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The knowing look Sander was giving her made Ruby want to protest—You’re wrong. I’m not what you think. That wasn’t the real me that night. But common sense and pride made her hold back the words.
‘I’m prepared to be very generous to you financially in return for you handing the twins over to me,’ Sander continued. ‘Very generous indeed. You’re still young.’
In fact he had been surprised to discover that the night they had met she had been only seventeen. Dressed and made-up as she had been, he had assumed that she was much older. Sander frowned. He hadn’t enjoyed the sharp spike of distaste he had experienced against himself at knowing he had taken such a young girl to bed. Had he known her age he would have…What? Given her a stern talking to and sent her home in a cab? Had he been in control of himself that night he would not have gone to bed with her at all, no matter what her age, but the unpalatable truth was that he had not been in control of himself. He had been in the grip of anger and a sense of frustration he had never experienced either before or since that night—a firestorm of savage, bitter emotion that had driven him into behaviour that, if he was honest, still irked his pride and sense of self. Other men might exhibit such behaviour, but he had always thought of himself as above that kind of thing. He had been wrong, and now the evidence of that behaviour was confronting him in the shape of the sons he had fathered. Sander believed he had a duty to ensure that they did not suffer because of that behaviour. That was what had brought him here. And there was no way he was going to leave until he had got what he had come for.
And just that?
Ruby shook her head.
‘Buy my children, you mean?’
Sander could hear the hostility in Ruby’s voice as well as see it in her eyes.
‘Because that is what you’re talking about,’ Ruby accused him, adding fiercely, ‘And if I’d had any thought of allowing you into their lives, what you’ve just said would make me change my mind. There’s nothing you could offer me that would make me want to risk my sons’ emotional future by allowing you to have any kind of contact with them.’
Her words were having more of an effect on him than Sander liked to admit. A man of pride and power, used to commanding not just the obedience but also the respect and the admiration of others, he was stung by Ruby’s criticism of him. He wasn’t used to being refused anything by anyone—much less by a woman he remembered as an over-made-up and under-dressed little tart who had come on to him openly and obviously. Not that there was anything of that girl about her now, dressed in faded jeans and a loose top, her face free of make-up and her hair left to curl naturally of its own accord. The girl he remembered had smelled of cheap scent; the woman in front of him smelled of cleaning product. He would have to change his approach if he was to overcome her objections, Sander recognised.
Quickly changing tack, he challenged her. ‘Nothing I could offer you, maybe, but what about what I can offer my sons? You speak of their emotions. Have you thought, I wonder, how they are going to feel when they grow up to realise what you have denied them in refusing to let them know their father?’
‘That’s not fair,’ Ruby objected angrily, knowing that Sander had found her most vulnerable spot where the twins were concerned.
‘What is not fair, surely, is you denying my sons the opportunity to know their father and the culture that is their birthright?’
‘As your bastards?’ The horrible word tasted bitter, but it had to be said. ‘Forced to stand in second place to your legitimate children, and no doubt be resented by your wife?’
‘I have no other children, nor any wife.’
Why was her heart hammering so heavily, thudding into her chest wall? It didn’t matter to her whether or not Sander was married, did it?
‘I warn you now, Ruby, that I intend to have my sons with me. Whatever it takes to achieve that and by whatever means.’
Ruby’s mouth went dry. Stories she had read about children being kidnapped by a parent and stolen away out of the country flooded into her mind. Sander was a very rich and a very powerful man. She had discovered that in the early days after she had met him, when she had stupidly imagined that he would come back to her and had avidly read everything she could about him, wanting to learn everything she could—until the reality of the situation had forced her to accept that the fantasy she had created of Sander marrying her and looking after her was just that: a fantasy created by her need to find someone to replace the parents she had lost and keep her safe.
It was true that Sander could give the boys far more than she could materially, and the unwelcome thought slid into her mind that there could come a day when, as Sander had cruelly predicted, the twins might actually resent her and blame her for preventing them from benefitting from their father’s wealth and, more importantly, from knowing him. Boys needed a strong male figure in their lives they could relate to. Everyone knew that. Secretly she had been worrying about the lack of any male influence in their lives. But if at times she had been tempted to pray for a solution to that problem she had certainly not envisaged that solution coming in the form of the boys’ natural father. A kindly, grandfather-type figure for them was as much as she had hoped for, because after their birth she had decided that she would never take the risk of getting involved with a man who might turn out to be only a temporary presence in her sons’ lives. She would rather remain celibate than risk that.
The truth, in her opinion, was that children thrived best with two parents in a stable relationship—a mother and a father, both committed to their wellbeing.
A mother and a father. More than most, she knew the damage that could be done when that stability wasn’t there.
A sense of standing on the edge of a precipice filled her—an awareness that the decision she made now would affect her sons for the rest of their lives. Shakily she admitted to herself that she wished her sisters were there to help her, but they weren’t. They had their own lives, and ultimately the boys were her responsibility, their happiness resting in her hands. Sander was determined to have them. He had said so. He was a wealthy, powerful and charismatic man who would have no difficulty whatsoever in persuading others that the boys should be with him. But she was their mother. She couldn’t let him take them from her—for their sakes even more than her own. Sander didn’t love them; he merely wanted them. She doubted he was capable of understanding what love was. Yes, he would provide well for them materially, but children needed far more than that, and her sons needed her. She had raised them from birth; they needed her even more than she needed them.
If she couldn’t stop Sander from claiming his sons, then she owed it to them to make sure that she remained with them. Sander wouldn’t want that, of course. He despised and disliked her.
Her heart started to thud uncomfortably heavily and far too fast as it fought against the solution proposed by her brain, but now that the thought was there it couldn’t be ignored. Sander had said there was nothing he would not do to have his sons living with him. Well, maybe she should put his claim to the test, because she knew that there was no sacrifice she herself would not make for their sakes—no sacrifice at all. The challenge she intended to put to him was a huge risk for her to take, but for the boys’ sake she was prepared to take it. It was, after all, a challenge she was bound to win—because Sander would never accept the terms with which she was about to confront him. She was sure of that. She let out her pent up breath.
‘You say the boys’ place is with you?’
‘It is.’
‘They are five years old and I am their mother.’ Ruby took a deep breath, hoping that her voice wouldn’t shake with the nervousness she was fighting to suppress and thus betray her. ‘If you really care about their wellbeing as much as you claim then you must know that they are too young to be separated from me.’
She had a point, Sander was forced to admit, even though he didn’t like doing so.
‘You need to be very sure about why you want the twins, Sander.’ Ruby pressed home her point. ‘And that your desire to have them isn’t merely a rich man’s whim. Because the only way I will allow them to be with you is if I am there with them—as their mother and your wife.’
CHAPTER TWO
THERE—she had said it. Thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, and given him her challenge.
In the silence that followed Ruby could literally hear her own heart beating as she held her breath, waiting for Sander to refuse her demand—because she knew that he would refuse it, and having refused it he must surely be forced to step back and accept that the boys’ place was with her.
Trying not to give in to the shakiness invading her body, Ruby could hardly believe that she had actually had the courage to say what she had. She could tell from Sander’s expression that her demand had shocked him, although he was quick to mask his reaction.
Marriage, Sander thought quickly, mentally assessing his options. He wanted his sons. There was no doubt in his mind about that, nor any doubt that they were his. Marriage to their mother would give him certain rights over them, but it would also give Ruby certain rights over his wealth. That, of course, was exactly what she wanted. Marriage to him followed by an equally speedy divorce and a very generous financial divorce settlement. He could read her mind so easily. Even so, she had caught him off-guard—although he told himself cynically that he should perhaps have been prepared for her demand. He was, after all, a very wealthy man.
‘I applaud your sharp-witted business acumen,’ he told Ruby drily, in a neutral voice that gave away nothing of the fury he was really feeling. ‘You rejected my initial offer of a generous payment under the guise of being a devoted mother, when in reality you were already planning to play for higher stakes.’
‘That’s not true,’ Ruby denied hotly, astonished by his interpretation of her demand. ‘Your money means nothing to me, Sander—nothing at all,’ she told him truthfully, adding for good measure, ‘And neither do you. For me, the fact that you choose to think of my offer in terms of money simply underlines all the reasons why I am not prepared to allow my sons anywhere near you unless I am there.’
‘That is how you feel, but what about how they might feel?’ Sander pressed her. ‘A good mother would never behave so selfishly. She would put her children’s interests first.’
How speedily Sander had turned the tables on her, Ruby recognised. What had begun as a challenge to him she had been confident would make him back down had now turned into a double-edged sword which right now he was wielding very skilfully against her, cutting what she had thought was secure ground away from under her feet.
‘They need their mother—’ she started.
‘They are my sons,’ Sander interrupted her angrily. ‘And I mean to have them. If I have to marry you to facilitate that, then so be it. But make no mistake, Ruby. I intend to have my sons.’
His response stunned her. She had been expecting him to refuse, to back down, to go away and leave them alone—anything rather than marry her. Sander had called her bluff and left her defenceless.
Now Ruby could see a reality she hadn’t seen before. Sander really did want the boys and he meant to have them. He was rich and powerful, well able to provide materially for his sons. What chance would she have of keeping them if he pursued her through the courts? At best all she could hope for was shared custody, with the boys passed to and fro between them, torn between two homes, and that was the last thing she wanted for them. Why had Sander had to discover that he had fathered them? Hadn’t life been cruel enough to her as it was?
Marriage to him, which she had not in any kind of way wanted, had now devastatingly turned into the protection she was forced to recognise she might need if she was to continue to have the permanent place in her sons’ lives that she had previously taken for granted.
Marriage to Sander wouldn’t just provide her sons with a father, she recognised now through growing panic, it would also protect her rights as a mother. As long as they were married the twins would have both parents there for them.
Both parents. Ruby swallowed painfully. Wasn’t it true that she had spent many sleepless nights worrying about the future and the effect not having a father figure might have on her sons?
A father figure, but not their real father. She had never imagined them having Sander in their lives—not after those first agonising weeks of being forced to accept that she meant nothing to him.
She wasn’t going to give up, though. She would fight with every bit of her strength for her sons.
Holding her head up she told him fiercely, ‘Very well, then. The choice is yours, Sander. If you genuinely want the boys because they are your sons, and because you want to get to know them and be part of their lives, then you will accept that separating them from me will inflict huge emotional damage on them. You will understand, as I do, no matter how much that understanding galls you, that children need the security of having two parents they know are there for them—will always be there for them. You will be prepared to make the same sacrifice that I am prepared to make to provide them with the security that comes from having two parents committed to them and to each other through marriage.’
‘Sacrifice?’ Sander demanded. ‘I am a billionaire. I don’t think there are many women who would consider marriage to me a sacrifice.’
Did he really believe that? If so, it just showed how right she was to want to ensure that her sons grew up knowing there were far more important things in life than money.
‘You are very cynical,’ she told him. ‘There are any number of women who would be appalled by what you have just said—women who put love before money, women like me who put their children first, women who would run from a man like you. I don’t want your money, and I am quite willing to sign a document saying so.’
‘Oh, you will be doing that. Make no mistake about it,’ Sander assured her ruthlessly. Did she really expect him to fall for her lies and her faked lack of interest in his money? ‘There is no way I will abandon my sons to the care of a mother who could very soon be without a roof over her head—a mother who would have to rely on charity in order to feed and clothe them—a mother who dressed like a tart and offered herself to a man she didn’t know.’
Ruby flinched as though he had physically hit her, but she still managed to ask quickly, ‘Were you any better? Or does the fact that you are a man and I’m a woman somehow mean that my behaviour was worse than yours? I was a seventeen-year-old-girl; you were an adult male.’
A seventeen-year-old girl. Angered by the reminder, Sander reacted against it. ‘You certainly weren’t dressed like a schoolgirl—or an innocent. And you were the one who propositioned me, not the other way round.’
And now he was going to be forced to marry her. Sander didn’t want to marry anyone—much less a woman like her.
What he had seen in his parents’ marriage, the bitterness and resentment between them, had made him vow never to marry himself. That vow had been the cause of acrimony and dissent between him and his grandfather, a despot who believed he had the right to barter his own flesh and blood in marriage as though they were just another part of his fleet of tankers.
Refusing Ruby’s proposal would give her an advantage. She could and would undoubtedly attempt to use his refusal against him were there to be a court case between them over the twins. But her obstinacy and her attempt to get the better of him had hardened Sander’s determination to claim his sons—even if it now meant using underhand methods to do so. Once they were on his island, its laws would ensure that he, as their father, had the right to keep them.
The familiar sound of a car drawing up outside and doors opening had Ruby ignoring Sander to hurry to the door. She suddenly realised what time it was, and that the twins were being dropped off by the neighbour with whom she shared school run duties. Opening the door, she hurried down the drive to thank her neighbour and help the twins out of the car, gathering up school bags and lunchboxes as she did, clucking over the fact that neither boy had fastened his coat despite the fact that it was still only March and cold.
Identical in every way, except for the tiny mole behind Freddie’s right ear, the boys stood and stared at the expensive car parked on the drive, and then looked at Ruby.
‘Whose car is that?’ Freddie asked, round-eyed.
Ruby couldn’t answer him. Why hadn’t she realised the time and got rid of Sander before the twins came home from school? Now they were bound to ask questions—questions she wasn’t going to be able to answer honestly—and she hated the thought of lying to them.
Freddie was still waiting for her to answer. Forcing a reassuring smile, she told him, ‘It’s just…someone’s. Come on, let’s get inside before the two of you catch cold with your coats unfastened like that.’
‘I’m hungry. Can we have toast with peanut butter?’ Harry asked her hopefully.
Peanut butter was his current favourite.
‘We’ll see,’ was Ruby’s answer as she pushed then gently into the hall in front of her. ‘Upstairs now, boys,’ she told them both, trying to remain as calm as she could even as they stood and stared in silence at Sander, who now seemed to be taking up a good deal of space in the hallway.
He was tall, well over six foot, and in other circumstances it would have made her smile to see the way Harry tipped his head right back to look up at him. Freddie, though, suddenly very much the man of the family as the elder of the two. He moved closer to her, as if instinctively seeking to protect her, and some silent communication between the two of them caused his twin to fall back to her other side to do the same.
Unwanted emotional tears stung Ruby’s eyes. Her darling boys. They didn’t deserve any of this, and it was her fault that things were as they were. Before she could stop herself she dropped down on one knee, putting an arm around each twin, holding them to her. Freddie was the more sensitive of the two, although he tried to conceal it, and he turned into her immediately, burying his face in her neck and holding her tightly, whilst Harry looked briefly towards Sander—wanting to go to him? Ruby wondered wretchedly—before copying his brother.
Sander couldn’t move. The second he had seen the two boys he had known that there was nothing he would not do for them—including tearing out his own heart and offering it to them on a plate. The sheer force of his love for them was like a tidal wave, a tsunami that swept everything else aside. They were his—of his family, of his blood, of his body. They were his. And yet, watching them, he recognised immediately how they felt about their mother. He had seen the protective stance they had taken up and his heart filled with pride to see that instinctive maleness in them.
An old memory stirred within him: strong sunlight striking down on his bare head, the raised angry voices of his parents above him. He too had turned to his mother, as his sons had turned to theirs, but there had been no loving maternal arms to hold him. Instead his mother had spun round, heading for her car, slamming the door after she’d climbed into it, leaving him behind, tyres spinning on the gravel, sending up a shower of small stones. He had turned then to his father, but he too had turned away from him and walked back to the house. His parents had been too caught up in their own lives and their resentment of one another to have time for him.
Sander looked down at his sons—and at their mother.
They were all their sons had. He thought again of his own parents, and realised on another surge of emotion that there was nothing he would not do to give his sons what he had never had.
‘Marriage it is, then. But I warn you now it will be a marriage that will last for life. That is the measure of my commitment to them,’ he told her, looking at the boys.
If she hadn’t been holding the twins Ruby thought she might well have fallen down in shock—shock and dismay. She searched Sander’s face for some sign that he didn’t really mean what he was saying, but all she could see was a quiet, implacable determination.
The twins were turning in her arms to look at Sander again. Any moment now they would start asking questions.
‘Upstairs, you two,’ she repeated, taking off their navy duffel coats. ‘Change out of your uniforms and then wash your hands.’
They made a dash past Sander, deliberately ignoring him, before climbing the stairs together—a pair of sturdy, healthy male children, with lean little-boy bodies and their father’s features beneath identical mops of dark curls.
‘There will be two conditions,’ Sander continued coldly. ‘The first is that you will sign a prenuptial agreement. Our marriage will be for the benefit of our sons, not the benefit of your bank account.’
Appalled and hurt by this fresh evidence of how little he thought of her, Ruby swallowed her pride—she was doing this for her boys, after all—and demanded through gritted teeth, ‘And the second condition?’
‘Your confirmation and proof that you are taking the birth control pill. I’ve seen the evidence of how little care you have for such matters. I have no wish for another child to be conceived as carelessly as the twins were.’
Now Ruby was too outraged to conceal her feelings.
‘There is no question of that happening. The last thing I want is to have to share your bed again.’
She dared to claim that, after the way she had already behaved?
Her outburst lashed Sander’s pride into a savage need to punish her.
‘But you will share it, and you will beg me to satisfy that hunger in you I have already witnessed. Your desire for sexual satisfaction has been honed in the arms of far too many men for you to be able to control it now.’
‘No! That’s not true.’
Ruby could feel her face burning. She didn’t need reminding about the wanton way in which she had not only given herself to him but actively encouraged him to take her. Her memories of that night were burned into her conscience for ever. Not one of her senses would ever forget the role they had played in her self-humiliation—the way her voice had sobbed and risen on an increasing note of aching longing that had resulted in a cry of abandoned pleasure that still echoed in her ears, the greedy need of her hands to touch and know his body, the hunger of her lips to caress his flesh and taste his kisses, the increased arousal the scent of his skin had brought her. Each and all of them had added to a wild torrent of sexual longing that had taken her to the edge of her universe and then beyond it, to a place of such spectacular loss of self that she never wanted to go there again.
Shaking herself free of the memories threatening to deluge her, Ruby returned staunchly, ‘That was different…a mistake.’ Her hands curled into her palms in bitter self-defence as she saw the cynical look he was giving her. ‘And it’s one that I never want to repeat. There’s no way I’d ever want to share your bed again.’
Her denial unleashed Sander’s anger. She was lying, he was sure of it, and he would prove it to her. He wasn’t a vain man, but he knew that women found him attractive, and Ruby had certainly done everything she could that night to make it plain to him that she wanted him. Normally he would never have even considered bedding her—he liked to do his own hunting—but her persistence had been like a piece of grit in his shoe, wearing down his resistance and helping to fuel the anger already burning inside him. That was why he had lost control. Because of his grandfather. Not because of Ruby herself, or because the aroused little cries she had made against his skin had proved so irresistible that he had lost sight of everything but his need to possess her. He could still remember the way she had cried out when he had finally thrust into her, as though what she was experiencing was completely new to her. She had clung to him, sobbing her pleasure into his skin as she trembled and shuddered against him.
Why was he thinking of that now?
The savagery of his fury, inflamed by both her demand for marriage and her denial of his accusation, deafened him to the note of raw pain in her voice. Before he could stop himself he had taken hold of her and was possessing her mouth in a kiss of scorching, pride-fuelled fury.
Too shocked to struggle against his possession, by the time she realised what was happening it was too late. Ruby’s own anger surged in defiance, passionate enough to overwhelm her self-control and battle with the full heat of Sander’s desire to punish her. Desire for him was the last thing she had expected to feel, but, shockingly, the hard possession of Sander’s mouth on her own turned a key in a lock she had thought so damaged by what he had already made her endure that it could never be turned again. Turned it with frightening ease.
This shouldn’t be happening. It could not be happening. But, shamefully, it was.
Her panic fought with the desire that burned through her and lost, overcome as swiftly as though molten lava was pouring through her, obliterating everything that stood in its path. Her lips parted beneath the driving pressure of Sander’s probing tongue, an agonised whim-per of longing drawn from her throat. She could feel the passion in Sander’s kiss, and the hard arousal of his body, but instead of acting as a warning that knowledge only served to further enflame her own desire, quickening the pulse already beating within her own sex.
Somewhere within the torrent of anger motivating him Sander could hear an inner voice warning him that this was how it had been before—this same furious, aching, agonised need and arousal that was possessing him now. It should have been impossible for him to want her. It should always have been impossible. And yet, like some mythical, dark malformed creature, supposedly entombed and shut away for ever, his desire had found the superhuman strength to break the bonds imprisoning it. His tongue possessed the eager willingness of the softness of her mouth and his body was already hard, anticipating the corresponding willingness of the most intimate part of her if he didn’t stop soon…
Ruby shuddered with mindless sensual delight as Sander’s tongue began to thrust potently and rhythmically against her own. Beneath her clothes her nipples swelled and hardened, their ache spreading swiftly through her. Sander’s hand cupped her breast, causing her to moan deep in her throat.
She was all female sensual heat, all eager willingness, her very responsiveness designed to trap, Sander recognised. If he didn’t stop now he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking her where they stood, from dragging the clothes from her body in his need to feel her bare skin against his touch, from sinking himself deep within her and feeling her body close round him, possessing him as he possessed her, both of them driven by the mindless, incessant ache that he was surely cursed to feel for her every time he touched her.
He found the buttons on her shirt, swiftly unfastening them. The feel of his hands on her body drew Ruby back into the past. Then he had undressed her expertly and swiftly, in between sensually erotic kisses that had melted away her ability to think or reason, leaving her aching for more, just as he was doing now. His left hand lifted her hair so that he could taste the warm sweetness of that place just where her neck joined her shoulder.
Ruby felt the warmth of his breath against her bare skin. Flames were erupting inside her—the eager flames of denied longing leaping upwards, consuming her resistance. Mindless shudders of hot pleasure rippled through her. Her shirt was open, her breasts exposed to Sander’s gaze.
He shouldn’t be doing this, Sander warned himself. He shouldn’t be giving in to the demands of his pride. But that was all he was doing. The heat running through his veins was only caused by angry pride, nothing else.
Her breasts were as perfect as he remembered, the dark rose nipples flaring into deep aureoles that contrasted with the paleness of her skin. He watched as they lifted and fell with the increased speed of her breathing, lifting his hand to cup one, knowing already that it would fit his hand as perfectly as though it was made to be held by him. Beneath the stroke of his thumb-pad her nipple hardened. Sander closed his eyes, remembering how in that long-ago hotel bedroom it had seemed as though her nipple was pushing itself against his touch, demanding the caress of first his thumb and forefinger, then his lips and tongue. Her response had been wild and immediate, swelling and hardening his own body.
He didn’t want her, not really, but his pride was now demanding her punishment, the destruction of her claim that she didn’t want him.
