Wife: Bought and Paid For

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.’