by Penny Jordan
Inside his head Sander could hear his grandfather’s raised voice, see the fist he had smashed down onto his desk in his rage that Sander should defy him.
Sander moved restlessly in his computer chair. It was too late now to regret allowing himself to recall that final argument with his grandfather and the events that had followed it. Far too late. Because the past was here with him, invading his present and filling it with unwanted memories, and he was back in that Manchester hotel room, watching Ruby sleep curled up against him.
His mobile had started to ring in the grey light of the dawn. She had protested in her sleep as he’d moved away from her but she hadn’t woken up.
The call had been from Anna, her anxiety and shock reaching him across the miles as she told him that she had found his grandfather collapsed on the floor of his office and that he was on his way to hospital.
Sander had moved as quickly as he could, waking Ruby and telling her brusquely that he wanted her out of his bed, his room and the hotel, using her yet again as a means of expelling the mingled guilt and anger the phone call had brought him.
She had looked shocked and uncomprehending, he remembered, no doubt having hoped for rather more from him than a few brief hours in bed. Then tears had welled up in her eyes and she had tried to cling to him. Irritated that she wasn’t playing by the rules, he had thrust her off, reaching into his jacket pocket for his wallet and removing several crisp fifty-pound notes from it. It had increased his irritation when she had started to play the drama queen, backing off from him, shaking her head, looking at him as though he had stamped on a kitten, not offered her a very generous payment for her services.
His terse, ‘Get dressed—unless you want the hotel staff to evict you as you are,’ had had the desired effect. But even so he had escorted her downstairs and out to the taxi rank outside the hotel himself, putting her into a cab and then watching to make sure that she had actually left before completing his arrangements to get home.
As it turned out his grandfather had died within minutes of reaching the hospital, from a second major heart attack.
In his office Sander had found the document his grandfather had obviously been working on before he collapsed, and had seen that it was a notice to the papers stating that Sander was on the point of announcing his engagement. His guilt had evaporated. His guilt but not his anger. And yet despite everything Sander had still mourned him. Evidence of the same weakness that was undermining him now with regard to Ruby. A leopard did not change its spots just because someone was foolish enough to want it to do so.
After his grandfather’s death Sandra had renewed his vow to himself to remain single.
How fate must have been laughing at him then, knowing that the seeds of his own destiny had already been sown and had taken root.
He turned back to the computer, but it was no use. Once opened, the door to his memories of that fateful night with Ruby could not be closed.
The hotel bedroom, with its dark furniture, had been shadowed and silent, the heavy drapes deadening the sound of the traffic outside and yet somehow at the same time emphasising the unsteadiness of Ruby’s breathing—small, shallow breaths that had lifted her breasts against her tight, low-cut top. The light from the standard lamp—switched on when the bed had been turned down for the night—had outlined the prominence of her nipples. When she had seen him looking at them she had lifted her hands towards her breasts, as though to protect them from his gaze. He could remember how that simple action had intensified his anger at her denial of everything she was about, infuriating him in the same way that his grandfather had. The raging argument he’d had with his grandfather earlier that day had still been fresh in his mind. The two angers had met and joined together, doubling the intensity of his fury, driving him with a ferocious and overpowering need to possess her.
He had gone to her and pulled down her hands. Her body had trembled slightly in his hold. Had he hesitated then, trying to check the raging torrent within him, or did he just want to think that he had? The image he was creating of himself was that of a man out of control, unable to halt the force of his own emotions. In another man it would have filled him with distaste. But Ruby, he remembered, had stepped closer to him, not away from him, and it had been then that he had removed her top, taking with it her bra, leaving her breasts exposed. His actions had been instinctive, born of rage rather than desire, but somehow the sight of her nakedness, her breasts so perfectly shaped, had transmuted that rage into an equally intense surge of need—to touch them and caress them, to possess the flaunting sensuality of their tip tilted temptation.
They had both drawn in a breath, as though sharing the same thoughts and the same desire, and the tension of that desire had stretched their self-control until the air around them had almost thrummed with the vibration of it. Then Ruby had made a small sound in the back of her throat, and as though it had been some kind of signal to his senses his self-control had snapped. He had reached for her, no words needed as he’d kissed her, feeling her tremble in his arms as he probed the softly closed line of her lips. She had deliberately kept them closed in order to torment him. But two could play that game, and so, instead of forcing them to give way, he had tormented them into doing so, with soft, deliberately brief kisses, until Ruby had reached for the back of his neck, her fingers curling into his hair, and whimpered with protesting need against his mouth.
Sander closed his eyes and opened them again as he recalled the surge of male triumph that had seized him then and the passion it had carried with it—a feeling he had never experienced either before Ruby or after her, surely originating from his anger against his grandfather and nothing else. Certainly not from some special effect that only Ruby could have on his senses. The very thought of that was enough to have him shifting angrily in his seat. No woman would ever be allowed to have that kind of power over him. Because he feared what might happen to him once he allowed himself to want a woman with that kind of intensity?
Better to return to his memories than to pursue that train of thought, Sander decided.
As they had kissed he had been able to feel Ruby’s naked breasts pressed up against him. He had slipped his hands between their bodies, forcing her slightly away from him so that he could cup the soft weight of them. Just remembering that moment now was enough to bring back an unwanted echo of the sensation of his own desire, roaring through his body as an unstoppable force. It hadn’t been enough to flick his tongue-tip against each hardened nipple and feel it quivering under its soft lash. Nothing had been enough until he had drawn the swollen flesh into his mouth, enticing its increased response with the delicate grate of his teeth.
He had heard Ruby cry out and felt her shudder. His hands had been swift to dispose of her skirt so that he could slide his hands into her unexpectedly respectable plain white knickers, to hold and knead the soft flesh of her buttocks. Swollen and stiff with the ferocity of his anger-induced arousal, he had lifted her onto the bed, plundering the softness of her plum painted mouth in between removing his own clothes, driven by the heat of his frustration against his grandfather, not caring about the girl whose body was underneath him, only knowing that within it he could find release.
Ruby had wrapped her arms round him whilst he had plundered her mouth, burying her face in his shoulder once he was naked, pretending to be too shy to look at him, never mind touch him. But he hadn’t been interested in playing games. To him she had simply been a means to an end. And as for her touching him… Sander tensed his muscles against his remembered awareness of exactly what her intimate touch on him would have precipitated. His body had been in no mood to wait and in no condition to need stimulus or further arousal. That alone was something he would have claimed impossible prior to that night. No other situation had ever driven him to such a peak of erotic immediacy.
No other situation or no other woman? Grimly Sander tried to block the unwanted question. His subconscious had no business raising such an unnecessary suggestion.
He didn’t want to probe any further into the past. But even though he pulled the laptop back towards himself and opened his e-mails, he still couldn’t concentrate on them. His mind was refusing to co-operate, returning instead to its memories. Against his will more old images Ruby began to surface, refusing to be ignored. He was back in that hotel bedroom in Manchester. Sander closed his eyes and gave in.
In the dim light Ruby’s body had been alabaster-pale, her skin flawless and her body delicately female. The lamplight had thrown a shadow from the soft mound of flesh covered by her knickers, which he had swiftly removed. That, he remembered, had caused him to glance up at the tangled mass of hair surrounding her face, surprised to discover that the colour of her hair was natural. Somehow the fact that she was naturally blonde didn’t go with the image she had created, with her thick make-up and tight, clinging clothes.
She had met his look and then looked away, the colour coming and going in her face as her glance rested on his body and then skittered away.
If her naturally blonde hair had been at odds with his assessment of her, then her breathy voice, unsteady and on the verge of awed apprehension, had been enough to fill him with contempt.
‘You look very big,’ she had delivered, within a heartbeat of her glance skittering away from his erection.
Had she really thought him both foolish and vain enough to be taken in by a ploy like that? If so he had made sure that she knew that he wasn’t by taunting her deliberately, parting her legs with his hand.
‘But not bigger than any of the others, I’m sure.’
She had said something—a few gasped words—but he hadn’t been listening by then. He had been too busy exploring the wet eagerness of her sex, stroking his fingertip its length until he reached the hard pulse of her clitoris, and by that stage she had begun to move against his touch and moan softly at the same time, in a rising crescendo of excitement.
He had told himself that her supposed arousal was almost bound to be partly faked but unexpectedly his body had responded to it as though it was real. It had increased his own urgency, so that he had replaced his fingers with the deliberate thrust of his sex. She had tensed then, looking up at him with widened dark eyes that had filled with fake tears when he had thrust properly into her, urged by the wanton tightness of her muscles as they clung to him, as though wanting to hold and possess him. Their resistance had incited him to drive deeper and deeper into her, just for the pleasure of feeling their velvet clasp. He had come quickly and hotly, his lack of control catching him off-guard, her body tightening around him as he pulsed into her.
Sander wrenched his thoughts back to the present. What had happened with Ruby was not an interlude in his life or an aspect of himself that reflected well on him, he was forced to admit. In fact part of the reason he had chosen to lock these memories away in the first place had been because of his sense of angry distaste. Like something rotten, they carried with them the mental equivalent of a bad odour that couldn’t be ignored or masked. If he judged Ruby harshly for her part in their encounter, then he judged himself even more harshly—especially now that he knew the consequences of those few out of control seconds of raw male sensuality.
It was because he didn’t like the fact that his sons had been conceived in such a way that he was experiencing the regrets he was having now, Sander told himself. He owed them a better beginning to their life than that.
What was it that was gnawing at him now? Regret because his sons had been conceived so carelessly, so uncaringly, and in anger? Or something more than that? Regret that he hadn’t taken more time to—? To what? To get to know the mother of his sons better or to think of the consequences of his actions? Because deep down inside he felt guilty about the way he had treated Ruby? She had only been seventeen after all.
He hadn’t known that then, Sander defended himself. He had assumed she was much older. And if he had known…?
Sander stood up and paced the floor of his office, stopping abruptly as he relived how, virtually as soon as he had released her, Ruby had gone to the bathroom. He had turned on his side, ignoring her absence, even then aware of how far his behaviour had fallen short of his own normal high standards. But even though he had wanted to blot out the reality of the situation, and Ruby herself, he had still somehow been unable to stop listening to the sound of the shower running and then ceasing, had been aware against his will of her return to the bed, her skin cold and slightly damp as she pressed up against his back, shivering slightly. He had had no need for intimacy with her any more. She had served her purpose, and he preferred sleeping alone. And yet for some reason, despite all of that, he had turned over and taken her in his arms, feeling her body stiffen and then relax as he held her.
She had fallen asleep with her head on his chest, murmuring in protest in her sleep every time he tried to ease away from her, so that he had spent the night with her cuddled up against him. And wasn’t it true that somehow she had done something to him during those night hours? Impressed herself against his body and his senses so that once in a while over the years that had followed he would wake up from a deep sleep, expecting to find her there lying against him and feeling as though a part of him was missing because she wasn’t?
How long had he fought off that admission, denying its existence, pretending to himself that since he had returned to the island this time his sleep had never once been disturbed by that aching absence? He moved impatiently towards the window, opening it to breathe in fresh air in an attempt to clear his head.
What had brought all this on? Surely not a simple comment from Anna that she considered Ruby to be a good mother. A good mother and a good wife, he reminded himself.
His mobile had started to ring. He reached for it, frowning when he saw his sister’s name flash up on the screen.
‘Sander, we’ve been back from America nearly a week now. When are you going to bring Ruby to Athens so that I can meet her?’
Elena liked to talk, and it was several minutes before Sander could end the call, having agreed that, since he was due to pay one of his regular visits to the Athens office anyway, he would take Ruby with him so that she and Elena could meet.
CHAPTER TEN
SHE had better find out for sure that she was pregnant, and if so tell Sander. She couldn’t put it off much longer, Ruby warned herself. She wasn’t the only one to blame after all. It took two, and she had taken her birth control pills.
She had also been unwell, she reminded herself, and in the anxiety and despair of everything that had been happening in London she had forgotten that that could undermine the effectiveness of the pills. Surely Sander would be able to understand that? But what if he didn’t? What if he accused her of deliberately flouting his wishes? But what possible reason could she logically have for doing that? He was a successful, intelligent businessman. He would be bound to recognise that there was no logical reason for her to deliberately allow herself to become pregnant. He might be a successful, intelligent businessman, but he had also been a child whose mother had betrayed him. Would that have any bearing on the fact that she was pregnant? On the face of it, no—but Ruby had an instinctive feeling that it might.
She would tell him tonight, Ruby promised herself, once the boys were in bed.
Her mind made up, Ruby was just starting to relax when Sander himself appeared, striding from the house onto the patio area, quite plainly in search of her. Her heart somersaulted with guilt. Had he somehow guessed? At least if he had then her pregnancy would be out in the open and they could discuss it rationally. It was only when he told her that his sister had been on the phone, and that they would be leaving for Athens in morning and staying there for the night, that Ruby realised, cravenly, that a part of her had actually hoped that he had guessed, and that she would be spared the responsibility of telling him that she had once again conceived.
Since he hadn’t guessed, though, it was sensible, surely, to wait until they returned from Athens to tell him? That way they would have
more time to discuss the issue properly. He would be angry, she knew that, but she was clinging to the knowledge that he loved the twins, and using that knowledge to reassure herself that, angry though he would no doubt be with her, he would love this new baby as well.
‘I’ve got a small apartment in Athens that I use when I’m there on business. We’ll stay there. The twins will be safe and well looked after here, with Anna.’
‘Leave them behind?’ Ruby checked. ‘They haven’t spent a single night without me since they were born.’
Her anxious declaration couldn’t possibly be fake, Sander recognised. It had been too immediate and automatic for that. He tried to imagine his own mother refusing a trip to a cosmopolitan city filled with expensive designer shops to stay with her children, and acknowledged that it would never have happened. His mother had hated living on the island, had visited it as infrequently as she could, and he himself had been sent to boarding school in England as soon as he had reached his seventh birthday.
‘Elena will want to spend time with you, and I have business matters to attend to. The boys will be far happier here on the island in Anna’s care than they would be in a city like Athens.’
When Ruby bit her lip, her eyes still shadowed, he continued, ‘I can assure you that you can trust Anna to look after them properly. If I did not believe that myself, there would be no question of us leaving them.’
Immediately Ruby’s gaze cleared.
‘Oh, I know I can trust your judgement when it comes to their welfare. I know how much you love them.’
Her immediate and open admission that she accepted not only his judgement for their sons but with it his right to make such a judgement was having the most extraordinary effect on him, Sander realised. Like bright sunlight piercing a hitherto dark and impenetrable black cloud. He was bemused and dazzled by the sudden surge of pleasure her words gave him—the feeling that they were united, and that she…that she trusted him, Sander recognised. Ruby trusted him to make the right decision for their sons. A surge of unfamiliar emotion swamped him, and he had an alien and overpowering urge to take her in his arms and hold her tight. He took a step towards her, and then stopped as his need to protect himself cut in.