‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’ Solo demanded. ‘We had an agreement and I deserve an explanation if nothing else,’ he said quietly.
Her green eyes narrowed on his. He looked serious, and maybe telling him the truth would be the quickest way to get rid of him. She could still feel the imprint of his hand on her waist and she did not trust herself to spend any length of time in his company without surrendering to his irresistible masculinity all over again.
‘Okay, this way,’ Penny said, taking charge and, turning, she led him into the little living room. ‘You wanted an explanation.’ She spun around to face him. ‘It is really quite simple. I kept to our agreement, but you did not.’ The picture of Tina in his arms, his kissing the other woman, was always there in her head to remind her, and gave her the strength to carry on. ‘I was prepared to try and make our marriage work, I gave it my best shot, but when I find my husband kissing his mistress in my own home, even I am not that much of a masochist—’
‘No, you’ve got it wrong,’ Solo cut in, reaching out for her and capturing her shoulders. ‘I’ve never been unfaithful. Tina and—’
‘No.’ Penny flattened her palms on his chest. ‘I am not going to listen to any more of your lies.’ Just hearing the woman’s name on his tongue made her feel sick with jealousy. ‘I can’t bear to live with a man who is unfaithful.’ She lifted glittering green eyes to his. ‘Is that clear enough for you?’ She tried to shrug free of his hold, but his fingers tightened on her shoulders.
‘You’re going to listen, damn it,’ Solo commanded. He was trying to be humble, but it wasn’t easy. ‘There is nothing between Tina and I, never has been.’
‘Oh, don’t give me that,’ Penny shot back, her own temper rising. ‘I saw you only the other morning on the telephone, and you were aroused simply talking to Tina.’
He stared at her as if she had gone mad; slowly, his mouth turning up in a smile, then a grin, then a chuckle, he shook his dark head. ‘Oh, Penny, have you never heard of early-morning arousal in a man; especially this man who happened to be looking at his very lovely wife half naked on the bed? It had nothing to do with Tina.’ He folded his arms around her, hauling her hard against his long body. ‘And everything to do with you, can’t you tell?’ His dark head bent and he pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck and shoulder.
Her stomach lurched, the heat of his arousal was hard against her belly, and she shoved at his chest. ‘So you say.’ She blushed scarlet. ‘But I’m not a fool, you are not getting me back with sex.’
Sol
o stiffened, his arms falling to his sides, and he stepped back, taking a deep, steadying breath. ‘No.’ His silver eyes captured hers. ‘I swore to myself if I found you I would not touch you until I had told you the truth, and the best place to start is probably with Tina.’ Penny scowled at the name she hated. ‘I promised Tina I would never tell anyone, but there can be no more secrets between us. Tina is my half-sister.’
‘Your sister!’ Penny exclaimed, her green eyes widening to their fullest extent on his handsome face.
‘Yes.’ He spoke stiltedly. ‘Apparently my mother had a child before me, a baby girl. She sold the child to an Italian-American couple, strictly illegally. Tina’s adoptive parents passed her off as their own. She only discovered the truth when she questioned them about the genetic family history when her and her husband discovered she could not have children, and they swore her to secrecy as they are pillars of the community in the small town where they live.’
Penny’s head was reeling. The conversation she had heard under the window years ago suddenly made a different sense. Broad-minded about the unconventional family, and of course Solo would always love his half-sister, just as Penny would always love her half-brother. If only she had known! She kept her stunned gaze fixed on Solo’s serious face and listened.
‘Tina and her husband came to Naples looking for her birth mother, and found me. I was twenty-five at the time and agreed to keep the secret for the sake of her parents. But I can assure you she is very happily married, and enjoys her work.’
Solo lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. ‘I let you think we were lovers to make you jealous. That’s how desperate I was, Penny.’ His expression was bleak.
Penny cleared her throat. ‘Desperate for what?’ she made herself ask, the tiniest flame of hope igniting in her heart. Tina was his sister, not his lover. How much more had she got wrong? She owed it to herself to find out and this sombre man was like no Solo she recognised. She instinctively placed a hand on his chest to steady herself, her legs were shaking, and she could feel his erratic heartbeat beneath her palm.
‘For you,’ Solo said huskily. ‘I don’t want to lose you again, Penny.’
Penny stared up at him, her heart racing. The planes and angles of his face were taut with tension, he looked so hard, and yet so incredibly desirable to her foolish heart, and she despaired at her own weakness. ‘You mean you don’t want to lose the sex,’ she prompted bitterly.
‘That, too.’ His eyes sparked with a trace of his old arrogance. ‘But that is not what I meant. I am sick of all the pretence, all the time I have wasted,’ Solo said, and she watched in growing wonder as his expression softened, his firm lips quirked at the corners in a wry smile. ‘They say confession is good for the soul, and I promised Tina if I found you I would tell you the truth. Will you listen?’
Penny nodded and allowed him to lead her to the sofa. He sat down and pulled her down beside him. She was intrigued and made no objection when he slipped his arm along the back of the sofa, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder, and turned to face her. A vulnerable, unsure Solo was not something she had ever seen before.
‘This isn’t easy for me, Penny. I am not the sort of man to reveal my feelings to another person. In fact, until I met you I didn’t think I had any. I much prefer inanimate objects to people—they are easier to deal with.’
‘That is sad,’ Penny murmured and was rewarded with a dry smile.
‘No. To me it is…was normal. But—’ his great body tensed ‘—to start at the beginning. Your friend Patricia was right about Lisa Brunton in a way. It was in her apartment some months before I met you that I saw a picture in a magazine of Veronica’s wedding to your father. I recognised her because I had met her on a friend’s yacht—she was his girlfriend. But I also saw you.
‘Being a chauvinistic Neanderthal, or whatever you want to call it, I was intrigued by the difference. You looked so beautiful and innocent. You were my fantasy girl, everything a man could want in a perfect wife.’
A picture in a magazine! Penny was stunned, but realised sadly that was so like Solo—the inanimate object!
‘Six months later when I bumped into your father and Veronica, I had no interest in doing business with them, but I wanted to meet you. When I walked into your home and saw you standing with baby James in your arms, I decided then and there to marry you. In my arrogance the first time I kissed you I knew I could make you want me, and buying a piece of land off your father was a small price to pay for a wife.’
Penny glanced at him. ‘A bit medieval,’ she opined, and he had the grace to look embarrassed.
‘I asked your father’s permission to marry you the last Saturday before we parted, and quite happily gave him more money as I thought he was going to be my father-in-law. I had to leave in a hurry before I could ask you, as you know.’ He slanted her a wry glance. ‘Six days later when I returned I signed the deed for half the house your father insisted on giving me while I waited for you to return home.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Penny sighed. ‘I was so wrong. I came back that day after listening to Patricia’s gossip,’ she said honestly. ‘But I was still determined to believe in you, Solo.’ Penny did some confessing of her own. ‘But I heard you talking to Tina from beneath the window. I heard you say you wanted a malleable wife, and to refurbish the house, and finally you loved her. I ran straight back to the vicarage and let Simon get me out of the mess I was in.’