Marriage: To Claim His Twins (5 page)

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.

R
UBY'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, she 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 cer
tainly 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.

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.