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‘Her arthritis is bothering her so I offered to help.’
‘The trouble is good help is so hard to find when you live in a backwater like this,’ Veronica began as Julian dealt with the wine.
Thirty miles or so outside Cambridge, the village was small, but it was also only about ninety minutes’ drive into London, so hardly the back of beyond, Penny thought dryly as she put the plates on the table and took a seat next to Tina. Only then did Solo Maffeiano sit down directly facing her.
‘I can imagine,’ Tina Jenson drawled in agreement, while Penny kept her head down and tried to eat. ‘But if Solo does decide to invest in the place I’m sure he will have no trouble finding staff. He never does,’ Tina concluded with a smile at her boss.
Penny’s head shot up at the words, and with a horrified glance at the man opposite, ‘But the house is not for sale,’ she blurted.
Solo leaned back in his chair, his silver gaze sweeping slowly over the delicate beauty of her features. He caught the tightening of her lush mouth, the tension she could not quite hide, before he captured her gaze with his own.
‘Isn’t that up to your father to decide?’ he asked smoothly. ‘After all, you’re a very attractive young woman, some man is bound to snap you up before long.’ One ebony brow arched enquiringly. ‘Or are you already committed to some lucky man?’
Penelope heard her father’s soft chuckle, and felt herself the object of all eyes around the table, and colour surged in her cheeks. ‘No,’ she responded quietly, ‘to both your questions,’ she concluded with a brief flare of resentment she could not quite disguise. Solo was deliberately needling her. She might be young, but she could recognise a chauvinistic statement when she heard one.
‘Penelope is right,’ Veronica piped up, supposedly in support of Penny, but then she went on to describe how Penelope stood to inherit the house. As Julian’s wife Veronica only had the right to live in it, never own it, as did baby James.
Incredibly hurt by Veronica’s implication that Penny was likely to throw her stepmother and brother out, she leapt to her feet, and whipped around the table collecting the plates. It was some consolation to hear her father say firmly, ‘That is not quite true Veronica, I could sell if I wanted to, but I don’t. Havershams have lived here for three hundred years, and always will as far as I’m concerned. And I have not the least doubt Penelope would share everything with her family. We Havershams always do.’
Penelope slanted her father a grateful smile for sticking up for her, and shot off to the kitchen without another word.
For the rest of the meal she kept quiet and listened. But keeping her eyes from straying to the handsome man opposite was not such an easy feat. She couldn’t help but look at him. Solo Maffeiano’s voice was deep and melodious, his English had the slightest trace of an Italian accent, and his easy wit as the conversation flowed held her enthralled. But when Veronica started name-dropping shamelessly as she described the house party she and Julian were going to attend that weekend at Lord Somerton’s, Penny had had enough.
She glimpsed the cynical smile on Solo Maffeiano’s face, saw the contempt in his grey eyes, and she cringed. Looking down at the table, she placed her napkin by her plate before rising to her feet and declaring brightly to no one in particular, ‘I’ll go and get the coffee.’ She couldn’t get away fast enough.
‘I’ll help you,’ Solo Maffeiano declared smoothly.
‘No, no, please, you’re a guest,’ Penny flung over her shoulder as she scuttled out of the room and into the kitchen.
Breathing deeply, Penny crossed to the bench where the coffee percolator stood. Brownie had gone to bed, but she had left the tray, and the coffee on, bless her!
Not long now and Penny could make her own escape. She grasped the edge of the bench to steady her shaking nerves. What a meal! She had never felt so aware, so disturbed by a member of the opposite sex in her life. Solo Maffeiano had the power to make her heart shake with only a glance from his pale eyes, and she wasn’t sure she liked it.
Sighing, she turned, only to freeze at the sight of the man in question strolling towards her. ‘What are you doing here? I told you I don’t need any help,’ she snapped.
He didn’t immediately answer. Instead he stopped and captured both her hands in his and very slowly folded them behind her back, bringing her into intimate contact with his tall frame. A shiver rippled through her as her breasts pressed against his broad chest, her slender legs trapped against the strength of hard, masculine thighs. She tried to wriggle free, then gasped as she felt the stirring of his mighty body and its blatant masculine sign of passion.
A mixture of innocent embarrassment and not so innocent helpless heated arousal caused a tide of pink to sweep up over her face. Penny stared up at him and was paralysed by the blinding flame of desire in his eyes, her heart hammering against her chest so hard she could hardly breathe. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.
‘What I have ached to do since the minute I set eyes on you,’ Solo declared, and smiled a slow, soft curve of his firm mouth. His dark head bent and too late she realised the danger she was in.
‘No,’ Penny gasped at the same time as his mouth covered hers. She had been kissed before, not very often, and never like this, was her last conscious thought.
The sexy male scent of him filled her nostrils, a hot, liquid sensation flowed through her body making her breasts tingle, and heat pool at the junction of her thighs, and his mouth! His mouth moved on hers with a soft, sensual pleasure, his tongue darting between parted lips, gently then fiercely plundering the hot, sweet interior in an erotic, wonderful kiss that quickly flared out of control.
Solo groaned and, freeing her hands, he slipped his own firmly around her waist, holding her in intimate contact with his hard body.
Penny felt his other hand sweep up under her breasts and cup the aching fullness in his palm. Her slender body arched into him as his thumb stroked across the tip of her breast, bringing the tender nipple into a rigid peak against the fabric of her dress. ‘Don’t.’ Her voice was a shocked murmur, verging on a moan.
Solo lifted his head, taking a swift breath. Dio! The girl was dynamite—he had come perilously close to forgetting where he was, and that had never happened to him before. He needed to tread warily and, wrapping his arms around her, he hugged her. ‘I knew it would be like this between us.’ He stepped back and released her.
Penny gazed bemusedly up at him. She lifted a hand to her full lips. ‘You…we…’ she stammered. She couldn’t say kissed, she didn’t have the breath. Solo Maffeiano; this incredibly attractive, virile man had kissed her, touched her. It felt more as if she had been hit by lightning. Powerful and sophisticated Solo, and yet she could have sworn she’d heard him groan as well.
‘Us, you mean,’ Solo amended throatily. ‘And there is going to be an us. But not here and not now. The others are waiting for their coffee.’ He slipped an arm around her waist to steady her. His eyes, dark as slate, stared down into hers and he saw her shock and confusion and knew she was exactly what he wanted. Innocent, well bred and maternal, she was perfect wife material. To a man who had everything, and had never considered marriage before, the thought of a wife and possibly a child suddenly held strong appeal. ‘How old are you, Penelope?’ he asked softly.
‘Nineteen in September,’ she answered without thinking.
‘I’m thirty-four, a lot older than you.’ And a hell of a lot more experienced, but Solo did not say it. He did not want to frighten her off. She was like a perfect rosebud slowly unfurling. She came alive in his arms, all heat and light and totally unconscious of her potent sensuality.
