Marriage: To Claim His Twins (8 page)

The boys would be hungry, and she was tired. She was their mother, though, and it was far more important
that she focused on her maternal responsibilities rather than worrying about Sander's approval or lack of it.

‘I'll take the boys up to the suite and organise a meal for them,' she told Sander.

‘Good idea. I've got some ends to tie up with the Embassy,' he said brusquely, with a brief nod of his head.

‘What about dinner?' Ruby's mouth had gone dry, and the silence that greeted her question made her feel she had committed as much of a
faux pas
as if she'd asked him to go to bed with her.

Feeling hot and angry with herself for inadvertently giving Sander the impression that she wanted to have dinner with him, she swallowed against the dry feeling in her mouth.

Why had Ruby's simple question brought back that atavistic feeling he had had earlier? Sander asked himself angrily. For a moment he let himself imagine the two of them having dinner together. The two of them? Surely he meant the four of them—for it was because of the twins and only because of them that he had decided to allow her back into his life. Sander knew better than to allow himself to be tricked by female emotions, be they maternal or sexual. As he had good cause to know, those emotions could be summoned out of nowhere and disappear back there just as quickly.

‘I've already arranged to have dinner with an old friend,' he lied. ‘I don't know what time I'll be back.'

 

An old friend, Sander had said. Did that mean he was having dinner with another woman? A lover, perhaps?
Ruby wondered later, after the boys had eaten their tea and she had forced herself to eat something with them. She knew so little about Sander's life and the people in it. A feeling of panic began to grow inside her.

‘Mummy, come and look at our island,' Freddie was demanding, standing in front of a laptop that he was trying to open.

‘No, Freddie, you mustn't touch that,' Ruby protested,

‘It's all right, Mummy,' Harry assured her adopting a heartbreakingly familiar pose of male confidence. ‘Daddy said that we could look.'

Freddie had got the laptop lid up—like all children, the twins were very at home with modern technology—and before Ruby could say anything the screen was filled with the image of an almost crescent shaped island, with what looked like a range of rugged mountains running the full length of its spine.

In the early days, after she had first met him, Ruby had tried to find out as much as she could about Sander, still refusing to believe then that all she had been to him was a one-night stand.

She had learned that the island, whose closest neighbour was Cyprus, had been invaded and conquered many times, and that in Sander's veins ran the ruling blood of conquering Moors from the time of the Crusades—even though now the island population considered itself to be Greek. She had also learned that Sander's family had ruled the island for many centuries, and that his grandfather, the current patriarch, had built
up a shipping business in the wake of the Second World War which had brought new wealth and employment to the island. However, once she had been forced to recognise that she meant nothing to Sander she had stopped seeking out information about him.

‘Bath time,' she told her sons firmly.

Their new clothes and her own had been delivered whilst they had been downstairs, along with some very smart new cases, and once the twins were in bed she intended to spend her evening packing in readiness for their flight to the island.

Only once the boys were bathed and in bed Ruby was drawn back to the computer, with its tantalising image of the island.

Almost without realising what she was doing she clicked on the small red dot that represented its capital. Several thumbnail images immediately appeared. Ruby clicked on the first of them to enlarge it, and revealed a dazzlingly white fortress, perched high on a cliff above an impossibly blue green sea, its Moorish-looking towers reaching up into a deep blue sky. Another thumbnail enlarged to show what she assumed was the front of the same building, looking more classically Greek in design and dominating a formal square. The royal blue of the traditionally dressed guards' jackets worn over brilliantly white skirts made a striking image.

The other images revealed a hauntingly beautiful landscape of sandy bays backed by cliffs, small fishing harbours, and white-capped mountains covered in wild flowers. These were contrasted by a modern cargo dock
complex, and small towns of bright white buildings and dark shadowed alleyways. It was impossible not to be captivated by the images of the island, Ruby admitted, but at the same time viewing them had brought home to her how different and even alien the island was to everything she and the twins knew. Was she doing the right thing? She knew nothing of Sander's family, or his way of life, and once on the island she would be totally at his mercy. But if she hadn't agreed to go with them he would have tried to take the twins from her, she was sure. This way at least she would be with them.

A fierce tide of maternal love surged through her. The twins meant everything to her. Their emotional security both now and in the future was what would bring her happiness, and was far more important to her than anything else—especially the unwanted and humiliating desire that Sander was somehow able to arouse in her. Her mouth had gone dry again. At seventeen she might have been able to excuse herself for being vulnerable to Sander's sexual charisma, but she was not seventeen any more. Even if her single solitary memory of sexual passion was still limited to what she had experienced with Sander. He, of course, had no doubt shared his bed with an unending parade of women since he had ejected her so cruelly from both it and his life.

She looked at the computer, suddenly unable to resist the temptation to do a web search on Sander's name. It wasn't prying, not really. She had the boys to think of after all.

She wasn't sure what she had expected to find, but
her eyes widened over the discovery that Sander was now ruler of the island—a role that carried the title of King, although, according to the website, he had decided to dispense with its usage, preferring to adopt a more democratic approach to ruling the island than that exercised by his predecessors.

Apparently his parents had died when Sander was eighteen, in a flying accident. The plane they'd been in piloted by a cousin of Sander's mother. A shock as though she had inadvertently touched a live wire shot through her. They had both been orphaned at almost the same age. Like hers, Sander's parents had been killed in an accident. If she had known that when they had first met… What difference would it have made? None.

Sander was thirty-four, to her twenty-three; a man at the height of his powers. A small shiver raked her skin, like the sensual rasp of a lover's tongue against sensitised flesh. Inside her head an image immediately formed: Sander's dark tanned hand cupping her own naked breast, his tongue curling round her swollen nipple. The small shiver became a racking shudder. Quickly Ruby tried to banish the image, closing down the computer screen. She was feeling nauseous again. Shakily, she made her way to the bathroom.

‘I
NOW
pronounce you man and wife.'

It was over, done. There was no going back. Ruby was shaking inwardly, but she refused to let Sander see how upset she was.

Upset? A small tremor made her body shudder inside the cream Vera Wang dress she had not wanted to wear but which the personal shopper had included amongst her purchases and which for some reason she had felt obliged to wear. It was, after all, her wedding day. A fresh tremor broke through her self-control. What was the matter with her? What had she expected? Hearts and flowers? A declaration of undying devotion? This was Sander she was marrying, Sander who had not looked at her once during the brief ceremony in the anonymous register office, who couldn't have made it plainer how little he wanted her as his wife. Well, no more than she wanted him as her husband.

Sander looked down at Ruby's left hand. The ring he had just slipped onto her marriage finger was slightly loose, despite the fact that it should have fitted. She
was far too thin and seemed to be getting thinner. But why should her fragility concern him?

It didn't. Women were adept at creating fictional images in order to deceive others. To her sons Ruby was no doubt a much loved mother, a constant and secure presence in their lives. At their age that had been his own feeling about his mother. Bitterness curled through him, spreading its poisonous infection.

In the years since the deaths of his parents he had often wondered if his father had given in so readily to his mother's financial demands because secretly he had loved her, even though he'd known she'd only despised him, and she, knowing that, had used his love against him. It was a fate he had sworn would never be his own.

And yet here he was married, and to a woman he already knew he could not trust—a woman who had given herself to him with such sensuality and intimacy that even now after so many years he was unable to strip from his memory the images she had left upon it. He had been a fool to let her get close enough to him once to do that. He wasn't going to let it happen again.

 

Neither of them spoke in the taxi taking them back to the hotel. Ruby already knew Sander had some business matters to attend to, which thankfully meant that she would have some time to herself in which to come to terms with the commitment she had just made.

After Sander had escorted them to the suite and then left without a word to her, after kissing the boys, Ruby reminded herself that she had not only walked will
ingly into this marriage, she was the one who had first suggested it.

The boys were tired—worn out, Ruby suspected, by the excitement of being in London. A short sleep would do them all good, and might help to ease her cramped, nauseous stomach and aching head.

After removing her wedding dress and pulling on her old dressing gown, she put the twins to bed. Once she had assured herself that they were asleep she went into her own bathroom, fumbling in her handbag for some headache tablets and accidentally removing the strip of birth control pills instead. They reminded her that although Sander might have made her take them she must not let him make her want him. Her hands shook as she replaced them to remove the pack of painkillers. Just that simple action had started her head pounding again, but thankfully this time at least she wasn't sick.

She was so tired that after a bath to help her relax she could barely dry herself, never mind bother to put on a nightdress. Instead she simply crawled beneath the duvet on her bed, falling asleep almost immediately.

 

Ruby woke up reluctantly, dragged from her sleep by a sense of nagging urgency. It only took her a matter of seconds to realise what had caused it. The silence. She couldn't hear the twins. How long had she been asleep? Her heart jolted anxiously into her ribs when she looked at her watch and realised that it was over three hours since she had tucked the twins into their beds. Why were they so quiet?

Trembling with apprehension, she pushed back the bedclothes, grabbing the towel she had discarded earlier and wrapping it around herself as she ran barefoot from her own room to the twins'.

It was empty. Her heart lurched sickeningly, and then started to beat frantically fast with fear.

On shaking legs Ruby ran through the suite, opening doors, calling their names, even checking the security lock on the main door to the suite just in case they had somehow opened it. All the time the hideous reality of what might have happened was lying in wait for her inside her head.

In the dreadful silence of the suite—only a parent could know and understand how a silence that should have been filled with the sound of children's voices could feel—she sank down onto one of the sofas.

The reason the twins weren't here must be because Sander had taken them. There could be no other explanation. He must have come back whilst she was asleep and seized his opportunity. He hadn't wanted to marry her any more than she had wanted to marry him. What he had wanted was the twins. His sons. And now he had them.

Were they already on a plane to the island?
His
island, where he made the laws and where she would never be able to reach them. He had their passports after all. A legal necessity, he had said, and she had stupidly accepted that.

Shock, grief, fear and anger—she could feel them all, but over and above those feelings was concern for her sons and fury that Sander could have done something so potentially harmful to them.

She could hear a noise: the sound of the main door to the suite opening, followed by the excited babble of two familiar voices.

The twins!

She was on her feet, hardly daring to believe that she wasn't simply imagining hearing them out of her own need, and then they were there, in the room with her, running towards her and telling her excitedly, ‘Daddy took us to a café for our tea, because you were asleep,' bringing the smell of cold air in with them.

Dropping onto her knees, Ruby hugged them to her not trusting herself to speak, holding the small wriggling bodies tightly. They were her life, her heart, her everything. She could hardly bear to let them go.

Sander was standing watching her, making her acutely conscious as she struggled to stand up that all that covered her nudity was the towel she had wrapped round her.

Going back to her bedroom, she discarded the towel and grabbed a clean pair of knickers before reaching for her old and worn velour dressing gown. She was too worked up and too anxious to get back to the twins as quickly as she could to care what she looked like or what Sander thought. The fact that he hadn't taken them as she had initially feared paled into insignificance compared with her realisation that he could have done so. Now that she had had a taste of what it felt like to think she had lost them, she knew more than ever that there was nothing she would not do or sacrifice to keep them with her.

Her hands trembled violently as she tied the belt on
her dressing gown. From the sitting room she could hear the sound of cartoon voices from the television, and when she went back in the boys were sitting together, watching a children's TV programme, whilst Sander was seated at the small desk with his laptop open in front of him.

Neither of them had spoken, but the tension and hostility crackling in the air between them spoke a language they could both hear and understand.

Her headache might have gone, but it had been replaced with an equally sickening sense of guilt, Ruby acknowledged, when she sat down an hour later to read to the boys, now bathed and in bed. She watched them as they fell asleep after their bedtime story. Today something had happened that she had never experienced before. She had slept so deeply that she had not heard anything when Sander returned and took her sons. How could that be? How could she have been so careless of their safety?

She didn't want to leave them. She wanted to stay here all night with them.

The bedroom door opened. Immediately Ruby stiffened, whispering, ‘What do you want?'

‘I've come to say goodnight to my sons.'

‘They're asleep.' She got up and walked to the door, intending to go through it and then close it, excluding him, but Sander was holding it and she was the one forced to leave and then watch as he went to kiss their sleeping faces.

Turning on her heel, Ruby headed for her own room. But before she stepped inside it her self-control broke
and she whirled round, telling Sander, ‘You had no right to take the boys out without asking me first.'

‘They are my sons. I have every right. And as for telling you—'

Telling
her, not asking her. Ruby noted his correction, consumed now by the kind of anger that followed the trauma of terrible shock and fear, which was a form of relief at discovering that the unthinkable hadn't happened after all.

‘You were asleep.'

‘You could have woken me. You
should
have woken me. It's my right as their mother to know where they are.'

‘Your
right
? What about
their
rights? What about their right to have a mother who doesn't put her own needs first? I suppose a woman who goes out at night picking up men needs to sleep during the day. And knowing you as I do, I imagine that is what
you
do.'

Sickened by what he was implying, Ruby said fiercely, ‘
Knowing
me? You don't know me at all. And the unpleasant little scenario you have just outlined has never and would never take place. I have never so much as gone out at night and left the twins, never mind gone out picking up men. The reason I was asleep was because I haven't been feeling well—not that I expect you to believe me. You'd much rather make up something you can insult me with than listen to the truth.'

‘I've had firsthand experience of the truth of what you are.'

Ruby's face burned. ‘You're basing your judgement of me on one brief meeting, when I was—'

‘Too drunk to know what you were doing?'

His cynical contempt was too much for Ruby's composure. For years she had tortured and tormented herself because of what she had done. She didn't need Sander weighing in to add to that self-punishment and pain. She shook her head in angry denial.

‘Foolish and naive enough to want to create a fairy story out of something and someone belonging in reality to a horror story,' she said bitterly. Too carried away by the anger bursting past her self-control, she continued, ‘You need not have wasted your contempt on me, because it can't possibly match the contempt I feel for myself, for deluding myself that you were someone special.'

Ruby felt sick and dizzy. Memories of what they had once shared were rushing in, roaring over her mental barriers and springing into vivid life inside her. She had been such a fool, so willing and eager to go to him, seeking in his arms the security and safety she had lost and thinking in her naivety that she would find them by binding herself to him in the most intimate way there was.

‘So much drama,' Sander taunted her, ‘and all of it so unnecessary, since I know it for the deceit that it is.'

‘You are the one who is deceiving yourself by believing what you do,' Ruby threw at him emotionally.

‘You dare to accuse
me
of self-deception?' Sander demanded, stepping towards her as he spoke, forcing her to step back into her bedroom. She backed up so quickly that she ended up standing on the trailing belt of her dressing gown. The soft, worn fabric gave way imme
diately, exposing the pale curve of her breast and the darker flesh of her nipple.

Sander saw what had happened before Ruby was aware of it herself, and his voice dropped to a cynical softness as he said, ‘So that's what you want, is it? Same old Ruby. Well, why not? You certainly owe me something.'

Ruby's despairing, ‘No!' was lost, crushed beneath the cruel strength of his mouth as it fastened on hers, and the sound of the door slamming as he pushed it closed was a death knell on her chances of escape.

Her robe quickly gave way to the swift expertise of Sander's determined hands, sliding from Ruby's body whilst he punished her with his kiss. In the mirror Sander could see the narrow curve of her naked back. Her skin, palely luminous, reminded him of the inside of the shells washed up on the beach below his home. Against his will old memories stirred, of how beneath his touch and against it she had trembled and then shuddered, calling out to him in open pleasure, so easily aroused by even the lightest caress. A wanton who had made no attempt to conceal the passion that drove her, or her own pleasure in his satisfaction of it, crying out to him to please her.

Sander drove his tongue between her lips as fiercely as he wanted to drive out her memory. The honeyed sensuality of her mouth closed round him, inviting his tongue-tip's exploration of its sweetest hidden places. The simple plain white knickers she was wearing jarred against the raw sexuality of his own arousal. He wanted her naked and eager, stripped of the lies and deceit with
which she was so keen to veil her own reality. He would make her admit to what she was, show her that he knew the true naked reality of her. His hands gripped her and held her, moving down over her body to push aside her protective covering.

Her figure was as perfect as it was possible for a woman's figure to be—or it would be if she carried a few more pounds, Sander acknowledged. From her shoulders, her torso narrowed down into a handspan waist before curving out into feminine hips and the high, rounded cheeks of her bottom. Her legs were long and slender, designed to wrap erotically and greedily around the man she chose to give her the pleasure she craved. Her breasts were full and soft, and he could remember how sensitive her nipples had been, the suckle of his mouth against them making her cry out in ecstasy.

Why was he tormenting himself with mere memories when she was here and his for the taking, her body already shivering in his hold with anticipation of the pleasure to come?