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Sex. That was all it was to him, Penny thought bitterly, the most momentous, mind-blowing experience of her life, and it was nothing to him. He stood there in black shorts, tall and powerful with the arrogance of a man who had complete conviction in his mastery over the female of the species, his slate-grey eyes staring blandly down at her. Suddenly, amid the chaos of all the emotional highs and lows storming through her brain, the one overriding emotion was anger.
‘Why, you no-good, lecherous pig, you deliberately seduced me!’ She waved a hand at the horrendous fake-leopardskin-covered bed. ‘In that bed, and you dare stand there half naked and say we need to talk, as though it was a flaming board meeting.’
Solo reached out and dragged her hard against him, and plundered her mouth in a deep kiss. Penny tried to bite him, but it was a mistake, it gave him easy access to her mouth, and in moments her slender arms were wrapped around his neck, her slender body arching into his in helpless response. To her utter humiliation Solo grasped her hands from his neck and placed them firmly by her sides before stepping back.
‘No more talk of seduction, Penny, we both know it’s a lie.’ His deep voice held a cynical edge ‘Your come-on was just that. A come-on.’
Shamed by her instant surrender, she looked at him, the pull of sexual awareness impossible to deny, and something tugged at the edges of her memory. Oh, no! She silently groaned. Earlier she had smiled and said, ‘Come on,’ but he had never let her finish. Did he really think she had asked him to make love to her? In the next half-hour she had her answer.
‘Wait while I dress and we will continue our business discussion over a drink.’ Solo’s cold, mocking eyes flicked over her tense body and to where her small hands curled into fists at her sides before he added. ‘A whisky should hit the spot. It does not look as if anything else is on offer, except maybe a slap on the face,’ and he had the gall to laugh at her gasp of outrage.
‘I’m going to have a shower. I’ll meet you downstairs.’ Penny spun on her heel and marched out of the room, blinking rapidly to keep the tears of anger and humiliation at bay, and silently cursing the arrogant devil under her breath as she headed for her bedroom and locked the door behind her.
Her anger lasted until she had a shower, and stepped from the tiny en suite back into the room she had slept in all her life. She glanced at the cuddly toys arranged on top of a chest of drawers, oddly at variance with the opposite side of the room where a long desk took up all one wall, with her computer in the middle, and shelves of books above.
Suddenly the catastrophic events of the past two days hit her like a punch in the stomach. Her body aching in places she’d never known was possible, she sat down on the narrow bed and stared around. Her home was no longer hers to keep. James would never know the idyllic childhood she had enjoyed, the timeless sense of belonging. She wrapped her arms around her middle and, doubled over, she finally let the tears fall. How long she sat silently sobbing she had no idea until a knock on the door made her hiccup.
She heard the handle turn, and was glad she had locked the door. Quickly she rubbed her wet cheeks with a shaking hand. The last thing she needed was for Solo to find her red-eyed from weeping and naked but for a towel in a bedroom. She shuddered—whether in fear or remembered pleasure, she refused to acknowledge.
‘If you are not downstairs in five minutes, I’ll break the door down.’
‘Yes, all right,’ she snapped back, the cold determination of his tone telling her he meant it. Rising to her feet, she dashed into the bathroom and splashed her face and eyes with cold water. Returning to the bedroom, she withdrew clean bra and briefs from a drawer and a fine blue sweater, and slipped them on.
Solo Maffeiano was right about one thing, she admitted with brutal realism. Sex aside, she did have to talk to him. She stepped into her jeans and eased them up her legs.
Crossing to the mirrored dressing table, she snapped the fastener at her waist, and took a minute to brush her hair back behind her ears. She didn’t appear any different, she thought in surprise. Without make-up and with her hair loose, she still looked like a teenager. It was the bane of her life, and why very few people took her seriously. Well, that was about to change as far as Solo Maffeiano was concerned…
Penny pushed her feet into a pair of mules, then opened the bedroom door, a light of steely determination in her green eyes. It lasted until she walked into the kitchen and found Solo leaning against the bench, two cups and saucers arranged before him, and waiting for the coffee to percolate.
‘I thought you wanted a drink,’ Penny said, refusing to admit she had been surprised to see the sophisticated, super-rich Solo doing something so mundane as preparing coffee, or that the sight of his long body dressed again in black trousers and the cream sweater had the power to make her heart miss a beat.
Shrugging one wide shoulder, Solo turned to face her. ‘I decided against alcohol. I want you to have a clear head for our discussion.’ His grey eyes met and held hers. ‘So there
can be no mistakes, or cries of foul later,’ he informed her with a tinge of sarcasm colouring his tone.
‘As if I would,’ Penny denied hotly. How dared he imply she was less than honest?
One dark brow arched sardonically. ‘This from a girl who once spent an unforgettable few weeks with me years ago, and then declared it was a mistake.’
Unable to hold his gaze, and without a ready answer, Penny pulled out a chair and sat down at the pine table before raising her head and glancing back at him. ‘I can assure you our business dealings will be strictly legitimate.’
A cynical smile twisted his hard mouth. ‘We will see,’ he said enigmatically, and, turning his back on her, he filled two cups with coffee as she watched. ‘Black with one sugar?’
He had remembered, Penny thought, astonished. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, and when Solo placed a cup and saucer on the table, and held out the other one to her, she managed to take it with a firm hand. Then she took a deep swallow of the reviving brew, and waited.
Penny watched Solo pick up his cup and drain it in one go before placing it back on the table, and could hardly believe that not so long ago she had been naked on a bed with the man. He was so firmly in control, whereas she felt like a nervous wreck.
He swung a kitchen chair next to hers around, and straddled it, his arms resting on the bowed-back. Involuntarily Penny’s green gaze dropped to where his legs were spread over the chair, the fabric of his trousers pulled taut across his muscular thighs, and felt a swift curl of heat in her belly.
‘Right, Penny. Haversham Park, and what is to be done with it,’ Solo said crisply.
Penny lifted her head, embarrassed at where her wayward thoughts were leading, and, fighting down the blush that threatened, she said equally crisply, ‘Firstly, to satisfy my curiosity. How did you acquire a share of my home? I still cannot get my head around the fact my father sold it to you without telling me.’
For years Solo had thought Penny must have been in on the deal he’d made with her father, a deceitful little gold-digger, but now he wasn’t so sure. Her dismay at finding she had lost half her home was obviously genuine. But then she had always been a consummate liar. She had led him to believe their marriage had been a foregone conclusion, when all the time she had been waiting for her boyfriend to return. But it left him with the tricky question of what to tell her. The truth wasn’t an option; he had no intention of appearing a bigger fool over Penny than he already had.
That last Saturday four years ago, he had formally asked her father’s permission to marry her, and had told Julian obviously he had no intention of developing the land around what was his future wife’s family home. Julian was disappointed, and hinted he needed money. So as a form of compensation, or, to put it more cynically, the price of his bride, Solo had parted with a large amount of cash and Julian had insisted Solo take a half-share in the house in return.
Solo had had to leave in a hurry, and so he’d been delayed in asking Penny to marry him. When he had returned six days later, he’d been glad he had. Penny had not been around, but Solo had signed the deed with her father while waiting for her.
