‘Your baby is fine, Ruby.’
She looked at them both in disbelief.
‘You’re just telling me that, aren’t you? I’ve lost the baby really, haven’t I?’
The doctor looked back at the nurse. ‘I think we should let Ruby have a look for herself.’ Turning to Ruby, he told her, ‘The nurse will take you for a scan, Ruby, and then you will be able to see for yourself that your baby is perfectly well. Which is more than I will be able to say for you, if you continue to upset yourself.’
An hour later Ruby was back in her hospital room, still gazing in awed delight at the image she’d been given—an image which showed quite clearly that her baby was indeed safe.
‘You and your baby have both been very lucky,’ the nurse told her when she came in a few minutes later to check up on her. ‘You sustained a nasty head injury, and when you were taken into hospital on Theopolis they feared that a blood clot had developed. It meant they would have to terminate your pregnancy. Your husband refused to give his consent. He arranged for you to be brought here to this hospital in Athens, and for a specialist to be brought from America to treat you. Your husband said that you would never forgive him and he would never forgive himself if your pregnancy had to be terminated.’
Sander had said that? Ruby didn’t know what to think.
‘I dare say he will be here soon,’ the nurse continued. ‘Initially he insisted on staying here in the hospital with you, but Professor Smythson told him to go home and get some rest once you were in the clear.’
As though on cue the door to her room opened and Sander was standing there. Discreetly the nurse whisked herself out of the room, leaving them alone together.
‘The twins…’ Ruby began anxiously.
‘They know that you had a fall and that you had to come to hospital to be “mended”. They’re missing you, of course, but Anna is doing her best to keep them occupied.’
‘The nurse was just telling me that it’s thanks to you I still have my baby.’
‘Our baby,’ Sander corrected her quietly.
Ruby didn’t know what to say—or think—so her emotions did both for her. Tears slid down her face.
‘Ruby, don’t,’ Sander begged, leaving the foot of her bed, where he had been standing, to come and take hold of her hand, now disconnected from the drip she had been on as she no longer needed it. ‘When I saw you falling down those steps I knew that no matter what I’d said, or what I thought I’d believed, the truth was that I loved you. I think I knew it that last night we spent in Athens, but I told myself that letting go of my doubts about you must be a slow and measured process. It took the realisation that I might have lost you to show me the truth. I deliberately blinded myself to what was real, just as you said. I wanted and needed to believe the very worst of you, and because of that—because of my fear of loving you and my pride in that fear—you and our child almost lost your lives.’
‘My fall was an accident.’
‘An accident that resulted from my blind refusal to accept what you were trying to tell me. Can you forgive me?’
‘I love you, Sander. You know that. What I want now is for you to forgive yourself.’ Ruby looked up at him. ‘And not just forgive yourself about me.’ Did she dare to say what she wanted to say? If she didn’t seize this opportunity to do so she would regret it, Ruby warned herself, for Sander’s sake more than for her own.
‘I know your mother hurt you, Sander.’
‘My mother never loved any of us. We were a duty she had to bear—literally as well as figuratively. My brother and sister and myself were the price she paid for my father’s wealth, and for living the life she really wanted—a life of shallow, gaudy excess, lived in luxury at someone else’s expense. The only time we saw her was when she wanted my father to give her more money. There was no room in her heart for us, no desire to make room there for us.’
Ruby’s heart ached with compassion for him.
‘It wasn’t your fault that she rejected you, Sander. The flaw was within her, not you.’
His grip on her hand tightened convulsively.
‘I guess I’ve always been distrustful of women—probably as a result of my relationship with my mother. When I saw you in that club I saw you in my mother’s image. I didn’t want to look beneath the surface. I believe now that a part of me did recognise how innocent and vulnerable you really were, but I was determined to reject it. I used you as a means of expressing my anger against my grandfather. My behaviour was unforgivable.’
‘No.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘Under the circumstances it was predictable. Had I been the experienced party girl you thought, I suspect I would have known that something more than desire was driving you. We both made mistakes, Sander, but that doesn’t mean we can’t forgive ourselves and put them behind us. We were both defensive when we got married. You because of your mother, and me because I was ashamed of the way I’d behaved with you—giving away my virginity to a man who couldn’t wait to throw me out of his bed and his life once he had had what he wanted.’
‘Don’t…’ Sander groaned remorsefully. ‘I’m sorry I said what I did about this new baby, Ruby. When you fell just before you lost consciousness you whispered to me—“my baby”—and I knew then that no matter what I had said, or thought I believed, the child inside you was mine, that it was impossible for it to have been fathered by anyone else. Can we start again? Can you still love me after the way I’ve behaved?’
In answer to his question Ruby lifted herself up off her pillows and kissed him gently, before telling him, ‘It would be impossible for me not to love you, Sander.’
It was just over a month since Ruby, fully recovered from her fall, had returned to the island, and each day her happiness grew. Or so it seemed to her. Sander had already proved to her that he was a loving father to the twins, and now, in addition to proving to her that he intended to be an equally good father to the child she was carrying, he had also dedicated himself to proving to her that he was a wonderfully loving husband.
Lying next to him in their bed, Ruby felt her heart swell with joy and love. Smiling in the darkness, she turned toward Sander, pressing a loving kiss against his chin.
‘You know what will happen if you keep on doing that,’ he warned her mock-seriously.