Paper Marriages: Wife: Bought and Paid For / His Convenient Marriage / A Convenient Wife

His expressive mouth twisted in a cynical smile. ‘Still as demure as ever, I see.’ Solo had a vivid image of the lady in red last night and wanted to laugh out loud at the image Penny presented today in the black suit, the conservative court shoes, and the hair scraped back. Who did she think she was fooling? Certainly not him…

Appalled at her own weakness, Penny murmured, ‘Yes,’ as she stiffened her shoulders, not knowing what else to say. Simply being in the same room with Solo again had a disastrous effect on her mental powers. One look at him and every sensible thought vanished from her head, and she knew she needed all her wits about her to discuss business with the man.

He had been thirty-four when she’d first met him, and well aware of his impact on the female of the species. Suave and devastatingly attractive, he could charm the birds right out of the trees. His deep, melodious voice tinged with a hint of sensuality had promised untold delight, with perhaps just a touch of danger. Now as she looked up into his cold eyes all she saw was danger…

Almost four years had left their mark. His curly hair was ruthlessly swept back from his broad brow. There was harshness about the firmly chiselled features, a ruthlessness in the grey eyes that met her own that said he was a man in firm control of himself and all those around him. A man to be respected for his immense power and wealth, but also a man to be feared.

‘If you say so.’ His gaze moved with leisurely insolence over her face, and lower to the firm swell of her breasts against the soft cotton of her blouse. ‘It has been a long time but you haven’t changed at all, Penelope.’

Penny’s body responded with another sudden rush of heat that horrified her. Slender fingers curled into fists, her nails digging into her palms until it hurt, trying to distract her traitorous body with pain. What a choice! she thought dryly, and the sheer stupidity of injuring herself enabled her to relax her grip.

‘Neither have you, Solo,’ she said stiffly, hoping she sounded sophisticated and, praying her voice would not wobble, she added, ‘And I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘Take it any way you like,’ he drawled. ‘But back to business. What exactly do you want?’ One dark brow arched enquiringly.

‘Well. I… you… Mr Simpson said…’ she stammered to a halt.

Solo rose slowly to his feet and in a few lithe strides was around the desk and towering over her. ‘You seem a little nervous. Shall we start again? After all, we were close friends once.’ Holding out his hand, he added, ‘Good to see you, Penny.’

Penny looked at his hand as if it were a snake that might bite. She glanced up into his eyes and saw the mocking amusement in their silvery depths. The swine was laughing at her.

‘Yes, of course.’ she said firmly and placed her hand in his. His hand squeezed hers, sending a prickling sensation scooting up her arm.

Instinctively Penny tensed, and lowered her eyes from his knowing gaze. Her head was telling her to get out of there as quickly as possible, while her traitorous heart skipped a beat as the hand that gripped hers tightened fractionally, before he set her free.

Solo looked at her lowered head. ‘You have changed, after all,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘At one time you were not afraid to face me.’

Pride alone made her tip back her head and look up. ‘I’m not now,’ she denied curtly. ‘I’m just surprised you wanted to see me, instead of Mr Simpson, my lawyer, after the way we parted,’ she said with blunt honesty.

‘Some you win, some you lose.’ One shoulder elevated in a shrug.

Penny’s eyes widened in surprise on his dark, inscrutable face. He was as good as admitting it had all been a game to him four years ago, and she, poor fool that she was, had felt guilty over the blunt way she had dismissed him. The anger that had been simmering inside her ever since Mr Simpson had told her the news yesterday came bubbling to the surface.

‘But you never lose, do you, Solo?’ she said hotly. ‘What I want to know is how the hell you conned my father into selling you half of Haversham Park.’

His silver-grey eyes hardened perceptibly, his handsome face an expressionless mask. ‘Be very careful of throwing unfounded accusations around. I allow no one to cast a slur on my integrity without taking legal action, and, given the mess you are in at the moment, bankruptcy would be the result.’

‘I’m not far from it anyway,’ she snapped back bitterly, recalling the inheritance tax, and it was enough to make her clamp down on her anger. Insulting the man was not going to help her situation. She needed Solo’s agreement, either to buy her out or to sell the house to someone else.

She had overreacted. Shock at seeing him had churned up emotions she had thought she had successfully buried. Solo Maffeiano might still have the charisma, the blatant sexuality that had the power to awaken old familiar feelings inside her. But she was older and wiser now, and knew it wasn’t love, just lust, and easily denied. She only had to remember the way he had tried to manipulate her feelings for the sake of the house.

A wry smile tugged her mouth, the irony of the situation hitting her. With her late father’s help it looked as if Solo would get the house anyway. But at least she was not stuck with a man who had quite happily toyed with her foolish heart, while betraying her with the elegant Tina Jenson.

The fact that Tina Jenson was still with him simply confirmed Solo’s guilt in Penny’s eyes. He was a ruthless, devious bastard, and she had had a lucky escape.

‘That is a very secretive smile,’ Solo prompted. ‘Care to share the joke?’

‘It was nothing,’ Penny said, and in that moment she realised Solo was nothing to her, and she smiled with genuine relief.

‘I don’t want to waste any more of your valuable time. My lawyer informs me you own half my home. How, he wasn’t quite clear.’ She could not resist the dig and cast a swift glance up at him beneath the thick fringe of her lashes. She still did not understand why her father would have done such a thing, but he had, and she had to deal with the consequences.

‘Strictly legitimate, I can assure you,’ Solo informed her coldly.

‘Yes, so I understand, and that is why I am here.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘I want you to buy me out or agree to put the house on the open market,’ Penny stated simply.

She knew Solo had not developed the land he had bought from her father, apparently losing interest in the project. When Veronica was alive she had never stopped telling Penny that it was all her fault.

Penny had had no answer to her stepmother’s accusations—well, none she’d wanted to tell her—and instead Penny had suffered in silence. While Solo Maffeiano had vanished from their lives and, as far as she knew, the acreage he had bought was rented out to adjoining farmers.

‘My, my, you actually want to sell your home?’ His sarcastic tone cut into her musings, and she glanced back up into his dark, sardonic face. ‘And I have first refusal.’ A slow smile twisted his hard mouth and chilled her to the bone. ‘What an interesting scenario, and surprising. I seem to remember you were very attached to the ancestral pile. What has changed?’

‘Apparently you own half,’ she said scathingly. ‘And I wouldn’t share so much as a minute with you, given a choice. Therefore I have no alternative. The inheritance tax has to be paid, and I don’t have the money.’ He knew all this; he was just trying to make her squirm. ‘But you know all this. Mr Simpson spoke to you.’

‘I do, but I wanted to hear it from your own sweet lips,’ Solo said with cold derision.

Penny studied his hard face with bitter eyes. What he really meant was he wanted to humiliate her. Because she had had the temerity to dump him, and he was not averse to a little revenge. ‘Yes, well, you have now, so can I have your answer?’ she snapped back.

‘No. I’ll need to think about it, and it will take me rather more than a minute,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘In the meantime you can tell me what you have been doing the last few years.’

He was supposed to be in a hurry—it didn’t sound like it, Penny thought, simmering with resentment. And she wished he would go and sit down. He was too close and towering over her like some dark avenging angel. It was giving her a crick in the neck simply to look at him, and, fixing her gaze to a spot on his left shoulder, she began a catalogue of her life to date.

‘I went to university for three years, got my degree. Then I secured a job at the British Library to start last September. I was going to share a house with Jane. But I never got the chance because Daddy and Veronica were killed in a rail crash. They had spent the summer in France as usual, and ironically the crash was when they were nearly home, only a few miles outside of London. So now of course I look after my brother full-time.’ She saw no reason to tell him about her new career as a writer of educational books for children. The less he knew about her, the better.

‘So where is James now?’ Solo queried lightly.

‘Jane’s parents, the Reverend Turner and his wife, with their older daughter Patricia who is visiting from America with her son, kindly offered to take him with them on holiday. It is the first time we have been apart since our loss.’

She did not add that the vicar and his wife, who were like honorary grandparents to James, had had to talk her into it. Mrs Turner ran the playgroup James attended and he knew them very well. Penny had only agreed after Mrs Turner had pointed out James would enjoy the holiday, plus Patricia’s son would be there for him to play with. Nor did she notice the gleam of satisfaction in Solo’s cold eyes as he turned his back to her.

‘I was sorry to hear of your parents’ death. I was in South America at the time and could not attend the funeral.’ Solo straightened something on his desk and turned and leant against it.

Watching him leaning negligently against the desk, with a bit of space between them, Penny could almost convince herself this was a normal conversation.

‘Thank you for the wreath,’ she said quietly, remembering how surprised she had been at the funeral to discover Solo Maffeiano had sent flowers. Because after she had split up with him, as far as she knew, her dad and Veronica had never seen him again.

‘My pleasure, your father was a decent man.’

He was to you! she wanted to snipe. Because even after seeing it in black and white she still had difficulty believing her father would have sold him half the house without telling Penny. But antagonising Solo would get her nowhere. Be civil, and get out as quick as you can, she told herself, so instead she agreed.

‘Yes, he was, and I still miss him. But James and I are pulling through, and of course Brownie is an enormous help.’

‘And what happened to the blond-haired Adonis?’ He slanted a glance at her ringless fingers. ‘Simon, wasn’t it?’ The question was asked so casually Penny answered without thinking.

‘The last Jane heard he was in Africa teaching English.’ She smiled fondly, thinking of Simon. ‘But Simon is not much of a letter writer, he could just as easily be living on Mars!’

‘And this does not worry you?’ Solo said smoothly, his heavy lids and thick lashes almost hiding his eyes.

‘No, not at all.’ Then suddenly Penny realised what she was revealing.