by Penny Jordan
She was trapped, Ruby acknowledged, trapped in a prison of her own making. All she could do was cling to the fragile hope that somehow she would find the strength to deny the desire he could arouse in her so easily.
‘Of course it is,’ she protested.
‘Then we shall be married, and you will accept my terms and conditions.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then I will move heaven and earth and the stars between them to take my sons from you.’
He meant what he was saying, Ruby could tell. She had no choice other than to bow her head in acceptance of his demands.
He had defeated her, Sander knew, but the taste of his triumph did not have the sweetness he had expected.
‘The demands placed on me by my business mean that the sooner the arrangements are completed the better. I shall arrange for the necessary paperwork to be carried out with regard to the prenuptial agreement I shall require you to sign and for our marriage. You must—’
A sudden bang from upstairs, followed by a sharp cry of pain, had them both turning towards the stairs.
Anxious for the safety of her sons, Ruby rushed past Sander, hurrying up the stairs to the boys’ room, unaware that Sander was right behind her as she pushed open the door to find Harry on the floor sobbing whilst Freddie stood clutching one of their toy cars.
‘Freddie pushed me,’ Harry told her.
‘No, I didn’t. He was trying to take my car.’
‘Let me have a look,’ Ruby instructed Harry, quickly checking to make sure that no real damage had been done before sitting back on her heels and turning to look at Freddie. But instead of coming to her for comfort Freddie was standing in front of Sander, who had obviously followed her into the room, looking up at him as though seeking his support, and Sander had his hand on Freddie’s arm, as though protecting him.
The raw intensity of her emotions gripped her by the throat—grief for all that the twins had missed in not having a father, guilt because she was the cause of that, pain because she loved them so much but her love alone could not give them the tools they would need to grow into well balanced men, and fear for her own self-respect.
His hand resting protectively on the shoulder of his son, Sander looked grimly at Ruby. His sons needed him in their lives, and nothing—least of all a woman like Ruby—was going to prevent him from being there for them.
Oblivious to the atmosphere between the two grownups Freddie repeated, ‘It’s my car.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s mine,’ Harry argued.
Their argument pulled Ruby’s attention back to them. They were devoted to one another, but every now and again they would argue like this over a toy, as though each of them was trying to seek authority over the other. It was a boy thing, other mothers had assured her, but Ruby hated to see them fall out.
‘I’ve got a suggestion to make.’ Sander’s voice was calm, and yet authoritative in a way that immediately had both boys looking at him. ‘If you both promise not to argue over this car again then I will buy you a new toy each, so you won’t have to share.’
Ruby sucked in an outraged breath, her maternal instincts overwhelming the vulnerability she felt towards Sander as a woman. What he was doing was outright bribery. Since she didn’t have the money to give the boys one each of things she had impressed on them the need to share and share alike, and now, with a handful of words, Sander had appealed to their natural acquisitive instincts with his offer.
She could see from the eager look in both pairs of dark gold eyes that her rules about sharing had been forgotten even before Harry challenged Sander excitedly, ‘When…when can we have them?’
Harry was on his feet now, rushing over to join his twin and lean confidently against Sander’s other leg whilst he looked up excitedly at him, his words tumbling over themselves as he told Sander, ‘I want a car like the one outside…’
‘So do I,’ Freddie agreed, determined not to be outdone and to assert his elder brother status.
‘I’m taking both of you and your mother to London.’
This was news to Ruby, but she wasn’t given the chance to say anything because Sander was already continuing.
‘There’s a big toyshop there where we can look for your cars—but only if you promise me not to quarrel over your toys in future.’
Two dark heads nodded enthusiastically in assent, and two identical watermelon grins split her sons’ faces as they gazed up worshipfully at Sander.
Ruby struggled to contain her feelings. Seeing her sons with Sander, watching the way they reacted to him, had brought home to her more effectively than a thousand arguments could ever have done just what they were missing without him—not financially, but emotionally.
Was it her imagination, or was she right in thinking that already they seemed to be standing taller, speaking more confidently, even displaying a body language they had automatically copied from their father? A small pang of sadness filled her. They weren’t babies any longer, her babies, wholly dependent on her for everything; they were growing up, and their reaction to Sander proved what she had already known—they needed a male role model in their lives. Helplessly she submitted to the power of the wave of maternal love that surged through her, but her head lifted proudly as she returned Sander’s silently challenging look.
Automatically Ruby reached out to stroke the tousled dark curls exactly at the moment that Sander did the same. Their hands touched. Immediately Ruby recoiled from the contact, unable to stop the swift rush of knowledge that slid into her head. Once Sander’s hands had touched her far more intimately than they were doing now, taking her and possessing her with a potent mix of knowledge and male arousal, and something else which in her ignorance and innocence she had told herself was passionate desire for her and her alone, but which of course had been nothing of the sort.
That reality had left her emotions badly bruised. His was the only sexual male touch she had ever known. Memories she had thought sealed away for ever were trying to surface. Memories aroused by that kiss Sander had forced on her earlier. Ruby shuddered in mute loathing of her own weakness, but it was too late. The mental images her memories were painting would not be denied—images of Sander’s hands on her body, the sound of his breathing against her ear and then later her skin. But, no, she must not think of those things. Instead she must be strong. She must resist and deny his ability to arouse her. She was not that young girl any more, she was a woman, a mother, and her sons’ needs must come before her own.
CHAPTER THREE
RUBY’S head was pounding with a tension headache, and her stomach cramped—familiar reactions to stress, which she knew could well result in her ending up with something close to a full-scale migraine attack. But this wasn’t the time for her to be ill, or indeed to show any weakness—even if she had hardly slept since and had woken this morning feeling nauseous.
The twins were dressed in the new jumpers and jeans her sisters had bought them for Christmas, and wearing the new trainers she had spent her preciously saved money on after she had seen the frowning look Sander had given their old ones when he had called to discuss everything—‘everything’ being all the arrangements he had made, not just for their stay in London but for their marriage as well, before the four of them would leave for the island that would be their home. They were too excited to sit down, insisting instead on standing in front of the window so that they could see Sander arrive to pick them all up for their visit to London.
Would she have made a different decision if her sisters had been at home? Ruby didn’t see how she could have done. They had been wonderful to her, insisting that they would support her financially so that she could stay at home with the boys, but Ruby had become increasingly aware not just of the financial pressure they were under, but also the fact that one day surely her sisters would fall in love. When they did she didn’t want to feel she and the twins were standing in their way because they felt duty-bound to go on supporting them.
No, s
he had made the right decision. For the twins, who were both wildly excited about the coming trip to London and who had happily accepted her careful announcement to them that she was going to marry Sander, and for her sisters, who had given her and the twins so much love and support.
The twins had reacted to the news that she and Sander were going to be married with excitement and delight, and Freddie had informed her hopefully, ‘Luke Simpson has a daddy. He takes him to watch football, and to McDonalds, and he bought him a new bicycle.’
The reality was that everything seemed to be working in Sander’s favour. She couldn’t even use the excuse of saying that she couldn’t take the boys out of school to refuse to go to London, since they were now on holiday for Easter.
When they went back to school it would be to the small English speaking school on the island where, Sander had informed her, those islanders who wished their children to grow up speaking English could send them.
The conversation she and Sander had had about the twins’ future had been more of a question and answer session, with her asking the questions and Sander supplying the answers. All she knew about their future life was that Sander preferred to live and work on the island his family had ruled for several centuries, although the container shipping business he had built up into a worldwide concern also had offices and staff at all the world’s major commercial ports, including Felixstowe in England. Sander had also told her that his second in command was his younger brother, who had trained in IT and was based in Athens.
When it came to the boys’ future education, Sander had told her that he was completely against them going to boarding school—much to her own relief. He had said that when the time came they would spend term time in England as a family, returning to the island when the boys were out of school.
In addition to the younger brother, Sander had informed her, he also had a sister—the same sister Ruby had learned had taken the photograph of the twins that had alerted Sander to their existence. Like his brother, she too lived in Athens with her husband.
‘So it will just be the two of us and the boys, then?’ she had pressed warily.
‘That is the norm, isn’t it?’ he had countered. ‘The nuclear family, comprising a father, a mother and their children.’
Stupidly, perhaps, she hadn’t thought as far as how they would live, but the way her thoughts had recoiled from the reality of their new life together had shown her how apprehensive she was. Because she feared him, or because she feared wanting him? Her face burned even now, remembering her inability to answer that inner question.
It had been far easier to deal with the practicalities of what lay ahead rather than allow herself to be overwhelmed by the complex emotional issues it raised.
Now, waiting for Sander to collect them, with letters for her sisters explaining what she was doing and why written and waiting for them on their return to the UK—the situation wasn’t something she felt she wanted to discuss with them over the phone—Ruby could feel the pain in her temple increasing, whilst her stomach churned with anxiety. Everything would have been so very different if only she hadn’t give in to that shameful physical desire Sander had somehow managed to arouse in her. In her handbag were the birth control pills Sander had demanded that she take. She had been tempted to defy him, to insist that she could rely on her own will-power to ensure that there was no further sexual intimacy between them. But she was still horrified by the memory of what had happened between them in her hallway, still struggling to take in the fact that it had happened. The speed of it, the intensity of it, had been like a fire erupting out of nowhere to blaze so fiercely that it was beyond control. It had left her feeling vulnerable and unable to trust herself.
There must not be another child, Sander had told her. And wasn’t the truth that she herself did not want to create another new life with a man who had no respect for her, no feelings of kindness towards her, and certainly no love for her? Love? Hadn’t she grown out of the dangerous self-deceit of dressing up naked lust in the fantasy illusion of ‘love’? Clothing it in the kind of foolish dreams that belonged to naive adolescents? Before Sander had kissed her she would have sworn and believed that there was nothing he could do to her, no intimacy he could enforce on her, that would arouse her own desire. But the searing heat of the kiss he had subjected her to had burned away her defences.
She hated having to admit to herself that she couldn’t rely on her own pride and self-control, but the only thing she could cling to was the knowledge that Sander had been as close to losing his control as she had been of losing hers. Of all the cruel tricks that nature could play on two human beings, surely that must be the worst? To create within them a desire for one another that could burn away every shred of protection, leaving them exposed to a need that neither of them wanted. If she could have ripped her own desire out of her body she would have done. It was an alien, unwanted presence, an enemy within her that she must find a way to destroy.
‘He’s here!’
Freddie’s excited announcement cut through her introspection. Both boys were racing to the door and pulling it open, jumping up and down with eager delight when the car door opened and Sander stepped out.
He might be dressed casually, in a black polo shirt, beige chinos and a dark tan leather jacket, but Sander still had that unmistakable air about him that said he was a man other men looked up to and women wanted to be close to, Ruby was forced to admit unwillingly. It wasn’t just that he was good-looking—many men were that. No, Sander had something else—something that was a mixture of an aura of power blended with raw male sexuality. She had sensed it as a naive teenager and been drawn to him because of it, and even now, when she was old enough and wise enough to know better, she still felt the pull of his sexual magnetism, its threat to suck her into treacherous waters.
A shiver that was almost a mocking caress stroked over her, making her hug her arms around her body to conceal the sudden unwanted peaking of her nipples. Not because of Sander, she assured herself. No, it was the cold from the open door that was causing her body’s sensitive reactions.
Sander’s brooding gaze swept over Ruby and rested momentarily on her breasts. Like a leashed cougar, the desire inside him surged against its restraint, leaping and clawing against its imprisonment, the force of its power straining the muscles he had locked against it.
These last couple of weeks he had spent more hours than he wanted to count wrestling with the ache for her that burned in his groin—possessed by it, driven by it, and half maddened by it in equal parts.
No woman had ever been allowed to control him through his desire for her, and for the space of a handful of seconds he was torn—tempted to listen to the inner voice that was warning him to walk away from her, from the desire that had erupted out of nowhere when he had kissed her. A desire like that couldn’t be controlled, it could only be appeased. Like some ancient mythical god it demanded sacrifice and self-immolation on its altar.
And then he saw the twins running towards him, and any thought of protecting himself vanished, overwhelmed by the surge of love that flooded him. He hunkered down and held out his arms to them.
Watching the small scene, Ruby felt her throat threaten to close up on a huge lump of emotion. A father with his sons, holding them, protecting them, loving them. There was nothing she would not risk to give her sons that, she acknowledged fiercely.
Holding his sons, Sander knew that there was nothing more important to him than they were—no matter how much he mistrusted their mother.
‘Mummy says that we can call you Daddy if we want to.’
That was Freddie, Sander recognised. He had always thought of himself as someone who could control and conceal his emotions, but right now they were definitely threatening to overwhelm him.
‘And do you want to?’ he asked them, his hold tightening.
‘Luke at school has a daddy. He bought him a new bicycle.’
He was being tested, Sander recognised, unable to stop
himself from looking towards Ruby.
‘Apparently Luke’s father also takes him to football matches and to McDonalds.’ She managed to answer Sander’s unspoken question.
Sander looked at the twins.
‘The bicycles are a maybe—once we’ve found bikes that are the right size for you—and the football is a definite yes. As for McDonalds—well, I think we should leave it to your mother to decide about that.’
Ruby was torn between relief and resentment. Anyone would think he’d been dealing with the twins from birth. He couldn’t have given them a better answer if she had scripted it herself.
‘Are you ready?’ Sander asked Ruby, in the cold, distant voice he always used when he spoke to her.
Ruby looked down at the jeans and loose-fitting sweater she was wearing, the jeans tucked into the boots her sister had given her for Christmas. No doubt Sander was more used to the company of stunning-looking women dressed in designer clothes and jewels—women who had probably spent hours primping and preening themselves to impress him. A small forlorn ache came from nowhere to pierce her heart. Pretty clothes, never mind designer clothes, were a luxury she simply couldn’t afford, and they would have been impractical for her life even if she could.
‘Yes, we’re ready. Boys, go and get your duffel coats,’ she instructed, turning back into the hall to get the case she had packed, and almost being knocked over by the twins as they rushed by.
It was Sander’s fingers closing round her arm that saved her from stumbling, but the shock of the physical contact with him froze her into immobility, making her feel far more in danger of losing her balance than the twins’ dash past her had done.
Her arm felt thin and frail, in direct contrast to the sturdiness of the twins’ limbs, he thought. And her face was pinched, as though she didn’t always get enough to eat. A question hovered inside his head…an awareness of deprivation that he pushed away from himself.