all your money and planning gone to pot,’ she teased when she had got her breath back. She was so happy she could burst. ‘And I don’t know what you are complaining about,’ she added with a beaming smile, looking up into his incredible silver eyes. ‘After all, you got the deal of the day. Two for the price of one!’

  ‘I got the deal of a lifetime and beyond when I got you, Penny.’ Solo blinked the moisture from his eyes, and gathered her into his arms. ‘You have given me the greatest gift in our two perfect babies. I love you. You’re my love, my wife, my life.’

  With a heart brimming over with love and happiness, Penny stared at him, too full to speak, but she didn’t need to. Glittering silver meshed with misty green and the look they exchanged said it all…

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8319-4

  WIFE: BOUGHT AND PAID FOR

  First North American Publication 2002.

  Copyright © 2002 by Jacqueline Baird.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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