Marriage: To Claim His Twins - Page 9

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 certainly 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.

Tags: Penny Jordan Billionaire Romance
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