by Penny Jordan
Although he was standing behind her she could still smell the scent of his cologne, and feel the warmth coming off his body. Inside her head an image formed of the way he had kissed her such a short time ago. Panic and fear clawed at her stomach, adding to her existing tension. She saw Sander’s gaze drop to her mouth and her whole body began to tremble.
It would be so easy to give in to the desire clawing at him—so easy to take her as quickly and wantonly as the way she was offering herself to him. His body wanted that. It wanted the heat of her eager muscles wrapped greedily round it, riding his deepening thrusts. It wanted the swift, savage release her body promised.
It might, but did he really want the kind of cheap, tawdry thrill a woman like her peddled—had been peddling the night they had met?
Ruby’s small anguished moan as she pulled free of him brought him back to reality.
‘Is this your only case?’ he demanded, looking away from her to the shabby case on the hall floor.
Ruby nodded her head, and Sander’s mouth twisted with contempt. Of course she would want to underline her poverty to him. Marriage to him was her access to a brand new bank account, filled with money. No doubt she was already planning her first spending spree. He remembered how much delight his mother had always taken in spending his father’s money, buying herself couture clothes and expensive jewellery. As a child he’d thought her so beautiful, too dazzled by her glamorous exterior to recognise the corruption that it concealed.
Sander was tempted to ignore the hint Ruby was plainly intending to give him and let her travel to the island with the single shabby case, but that would mean punishing his sons as well as her, he suspected—and besides, he had no wish to make his marriage the subject of speculation and gossip, which it would be if Ruby didn’t have a wardrobe commensurate with his own wealth and position.
‘Our marriage will take place this Friday,’ he told her. ‘On Saturday we fly to the island. You’ve done as I instructed with regard to the birth control pill, I trust?’
‘Yes,’ Ruby confirmed.
‘Can you prove it?’
Ruby was outraged that he should doubt her, but scorched pride had her fumbling angrily with the clasp of her handbag, both her hands shaking with the force of her emotions as she delved into her bag and produced the foil-backed pack of pills, quite plainly showing the empty spaces from the pills she had already taken.
If she had hoped to shame Sander into an apology she soon recognised that one would not be forthcoming. A curt nod of his head was the only response he seemed willing to give her before he continued cynically,
‘And, having fulfilled your obligation, you now expect me to fulfil what you no doubt consider to be mine, I expect? To furnish you with the wherewithal to replace your single suitcase with a full set of new ones and clothes with which to fill them.’
The open cynicism in his voice burned Ruby’s already scorched pride like salt poured into an open wound. ‘Your only obligation to me is to be a good father to the twins.’
‘No,’ he corrected her coldly, ‘that is my obligation to them.’ He didn’t like her response. It wasn’t the one he had expected. It didn’t match the profile he had mentally drawn up for her. Somehow she had managed to stray from the script he had written. The one in which she revealed herself to be an unworthy mother, leaving him holding the high ground and the moral right to continue to despise her. ‘There is no need to be self-sacrificing.’ Her resistance to the role he had cast for her made him feel all the more determined to prove himself right. ‘As my wife, naturally you must present an appropriate appearance—although I must caution you against buying clothes of the type you were wearing the night you propositioned me. It is the role of my wife you will be playing in future. Not the role of a whore.’
Ruby had no words to refute his contemptuous insult, but she wasn’t going to accept his charity. ‘We already have plenty of clothes. We don’t need any more,’ she insisted vehemently.
She was daring to try to reject what he knew to be the truth about her. She must be taught a lesson that would ensure that she did not do so again. She would wear clothes bought with his money, so that they would both know just what she was. He might be forced to marry her in order to be able to lay legal claim to his sons, but he wasn’t going to let her forget that she belonged to that group of women all too willing to sell their bodies to any man rich enough to provide them with the lifestyle of designer clothes and easy money they craved.
‘Plenty of clothes?’ he taunted her. ‘In one case? When there are three of you? My sons and my wife will be dressed in a manner appropriate to their station in life, and not—’
‘Not what?’ Ruby challenged him.
‘Do you really need me to answer that question?’ was his silkily derisory response.
The shabby case was in the boot of a very expensive and luxurious-looking car, the twins were safely strapped into their seats, her decision had already been made—and yet now that it came to it Ruby wavered on the front doorstep, looking back into the house.
‘Where’s your coat?’
Sander’s question distracted her.
‘I don’t need one,’ she fibbed. The truth was that she didn’t have a proper winter coat, but she wasn’t going to tell Sander that—not after what he’d already said. He was waiting, holding the car door open for her. Shivering in the easterly March wind, Ruby locked the front door. Her head pounding painfully, she got into the car. Its interior smelled of expensive leather, very different from the smell inside the taxi that had transported them back to Sander’s hotel that fateful night…
Her mouth went dry.
The twins were both engrossed in the TVs installed in the back of the front seats. Sander was concentrating on his driving. Now wasn’t the time to think about that night, she told herself. But it was too late. The memories were already storming her defences and flooding over them.
Her parents’ death in an accident had been a terrible shock, followed by her sister’s decision to sell their family home. Ruby hadn’t realised then that their parents had died heavily in debt. Her oldest sister had tried to protect her by not telling her, and so she had assumed that her decision to sell the house was motivated by the decision to set up her own interior design business in Cheshire. Angry with her sister, she had deliberately chosen to befriend a girl new to the area, knowing that her sister disapproved of the freedom Tracy’s parents allowed her, and of Tracy herself. Although she was only eighteen months older than Ruby, Tracy had been far more worldly, dressing in tight-fitting clothes in the latest and skimpiest fashions, her hair dyed blonde and her face heavily made-up.
Secretly, although she hadn’t been prepared to admit it—especially not to her older sister—Ruby had been shocked by some of the disclosures Tracy had made about the things she had done. Tracy’s goal in life was to get a footballer boyfriend. She had heard that young footballers in Manchester patronised a certain club in the city, and had asked Ruby to go there with her.
Alarmed by Tracy’s disclosures, Ruby hadn’t really wanted to go. But when she had tried to say so, telling Tracy that she doubted her sister would give her permission, Tracy had mocked her and accused her of being a baby who needed her sister’s permission for everything she did. Of course Ruby had denied that she was any such thing, whereupon Tracy had challenged her to prove it by daring her to go with her.
She had been just seventeen, and a very naive seventeen at that, with her whole world turned upside down by events over which she’d had no control. But no matter how often both her sisters had reassured her since then that her rebellion had been completely natural, understandable, and that she was not to blame for what had happened, Ruby knew that deep down inside she would always feel guilty.
Before they’d left for Manchester Tracy had promised Ruby a ‘makeover’ and poured them both a glass of vodka and orange juice. It had gone straight to Ruby’s head as she had never drunk alcohol. The drink had left her feeling so ligh
t-headed that she hadn’t protested or objected when Tracy had insisted that Ruby change into one of her own short skirts and a tight-fitting top, before making up Ruby’s face in a similar style to her own, with dark eyeliner, heavy thick mascara loaded on her eyelashes and lots of deep pink lipgloss.
The girl staring back at Ruby from the mirror, with her tousled hair and her pink pout had been so unrecognisable as herself that under the effect of the vodka and orange Ruby had only been able to stare at her reflection in dizzy astonishment.
She might only have been seventeen, but she had known even before she had watched Tracy sweet talking the bouncer into letting them into the club that neither her parents nor her sisters would have approved of her being there, but by then she had been too afraid of Tracy’s mockery and contempt to tell her that she had changed her mind and wanted to go home.
She’d watched other girls going in—older girls than her, dressed up to the nines in tiny little tops and skirts that revealed dark sunbed tans—and she’d known instinctively and immediately that she would feel out of place.
Inside, the club had been hot and stuffy, packed with girls with the same goal in mind as Tracy.
Several young men had come up to them as they’d stood close to the bar. Tracy had refused Ruby’s suggestion that they sit down at a tucked-away table with a derisory, ‘Don’t be daft—no one will see us if we do that.’ But Tracy had shaken her head, ignoring the boys and telling Ruby, ‘They’re nothing. Just ordinary lads out on the pull.’
She’d bought them both drinks—cocktails which had seemed innocuous when Ruby sipped thirstily at hers, because of the heat in the club, but which had quickly made her feel even more dizzy and disorientated than the vodka and orange juice had done.
The club had been packed and noisy, and Ruby’s head had begun to ache. She had felt alien and alone, with the alcohol heightening her emotions: bringing home to her the reality of her parents’ death, bringing to a head all the despair and misery she had been feeling.
Tracy had started talking to a young man, deliberately excluding Ruby from their conversation and keeping her back to her.
Suddenly and achingly Ruby had longed for the security of the home life she had lost—of knowing that there was someone in her life to take care of her and protect her, someone who loved her, instead of getting cross with her like her elder sister did. And that had been when she had looked across the bar and seen Sander.
Something about him had set him apart from the other men in the bar. For a start he’d been far more smartly dressed, in a suit, with his dark hair groomed, and an air of command and power and certainty had emanated from him that Ruby’s insecure senses immediately recognised and were drawn to… In her alcohol-induced state, Sander had looked like an island of security and safety in a sea of confusion and misery. She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him, and when he had looked back at her, her mouth had gone so dry with the anticipation of speaking to him that she had had to wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. The way that Sander’s gaze had followed that movement, showing her that he was singling her out from all the other girls in the bar, had reinforced Ruby’s cocktail-produced belief that there was a link between them—that he was drawing her to him, that they were meant to meet, and that somehow once she was close to him she would be safe, and he would save her from her own fears and protect her just as her parents had done.
She had no memory of actually going to him, only of reaching him, feeling like a swimmer who had crested turbulent waves to reach the security of a calm sea where she could float safely. When she had smiled up at Sander she had felt as though she already knew him. But of course she hadn’t. She hadn’t known anything, Ruby reflected bitterly now, as she dragged her thoughts away from the past and massaged her throbbing temple as Sander drove onto the motorway slip road and the car picked up speed.
CHAPTER FOUR
SANDER had booked them into the Carlton Towers Hotel, just off Sloane Street. They had an enormous suite of three bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and a good-sized sitting room as well.
Ruby had felt dreadfully out of place as they’d walked through the downstairs lobby, compared with the elegantly groomed women surrounded by expensive-looking shopping bags who were having afternoon tea in the lounge. But she had soon forgotten them once they had been shown into their suite and she had realised that Sander would be staying in the suite with them.
Her heart was beating far too fast, her whole body suddenly charged and sensitised, so that she was far too aware of Sander. His presence in the room, even though there were several feet between them and he was fully dressed, somehow had the same effect on her body as though he was standing close to her and touching her. The sound of his voice made her think she could almost feel the warmth of his breath on her skin. Her body was starting to react even to her thoughts, tiny darts of sensation heightening her awareness of him.
He raised his hand, gesturing towards the bedrooms as he told her, ‘I’ve asked for one of the rooms to be made up with twin beds for the boys.’
Inside her head she could feel that hand cupping her breast. Beneath her clothes her breasts swelled and ached whilst she tried desperately to stifle her body’s arousal. Why was this happening to her? She’d lived happily without sex for nearly six years. Why was her body reacting like this now?
It was just reacting to memory, that was all. Her desire for Sander, like that memory, belonged to the past and had no place in the present. Ruby tried to convince herself, but she knew that it wasn’t true. The fact that he could arouse her to intense desire for him was something she didn’t want to think about. Her stomach was churning, adding to the feeling of nausea already being produced by her headache. She had actually been sick when they had stopped for a break at a motorway service station, and had had to purchase a travel pack of toothbrush and toothpaste to refresh her mouth. Now all she really wanted to do was lie down in a dark room, but of course that was impossible.
‘You and I will occupy the other two rooms, of course,’ Sander was saying. ‘I expect that you will wish to have the room closest to the boys?’
‘I could have shared a room with them,’ was Ruby’s response. Because sharing with the boys would surely prevent any more of those unwanted memories from surfacing? ‘There was no need for you to book three rooms.’
‘If I had only booked two the hotel would have assumed you would be sharing my bed, not sleeping with the twins,’ was Sander’s response.
Immediately another image flashed through her head: two naked bodies entwined on a large bed, the man’s hands holding and caressing the woman, whilst her head was thrown back in wild ecstasy. Sander’s hands and her head. Heat filled her body. Her own mental images were making her panic. What she was experiencing was probably caused by the same kind of thing that caused the victims of dreadful trauma to have flashbacks they couldn’t control, she told herself. They meant nothing other than that Sander’s unexpected and unwanted reappearance in her life was causing her to remember the event that had had such a dramatic effect on her life.
To her relief the twins, who had been inspecting the suite, came rushing into the sitting room. Harry ran over to her to inform her, ‘Guess what? There’s a TV in our bedroom, and—’
‘A TV which will remain switched off whilst you are in bed,’ Ruby told him firmly, relieved to be able to return to the familiar role of motherhood. ‘You know the rules.’ She was very strict about limiting the boys’ television viewing, preferring them to make their own entertainment.
Sander’s comment about the rooms had penetrated her mind and was still lodged there—a small, unnerving time bomb of a comment that was having an effect on her that was out of all proportion to its reality. The sound of Sander saying ‘my bed’ had made her heart jerk around inside her chest as though it was on a string—and why? She had no desire to share that bed with him; he meant nothing to her now. It was merely the result of only ever having had one sexual partner and bei
ng sexually inexperienced. It had left her reacting to a man saying the words ‘my bed’ as though she were a teenager, blushing at every mention of anything remotely connected to sex, Ruby derided herself.
‘I thought we’d use the rest of the afternoon to get the boys kitted out with the clothes they’ll need for the island. We can walk to Harrods from here, or get a cab if you wish.’
The last thing Ruby felt like doing was shopping, but she was determined not to show any weakness. Sander would only accuse of being a bad mother if she did.
Hopefully she might see a chemist, where she could get something for her headache. It had been so long since she had last had one of these debilitating attacks that she didn’t have anything she could take for it. Determinedly trying to ignore her continuing feeling of nausea, she nodded her head, and then winced as the pain increased.
‘The boys will need summer clothes,’ Sander told her. ‘Even in March the temperature on the island can be as high as twenty-two degrees centigrade, and it rises to well over thirty in the summer.’
Two hours later Ruby was battling between angry frustration at the way in which Sander had overruled all her attempts to minimise the amount of money he was spending by choosing the cheapest items she could find and a mother’s natural pride in her sons, who had drawn smiles of approval from the assistants with their appearance in their new clothes: smart, boyish separates from the summer ranges that had just come in, and in which Ruby had to admit they looked adorable.
As a reward for their good behaviour Sander had insisted on taking them to the toy department, where he’d bought them both complicated-looking state-of-the-art boys’ toys that had them both speechless with delight.
The whole time they had been shopping with the boys Ruby had been conscious of the admiring looks Sander had attracted from other women—women who no doubt would have been only too delighted to be marrying him in two days’ time, Ruby acknowledged, and her heart gave a flurry of tense beats in response to her thoughts.