Marriage: To Claim His Twins (7 page)

Even so… He looked down into Ruby's face. Her
skin was paler than he remembered, but he had put that down to the fact that when he had first met her her face had been plastered in make-up, whilst now she wore none. Her cheekbones might be more pronounced, but her lips were still full and soft—the lips of sensual siren who knew just how to use her body to her own advantage. Sander had never been under any illusions as to why Ruby had approached him. He had heard her and her friend discussing the rich footballers they intended to target. Unable to find one, Ruby had obviously decided to target him instead.

Sander frowned, unwilling to contrast the frail vulnerability of the woman he was holding with the girl he remembered, and even more unwilling to allow himself to feel concern for her. Why should he care about her? He didn't. And yet as she struggled to pull free of him, her eyes huge in her fine boned face, a sudden gleam of March sunshine pierced the heavy grey of the late afternoon sky to reveal the perfection of her skin and stroke fingers of light through her blonde curls, Sander had sudden reluctance to let her go. In rejection of it he immediately released her.

It was the unexpected swiftness of her release after Sander's grip had seemed to be tightening on her that was causing her to feel so…confused, Ruby told herself, refusing to allow herself to use the betraying word
bereft
, which had tried to slip through her defences. Why should she feel bereft? She wanted to be free. Sander's hold had no appeal for her. She certainly hadn't spent the last six years longing to be back in his arms. Why should she,
when her last memory of them had been the biting pressure of his fingers in her flesh as he thrust her away from him in a gesture of angry contempt?

It had started to rain, causing Ruby to shiver and call the boys to them. It was no good her longing for the security of home, she told herself as they headed back to the hotel in the taxi Sander had flagged down, with the twins squashed in between them so that she didn't have to come into contact with him. She must focus on the future and all that it would hold for her sons. Their happiness was far more important to her than her own, and it was obvious to her how easily they were adapting to Sander's presence in their lives. An acceptance oiled by the promise of expensive toys, Ruby thought bitterly, knowing that her sons were too young for her to be able to explain to them that a parent's love wasn't always best shown though gifts and treats, and knowing too that it would be part of her future role to ensure that they were not spoiled by their father's wealth or blinded to the reality of other people's lives and struggles.

Once they were back in their suite, in the privacy of her bathroom, Ruby tried to take two of the painkiller tablets she had bought from the chemist's she had gone into on the pretext of needing some toothpaste. But her stomach heaved at the mere thought of attempting to swallow them, nausea overwhelming her.

Still feeling sick, and weakened by her pounding headache, as soon as the twins had had something to eat she bathed them and put them to bed.

They had only been asleep a few minutes when the
jeweller Sander had summoned arrived, removing a roll of cloth from his briefcase, after Sander had introduced him to Ruby and they had all sat down.

Placing the roll on the class coffee table, he unfolded it—and Ruby had to suppress a gasp of shock when she saw the glitter of the rings inside it.

They were all beautiful, but something made Ruby recoil from them. It seemed somehow shabby and wrong to think of wearing something so precious. A ring should represent love and commitment that were equally precious and enduring instead of the hollow emptiness her marriage would be.

‘You choose,' she told Sander emptily, not wanting to look at them.

Her lack of interest in the priceless gems glittering in front of her made Sander frown. His mother had loved jewellery. He could see her now, seated at her dressing table, dressed to go out for the evening, admiring the antique Cartier bangles glittering on her arms.

‘Your birth paid for these,' she had told him. ‘Your grandfather insisted that your father should only buy me one, so I had to remind him that I had given birth to his heir. Thank goodness you weren't a girl. Your grandfather is so mean that he would have seen to it that I got nothing if you had been. Remember when you are a man, Sander, that the more expensive the piece of jewellery you give a woman, the more willing she will be, and thus the more you can demand of her.' She had laughed then, pouting her glossy red lip-sticked lips at her own reflection and adding, ‘I
shouldn't really give away the secrets of my sex to you, should I?'

His beautiful, shallow, greedy mother—chosen as a bride for his father by his grandfather because of her aristocratic Greek ancestry, marrying his father because she hated her own family's poverty. When he had grown old enough to recognise the way in which his gentle academic father had been humiliated and treated with contempt by the father who had forced the marriage on him, and the wife who thought of him only as an open bank account, Sander had sworn he would never follow in his father's footsteps and allow the same thing to happen to him.

What was Ruby hoping for by pretending a lack of interest? Something more expensive? Angrily Sander looked at the rings, his hand hovering over the smallest solitaire he could see. His intention was to punish her by choosing it for her—until his attention was drawn to another ring close to it, its two perfect diamonds shimmering in the light.

Feeling too ill to care what kind of engagement ring she had, Ruby exhaled in relief when she saw Sander select one of the rings. All she wanted was for the whole distasteful charade to be over.

‘We'll have this one,' Sander told the jeweller abruptly, his voice harsh with the irritation he felt against himself for his own sentimentality.

It was the jeweller who handed the ring to Ruby, not Sander. She took it unwillingly, sliding the cold metal onto her finger, her eyes widening and her heart turning
over inside her chest as she looked at it properly for the first time. Two perfect diamonds nestled together on a slender band, slightly offset from one another and yet touching—twin diamonds for their twin sons. Her throat closed up, her gaze seeking Sander's despite her attempt to stop it doing so, her emotions clearly on display. But there was no answering warmth in Sander's eyes, only a cold hardness that froze her out.

‘An excellent choice,' the jeweller was saying. ‘Each stone weighs two carets, and they are a particularly good quality. And of course ethically mined, just as you requested,' he informed Sander.

His comment took Ruby by surprise. From what she knew of Sander she wouldn't have thought it would matter to him
how
the diamonds had been mined, but obviously it did. Meaning what? That she had misjudged him? Meaning nothing, Ruby told herself fiercely. She didn't want to revisit her opinion of Sander, never mind re-evaluate it. Why not? Because she was afraid that if she did so, if she allowed herself to see him in a different light, then she might become even more vulnerable to him than she already was? Emotionally vulnerable as well as sexually vulnerable? No, that must not happen.

Her panic increased her existing nausea, and it was a relief when the jeweller finally left. His departure was quickly followed by Sander's, to his business meeting.

Finally she could give in to her need to go and lie down—after she had checked on the twins, of course.

‘Y
OUR
hair is lovely and thick, but since it is so curly I think it would look better if we put a few different lengths into it.' Those had been the words of the salon's senior stylist when he had first come over to examine Ruby's hair. She had simply nodded her head, not really caring how he cut her hair. She was still feeling unwell, her head still aching, and she knew from experience that these headaches could last for two and even three days once they took hold, before finally lifting.

Now, though, as the stylist stepped back from the mirror and asked, ‘What do you think?' Ruby was forced to admit that she was almost lost for words over the difference his skill had made to her hair, transforming it from an untidy tumble of curls into a stunningly chic style that feathered against her face and swung softly onto her shoulders—the kind of style she had seen worn by several of the women taking tea at the hotel the previous afternoon, a deceptively simple style that breathed expense and elegance.

‘I…I love it,' she admitted wanly.

‘It's easy to maintain and will fall back into shape after you've washed it. You're lucky to have naturally blonde hair.'

Thanking him, Ruby allowed herself to be led away. At least she had managed to eat some dry toast this morning, and keep down a couple of the painkillers which had eased her head a little, thankfully.

Her next appointment was at the beauty spa, and when she caught other women giving her a second look as she made her way there she guessed that they must be querying the elegance of her new hairstyle set against the shabbiness of her clothes and her make-up-free face.

She hated admitting it, but it
was
true that first impressions counted, and that people—especially women—judged members of their own sex by their appearance. The last thing she wanted was for the twins to be embarrassed by a mother other women looked down on. Even young children were very perceptive and quick to notice such things.

The spa and beauty salon was ahead of her. Taking a deep breath, Ruby held her head high as she walked in.

 

Two hours later, when she walked out again with the personal shopper who had come to collect her and help her choose a new wardrobe, Ruby couldn't help giving quick, disbelieving glances into the mirrors she passed, still unable to totally believe that the young woman looking back at her really was her. Her nails were manicured and painted a fashionable dark shade, her eye
brows were trimmed, and her make-up was applied in such a subtle and delicate way that it barely looked as though she was wearing any at all. Yet at the same time her eyes looked larger and darker, her mouth fuller and softer, and her complexion so delicately perfect that Ruby couldn't take her eyes off the glowing face looking back at her. Although she would never admit it to Sander, her makeover had been fun once she had got over her initial discomfort at being fussed over and pampered. Now she felt like a young woman rather than an anxious mother.

‘I understand you want clothes suitable for living on a Greek island, rather than merely holidaying there, and that your life there will include various social and business engagements?' Without waiting for Ruby's answer the personal shopper continued. ‘Fortunately we have got some of our new season stock in as well as several designers' cruise collections, so I'm sure we shall be able to find everything you need. As for your wedding dress…'

Ruby's heart leapt inside her chest. Somehow she hadn't expected Sander to specify that she needed a wedding dress.

‘It's just a very quiet registry office ceremony,' she told the personal shopper.

‘But her wedding day and what she wore when she married the man she loves is still something that a woman always remembers,' the other woman insisted.

The personal shopper was only thinking of the store's profit, Ruby reminded herself. There was no real reason
for her to have such an emotional reaction to the words. After all, she didn't love Sander and he certainly didn't love her. What she wore was immaterial, since neither of them was likely to want to look back in future years to remember the day they married. Her thoughts had produced a hard painful lump in her throat and an unwanted ache inside her chest. Why? She was twenty-three years old and the mother of five-year-old sons. She had long ago abandoned any thoughts of romance and love and all that went with those things, dismissing them as the emotional equivalent of chocolate—sweet on the tongue for a very short time, highly addictive and dangerously habit-forming. Best avoided in favour of a sensible and sustaining emotional diet. Like the love she had for her sons and the bond she shared with her sisters. Those were emotions and commitments that would last for a lifetime, whilst from what she had seen and heard romantic love was a delusion.

 

The twins were fascinated by the exhibits in the Natural History Museum. They had happily held Sander's hand and pressed gratifyingly close to him for protection, calling him Daddy and showing every indication of being happy to be with him, so why did he feel so aware of Ruby's absence, somehow incomplete? It was for the boys' sake, Sander assured himself, because he was concerned that they might be missing their mother, nothing more.

 

Without quite knowing how it had happened, Ruby had acquired a far more extensive and expensive wardrobe
than she had wanted. Every time she had protested or objected the personal shopper had overruled her—politely and pleasantly, but nonetheless determinedly—insisting that her instructions were that Ruby must have a complete wardrobe that would cover a wide variety of situations. And of course the clothes were sinfully gorgeous—beautifully cut trousers and shorts in cream linen, with a matching waistcoat lined in the same silk as the unstructured shirt that went with them, soft flowing silk dresses, silk and cotton tops, formal fitted cocktail dresses, along with more casual but still frighteningly expensive ‘leisure and beach clothes', as the personal shopper had described them. There were also shoes for every occasion and each outfit, and underwear—scraps of silk and lace that Ruby had wanted to reject in favour of something far more sensible, but which somehow or other had been added to the growing rail of clothes described by the personal shopper as ‘must-haves'.

Now all that was left was the wedding dress, and the personal shopper was producing with a flourish a cream dress with a matching jacket telling Ruby proudly, ‘Vera Wang, from her new collection. Since the dress is short and beautifully tailored it is ideal for a registry office wedding, and of course you could wear it afterwards as a cocktail dress. It was actually ordered by another customer, but unfortunately when it came it was too small for her. I'm sure that it will fit you, and the way the fabric is pleated will suit your body shape.'

What she meant was that the waterfall of pleated
ruching that was a feature of the cream silk-satin dress would disguise how thin she was, Ruby suspected.

The dress was beautiful, elegant and feminine, and exactly the kind of dress that a woman would remember wearing on her wedding day—which was exactly why she didn't want to wear it. But the dresser was waiting expectantly.

It fitted her perfectly. Cut by a master hand, it shaped her body in a way that made her waist appear far narrower surely than it actually was, whilst somehow adding a feminine curvaceousness to her shape that made Ruby think she was looking at someone else in the mirror and not herself: the someone else she might have been if things had been different. If Sander had loved her?

Shakily Ruby shook her head and started to take the dress off, desperate to escape from the cruel reality of the image the mirror had thrown back at her. She could never be the woman she had seen in the mirror—a woman so loved by her man that she had the right to claim everything the dress offered her and promised him.

‘No. I don't want it,' she told the bewildered-looking personal shopper. ‘Please take it away. I'll wear something else.'

‘But it was perfect on you…'

Still Ruby shook her head.

She was in the changing room getting dressed when the personal shopper reappeared, carrying a warm-looking, casually styled off-white parka.

‘I nearly forgot,' she told Ruby, ‘your husband-to-be said that you had left your coat at home by accident and
that you needed something warm to wear whilst you are in London.'

Wordlessly Ruby took the parka from her. It was lined with soft checked wool, and well-made as well as stylish.

‘It's a new designer,' the shopper told her. ‘And a line that we're just trialling. She's Italian, trained by Prada.'

Ruby bent her head so that the personal shopper wouldn't see the emotion sheening her eyes. Sander might have protected her in public by pretending to believe that she had forgotten her coat, but in private he had humiliated her—because Ruby knew that he had guessed that she didn't really possess a winter coat, and that she had been shivering with cold yesterday when they had walked in the park.

 

Walking back to the hotel wrapped in her new parka, Ruby reflected miserably that beneath the new hairstyle and the pretty make-up she was still exactly what she had been beforehand—they couldn't change her, could not take away the burden of the guilt she still carried because of what she had once been. Expensive clothes were only a pretence—just like her marriage to Sander would be.

For her. Yes, but not for the twins. They must never know how she felt. The last thing she wanted was for them to grow up feeling that she had sacrificed herself for them. They must believe that she was happy.

She had intended to go straight to the suite, but the assessing look a woman in the lobby gave her, before smiling slightly to herself, as though she was satisfied that Ruby couldn't compete with her, stung her pride
enough to have her changing her mind and heading for the lounge instead.

A well-trained waitress showed her to a small table right at the front of the lounge. Ruby would have preferred to have hidden herself away in a dark corner, her brief surge of defiance having retreated leaving her feeling self-conscious and very alone. She wasn't used to being on her own. Normally when she went out she had the twins with her, or one of her sisters.

When the waitress came to take her order Ruby asked for tea. She hadn't eaten anything all day but she wasn't hungry. She was too on edge for that.

The lounge was filling up. Several very smart-looking women were coming in, followed by a group of businessmen in suits, one of whom gave her such a deliberate look followed by a warm smile that Ruby felt her face beginning to burn.

She was just about to pour herself a cup of tea when she saw the twins hurrying towards her followed by Sander. His hair, like the twins', was damp, as though he had just stepped out of the shower. Her heart lurched into her ribs. Her hand had started to tremble so badly that she had to put down the teapot. The twins were clamouring to tell her about their day, but even though she tried desperately to focus on them her gaze remained riveted to Sander, who had now stopped walking and was looking at her.

It wasn't her changed appearance that had brought him to an abrupt halt, though.

In Sander's eyes the new hairstyle and pretty make-
up were merely window-dressing that highlighted what he already knew and what had been confirmed to him when Ruby had opened the door of her home to him a few days earlier—namely that the delicacy of her features possessed a rare beauty.

No, what had caused him to stop dead almost in mid-stride was the sense of male pride the sight of the trio in front of him brought. His sons and their mother. Not just his sons, but the
three
of them. They went together, belonged together—belonged to him? Sander shook his head, trying to dispel his atavistic and unfamiliar reactions with regard to Ruby, both angered by them and wanting to reject them. They were so astonishingly the opposite of what he wanted to feel. What was happening to him?

Her transformation passed him by other than the fact that he noticed the way she was wearing her hair revealed the slender column of her throat and that her face had a bit more colour in it.

Ruby, already self-conscious about the changes to her appearance, held her breath, waiting for Sander to make some comment. After all the sight of her had brought him to a halt. But when he reached the table he simply frowned and demanded to know why she hadn't ordered something to eat.

‘Because all I wanted was a cup of tea,' she answered him. Didn't he like her new haircut? Was that why he was looking so grim? Well, she certainly wasn't going to ask him if he approved of the change. She turned to the boys, asking them, ‘Did you like the Natural History Museum?'

‘Yes,' Harry confirmed. ‘And then Daddy took us swimming.'

Swimming? Ruby directed a concerned look at Sander.

‘There's a pool here in the hotel,' he explained. ‘Since the boys will be living on an island, I wanted to make sure that they can swim.'

‘Daddy bought us new swimming trunks,' Freddie told her.

‘There should be two adults with them when they go in a pool,' Ruby couldn't stop herself from saying. ‘A child can drown in seconds and—'

‘There was a lifeguard on duty.' Sander stopped her. ‘They're both naturals in the water, but that will be in their genes. My brother swam for Greece as a junior.'

‘Mummy's hair is different,' Harry suddenly announced.

Self-consciousness crawled along her spine. Now surely Sander must say something about her transformation, give at least some hint of approval since he was the one who had orchestrated her makeover, but instead he merely stated almost indifferently, ‘I hope you got everything you are going to need, as there won't be time for any more shopping. As I said, I've arranged for us to fly to the island the day after the marriage ceremony.'

Ruby nodded her head. It was silly of her to feel disappointed because Sander hadn't said anything about her new look. Silly or dangerous? His approval or lack of it shouldn't mean anything to her at all.