Paper Marriages

‘Hello—well, if it isn’t little Penny Haversham,’ the tall redhead drawled, then added, ‘I’m surprised you have the nerve to face Solo after the stroke you pulled.’

‘And hello to you too.’ Penny said dryly. Why should she be surprised to see Tina? The woman was Solo’s Personal Assistant and long-time lover. If any stroke had been pulled, it had been by Solo Maffeiano on her father, she thought angrily. Her father had been no businessman, Penny would be the first to admit. Solo had to have tricked him, anything else she could not contemplate. She had adored her dad; still did, she thought sadly.

‘You have nerve, I’ll give you that,’ Tina said shortly, and, with a goodbye to the secretary, swept out of the office.

Penny watched her leave with mixed feelings. It was only the second time she had met the woman, but Tina did not improve on acquaintance, she thought bitterly. Obviously Tina and Solo were still together, and Penny refused to believe the slight pain in her heart was anything other than a touch of heartburn. She had not eaten anything since yesterday.

Penny glanced at the coffee but dismissed the idea, and sat down on one of the chairs provided. All she’d had for breakfast were three cups of black coffee, and she was nervous and angry enough without having another shot of caffeine. She clasped her hands around her purse in her lap in a deathlike grip and waited.

‘He will see you now,’ the secretary announced as a green light on the console flashed, and, indicating the door to Penny, she added, ‘But please make it quick, he does not have much time. His meeting with Mrs Jenson took longer than expected.’

I’ll just bet it did! Penny thought unkindly. A kiss and a cuddle, or maybe more had delayed him! Rising to her feet, Penny straightened her shoulders and with a brief, ‘Thank you,’ in the secretary’s direction she walked into Solo’s office.

Warily she glanced around the elegant room. Dark panelling, a polished wood floor with what looked like a very expensive carpet, a black leather sofa and chair, and by the massive window that filled almost a whole wall was an enormous mahogany desk and a high-backed chair. But no Solo Maffeiano!

She walked slowly into the room, her heart racing. It was hot. May and the central heating was still on. Not a luxury Penny could afford at Haversham Park, she thought wryly. She unfastened the jacket of her suit, and pulled at the collar of her blouse.

Maybe it was deliberate. Solo Maffeiano was the sort who would like to make a client sweat, she thought bitterly, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling before she forced her feet onwards to the desk. She stopped at the edge, at a loss as to what to do next. She tried a polite cough, her throat tightening in the process.

Slowly the chair swung around and she saw Solo and her breath stuck in her throat. Their eyes met and she almost passed out. It was the fiercest electric connection she had ever experienced in her life. She blinked, and when she looked again, like a replay of her eighteen-year-old self, she was totally intoxicated by the sheer animal magnetism of the man that the years in between had done nothing to dispel.

To disconcert her even more Solo was lounging back in the chair, his jacket and tie discarded, the tailored white shirt fitting his broad shoulders to perfection, the collar open at the neck to reveal the strong, tanned throat and a glimpse of black chest hair. Her pulse raced, and her mouth went dry; she could not have spoken to save her life.

‘The honourable Penelope Haversham,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘Allow me.’ He rose to his feet and walked around the desk.

She watched him move, six feet three of stunningly attractive male. She had forgotten quite how tall Solo was, and how he projected a power, a raw sexuality that made her stomach muscles clench in helpless response. From the top of his dark head, to the broad shoulders, to the dark pleated trousers that settled on his lean hips and long legs, he was the epitome of predatory male and she could not help staring.

Her fascinated gaze watched as he took a chair from against the wall and placed it beside her. Realising she was staring, Penny jerked back her head and felt a painful tide of red wash over her face. She was ogling the man like an idiot.

‘Sit down,’ Solo commanded coldly.

She was glad to oblige, as her legs were shaking. ‘Thank you, Mr Maffeiano,’ she murmured politely, and was aware of him resuming his seat at the opposite side of the desk.

‘Mr Maffeiano,’ he drawled mockingly. Ice-grey eyes cut like a laser into hers, then slowly swept over her slender body with a frigid disdain that even now, after so many years had the power to make her cringe. It was the exact same look he had given her when he had caught her kissing Simon, as though she was beneath contempt.

‘Surely you and I are on first-name terms at least, Penny?’

She blushed even redder. ‘Yes, of course, Solo,’ she muttered, her tongue sticking to the roof of her dry mouth.

She was behaving like a fool. She was no longer a naive young girl, with a head full of romantic ideals of love and marriage, an easy conquest for a ruthless, sophisticated man of the world like Solo. She should be thanking her lucky stars that she had seen through the devil in time, instead of sitting here, trembling and blushing like a schoolgirl.

‘Well, let’s get down to business—I haven’t much time to spare.’ His deep voice was curt. ‘I have a luncheon engagement at one.’

Warily she watched him as he shoved his chair back a little, and flung one arm casually over the back. Nervously she straightened the hem of her skirt over her knees.

His grey eyes followed the movement of her hands and narrowed to linger on her legs, and the charged sexuality of the knowing look he swept slowly over her body made heat surge in her face, and, to her shame, another more intimate place. The shockingly helpless flare of response made her press her knees together, her body became taut, and she wanted to curl up and hide.

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.

‘Ah, the fickleness of women. Why am I not surprised?’ he opined cynically, straightening up and taking a step towards her. ‘You haven’t changed after all.’

As clear as day, the conversation Solo had had with Tina Jenson rang in her ears. She remembered the humiliation, the heartbreak she had felt at the time, still felt, if she was honest. He had some nerve… Talk about the pot calling the kettle… Anger sparked in her eyes as she flung back her head and looked up at him. ‘Ah, but I have. I am no longer the little innocent I was at eighteen.’

‘I can see that.’ Hard grey eyes captured hers in a look of stark cynicism. ‘So now young Simon appears to have had his fill of you, and can’t help you, you come to me,’ he drawled in ruthless mockery. ‘Perhaps you and I should explore the possibilities.’

Penny cringed inside, but she could not blame Solo. She had deliberately given him the impression that Simon was her lover, so it was no good being shocked when he believed it, but it still did not prevent her speaking her mind.

‘That is a disgusting thing to say.’ she snapped.

‘But true,’ Solo voiced and, with a lightning speed, his hands grasped her by her upper arms and hauled her hard against his long body. ‘Once there was something between us.’ His dark head swooped, and before she knew what was happening he had covered her mouth with his own in a brutally demeaning kiss.

Penny wriggled furiously, her hands trapped between their bodies, but as the kiss went on she felt herself weakening, old, familiar feelings flooding through her. His hard mouth gentled on hers. His hand slipped to cup the back of her head, while his other hand swept around and up her spine, holding her firmly against his long, lean length. The familiar, masculine scent of him teased her nostrils, and the warmth of his body enveloped her in a seductive cocoon of sensations she had never quite been able to forget.

‘As I thought,’ Solo drawled, lifting his head, and to her chagrin, while she was breathless and burning up, his slate-grey eyes surveyed her without a flicker of emotion. ‘The buzz is still there between us.’ His hands spanned her waist, holding her close. ‘The question is, what are we going to do about it?’

Humiliatingly aware of her own abject surrender to his kiss while he looked like the original Ice Man, she sought solace in anger.

Scarlet-faced, she spat furiously, ‘I don’t want to do anything.’ She placed her hands on his chest and tried to push him away. ‘All I want from you is a straightforward answer about the sale of the house, and that is all there is between us. Either you buy my share, yes or no,’ she demanded, with a swift glance up into his hard face, and as quickly away again. He was dark and dangerous, and she must be mad to challenge him.

Solo had to fight hard to keep the knowing grin off his face. The determinedly averted angry green eyes could not hide the flush of arousal on her smooth cheeks or the fact a pulse beat madly in her neck. He wondered what she would do if she knew where his thoughts were really leading, that it was taking all of his famed control not to pick her up and spread her on the desk, and strip her naked.

‘Have you finished?’ he said.

‘That’s no answer.’

Solo had been expecting this demand from her ever since he had heard of the death of her parents, but he saw no reason to make it easy for her. Not after the way she had deceived him with Simon. He slid his hands slowly from her waist up over the curve of her breasts and fastened them on her shoulders.

To Penny’s horror her breasts hardened against the fabric of her blouse at his insolent caress. ‘Let me go,’ she said, trying to hold herself rigid, but helplessly aware of her body’s response.

Solo felt her shudder, and was content, for now, and moved her gently but firmly out of his way. Then he glanced at the gold watch on his wrist, and back at her pink-tinged face. ‘I have to go, my lunch date awaits me. But in answer to your question…’ Penny held her breath—at last… But the smile he bestowed on her was totally lacking in humour.

‘I have tomorrow free. I will call at Haversham Park and survey the merchandise before I make a decision. After all, four more years of use could have seriously damaged the…’ he paused, his cold eyes raking over her from head to toe, before he added… ‘structure, don’t you agree? I do not want to buy a pig in the poke—I believe that’s one of your English expressions.’

The only pig around here was Solo, Penny thought furiously. She was damn sure he had not been referring to the house, but having a dig at her. But she had no choice but to agree. ‘Yes, all right. What time?’ she demanded shortly.

‘Fix it with my secretary. I have to go.’ He flicked a dismissive glance her way, then opened a door in the wood panelling. He extracted the jacket that matched his trousers, and slipped it on, quickly followed by a conservative navy striped tie. Then to her astonishment he spun on his heel and left without another word.