with the finest damask cloth and silver cutlery. Then, with a brief glance at her wrist-watch she dashed back to the kitchen.
A sleepy James stretched out his arms to her and she swept him up in hers, giving him a cuddle and a kiss. ‘Bed for you, little man,’ she murmured, and strolled out into the hall. Her foot was on the bottom step when the front door was flung open. Penny stopped and turned. Veronica was back quick.
‘Ah, Penelope and my favourite boy.’ Her smiling father walked towards her.
Oh, my God! She stifled a groan. The guests had arrived early, over two hours early by Penny’s reckoning!
Solo Maffeiano entered the hall, and wondered what the hell he was doing here. Two nights ago he had spent a couple of hours of inventive sex with Lisa, his occasional mistress in New York. She was a lawyer, she knew the score and was very accommodating.
In a way it was her fault he was here now. On a previous date with Lisa months ago, he had been flicking through a year-old magazine while he’d waited to be picked up for the airport. The centre-fold picture of a wedding had attracted his attention: the marriage of Veronica Jones to a much older minor English aristocrat, Julian Haversham.
Solo had laughed out loud as he had known the lady seven years before, not in the biblical sense, but it had not been for the want of trying on her part. Veronica had been the girlfriend of an Arab business associate of his when they had spent a week cruising the Greek Islands. Bridal material she was not!
But the picture of the bridesmaid, the daughter of the groom, had caught his eye. The Honourable Penelope Haversham was a beauty, with pale blonde hair and milky white skin, and an innocent, almost fey quality about the small, slender figure that had intrigued him.
He had met Veronica and her new husband at a charity ball in London a couple of weeks back. Now following his PA Tina down the hall, he realised he should have taken her advice and had nothing to do with the proposition Veronica was pushing, the purchase of farming land and possibly a joint leisure development. If the house were included it might have been viable. But it would be sacrilege to alter it. It was a beautiful example of Tudor architecture, and Solo appreciated works of art. His hobby was collecting rare objects; his home in Italy was a treasure trove of objets d’art.
Probably because he had been brought up in the back streets of Naples with a whore for a grandmother and a mother who’d followed in the family tradition! He was the result of an American sailor’s fling with his mother. He was named Saul after him but the name was quickly bastardised to Solo, and by the time he was ten he’d been on his own.
There was very little he had not seen and done. But blessed with a brilliant mind and a quick tongue, he had never fallen foul of the law. He had worked and acquired a formal education whenever he’d had the time and opportunity, ultimately graduating with honours in economics. But privately he acknowledged the economics of poverty and the street had proved to be a much more valuable lesson, when dealing with the upper echelons of international finance.
At thirty-four he was a success. Wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams, he was a whiz at playing the markets and had also invested heavily in property around the world. He could have any woman he wanted without really trying. So why was he wasting his valuable time on the off chance of seeing the girl from the picture? He wondered, his lips twisting in a self-derogatory smile.
Then he saw her, and he stopped dead. The picture did not begin to do her justice.
Penny held James a little more securely and, putting a brave face on it, she said, ‘You’re early, Daddy. I’m just going to put James to bed.’ Her father was a tall, slender man, with white hair and brown eyes, and she loved him to bits.
‘Not to worry, darling. Come and let me introduce you to our guests.’
Penny’s glance skimmed over two people. A redheaded woman and a tall man, half hidden behind her father.
‘My daughter Penelope.’ Her father stepped aside and smiled at the couple, before glancing back at Penny. ‘Solo Maffeiano, and his PA Tina Jenson, our guests this evening. It was such a lovely afternoon we decided to come down early and conduct our business here rather than in a London office.’
The woman was tall and elegant. ‘How do you do?’ Penny said politely. ‘I hope you will excuse me not shaking hands, but as you can see my arms are full.’
Penny looked up at the other guest with a polite smile on her face, and her heart quite inexplicably began thumping against her ribs. She simply stared, struck dumb by the sheer dynamic presence of the man.
Solo Maffeiano was the most devastatingly attractive man she had ever seen. He was wearing a tailored lightweight grey suit that fitted his elegant frame to perfection. He was well over six feet tall with wide shoulders that tapered down to lean hips and long legs. He was olive-skinned with thick black curling hair, his eyes were a piercing grey, his nose straight. His perfectly sculptured lips were curved in a smile over brilliant white teeth.
‘Delighted to meet you, Penelope,’ Solo husked. She was a vision of feminine perfection with a baby in her arms, and Solo felt an instant reaction in the groin area. It had not happened like that for him in years.
Her hair was fair, and it fell long and straight down her back like fine silk. Her petite features held a perfect symmetry, her lips full and sensually curved. Her eyes were a stunning green but darkening to deep jade as she watched him, the lashes thick and curling, and he noted the tinge of pink on her cheeks.
He knew the effect he had on women and for the most part ignored it, but he felt a stab of savage masculine pride that this dainty creature before him reacted so helplessly. In that instant he decided he wanted her, and he was a man who always got what he wanted.
Penny finally found her tongue. ‘And you, Mr Maffeiano.’ She swallowed hard.
‘Please call me Solo.’ He smiled again, and she was mesmerised.
‘Solo,’ she breathed his name, and at that moment young James decided he did not like his sister’s attention diverted from himself, and grabbed a handful of her hair and tugged.
‘Oh, you little devil,’ she cried at the swift stab of pain, bringing her back to reality with a jolt, but she was grateful to James. It had stopped her staring at the man like a besotted fool. ‘Come on, it’s bed for you.’ With the briefest glance at the others, she murmured, ‘Excuse me.’
But before she could turn Solo Maffeiano reached out one elegant finger and slid it gently down James’s chubby cheek.
‘I hope you know how lucky you are, boy, with a beautiful girl to take you to bed.’
James gurgled happily and reached a chubby hand out to the man and the others all laughed. Penny shot a startled glance at the dark stranger, and blushed scarlet. She saw the knowing amusement lurking in his silver eyes; he knew exactly how he affected her. How he affected every woman he met, she thought, reality clicking in. He was a sophisticated, handsome beast—add wealth and power, and he had it all. He was way out of her league, she told herself, turning to her father and gripping James like a lifeline.
‘See you later, Daddy. Veronica is not back yet, and I must get James to bed.’ She was babbling, she knew, but she needed to get away from Solo Maffeiano and the peculiar feelings, the tension he aroused in her. ‘I’ll see you all at dinner,’ she said and almost ran up the stairs.
Lying in the bath later when James
