Wife: Bought and Paid For

‘In that case we must build a swimming pool here, maybe in the basement, so you and I can practise swimming together—’

It was outright bribery. ‘Hold on—’ Penny cut in, but was stopped by James.

‘Can we really have a pool?’ James turned glowing eyes up at his sister, and she hadn’t the heart to say no.

It was as inevitable as night follows day, Penny thought ruefully a few hours later, sharing a pot of tea in the kitchen with Brownie. James was completely captivated by Solo, and surprisingly Solo was extremely good with the little boy.

He had carefully explained he and Penny were married, husband and wife, as James’s parents had been. James had pondered for a while and then decided it was okay. Which might have had something to do with discovering Solo had, not only a great car, but a boat and plane as well. Penny glanced out of the window, and at the moment Solo was showing James the engine of his car.

‘Alone at last,’ Solo said as he walked into the bedroom, just as Penny exited the bathroom wearing a blue towelling robe and nothing else. James had soaked her as she had given him his bath and put him to bed, with Solo looking on. She had left Solo reading James a bedtime story, and had hoped to be washed and changed before he had finished, but luck was not on her side.

‘It is almost dinner time,’ she said jerkily.

Solo, in a few lithe strides, crossed the room and wrapped a hand around the back of her neck. ‘I am sure Brownie will not mind waiting. James is asleep.’ His voice dropped to a sibilant softness. ‘And you and I are going to have a talk, a long talk about what your so-called friend Patricia told you four years ago.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Penny looked straight at his broad chest, unable to meet his shrewd gaze; she had been dreading this moment all day. Solo was no fool, he must have guessed immediately after Patricia’s unthinking outburst this morning there was more to Penny’s rejection of him years ago than she had admitted at the time.

‘You’re a hopeless liar,’ Solo taunted. ‘Your pulse is racing.’ He drew her closer, and her nostrils flared slightly at the familiar male scent of him. ‘You’re as nervous as a mouse with a cat on its tail, and you know you really want to tell me.’

‘I am not,’ she snapped back, her green eyes flashing up to his. She did not appreciate being likened to a mouse. ‘And I’ve forgotten anyway.’ He held her gaze for a tense moment, and, although his expression did not alter, she sensed a hidden threat.

‘Okay,’ Solo said lightly. ‘Then I’ll ask your friend myself tomorrow.’ She was lying and he had a damn good idea why. She had listened to the poisonous Patricia’s gossip and stuck with young Simon. ‘She’s staying at the vicarage, I believe.’ And he watched with savage satisfaction as colour flooded her skin.

‘No… Yes. Oh…I don’t want you upsetting my friends; I have to live here,’ she said quickly.

There was a long moment of silence. ‘Not necessarily,’ Solo finally said coolly, and he allowed his hand to slip around the front of her throat and graze gently ove

r the swell of her breast. ‘We could live in Italy, James as well, of course.’ His slate-grey eyes narrowed on her beautiful face, and he waited for her response, tension riding him.

Penny jerked back out of his reach, heat swirling within her, prickling through her breasts until the peaks pushed achingly against the cotton of her robe. Flustered and completely missing his point, she muttered, ‘Then you get this house for your damn hotel. You must be joking.’

Solo’s shoulders squared, his hard face an expressionless mask. Penny would not move an inch for him, never mind a country. Her friend must have done a real hatchet job on him, and he hated gossips almost as much as he hated liars. ‘I never intended turning this house into a hotel. Architecturally it is a perfect gem, and I appreciate perfection. It would be a desecration to alter it. So if you really believed I wanted it for a hotel, then you’re a fool.’

Struggling for composure, she looked at him, resentment fizzing inside her. ‘No, otherwise you would have bought me out when I offered,’ she had to concede. But he was so damn arrogant it would do him no harm to hear some home truths. Why not tell him? Deflate his enormous ego a notch or two.

‘But I did believe once you wanted me so that you could get my house. Four years ago when I mentioned your name to Patricia as my boyfriend, she suggested I make sure you were not going out with me simply to get your hands on my home. You see, she recognised your name and told me all about you. A confirmed womaniser.’ Penny was getting into her stride. ‘You romanced a friend of hers, Lisa, for ages, then dumped her, by my reckoning a week after you met me.’ She saw Solo’s face darken like thunder but he made no attempt to deny her assumption—on the contrary.

‘Lisa knew the score—it was mutually beneficial when I was in New York, nothing more, and it was over the day I met you.’

‘For whom, I wonder?’ Penny scorned. ‘You broke the woman’s heart. Jewellery was mentioned as a get-lost gift. Apparently that’s a habit of yours.’ She didn’t see the angry narrowing of his eyes; she was on a roll.

‘Never mind the fact you already had a long-time married mistress in Tina Jenson, who was the purchaser of the jewellery, as you obviously haven’t got time between women to do it yourself,’ Penny drawled sarcastically. ‘If I remember correctly, Patricia’s final comment was you were far too old for me.’ Only then did she lift her eyes to his, and what she saw there made her take a step back.

‘And you believed her?’ He clasped her wrists, his fingers like manacles around them. ‘Dio, you had some opinion of me.’ Fury did not begin to describe the flash of white fire in his eyes, but as quickly it vanished, his features becoming an iron mask.

‘Are you saying she lied,’ Penny prompted.

‘Not exactly, but I’m a lot older than you. What did you expect—a blow-by-blow account of every woman I had before I met you?’

‘No, I didn’t, I don’t,’ she blurted, hating him for making her appear a naive young fool. ‘I doubt if you could even remember them all.’

‘Maybe not.’ A cold, cynical smile curled his firm lips and he tightened his grasp on her wrists. ‘But I do remember four years ago Patricia’s brother was your so-called boyfriend. Did it never occur to you she might have had an ulterior motive in gossiping about me, to protect her brother’s interest?’

‘No.’ She grimaced and tried to tug her hands free. ‘Because he was never my boyfriend. He was just a convenient excuse at the time when I discovered what a rat you were, and you’re hurting me.’

Solo saw red. His whole life he had been alone and fought for what he wanted. But the one brief moment he had allowed himself to consider a wife and family and reach out to Penny, idle gossip had destroyed it. Penny hadn’t trusted him, and Simon had been nothing more than a decoy.

‘Hurting,’ Solo snarled. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word. I would like to break your elegant neck.’ Instead he pushed her away from him. ‘I should have guessed.’ He shook his dark head, his narrowed gaze raking over her contemptuously. ‘No man could go out with you for years and not take you to bed; you’re sex on legs.’