boys provide me with all the fun I want or need.’
‘You’ll forgive me if I say that I find that hard to believe, given the circumstances under which we met,’ was Sander’s smooth and cruel response.
‘That was six years ago, and in circumstances that—’ Ruby broke off. Why should she explain herself to him? The people closest to her—her sisters—knew and understood what had driven her to the reckless behaviour that had resulted in the twins’ conception, and their love and support for her had never wavered. She owed Sander nothing after all—much less the revelation of her teenage vulnerabilities. ‘That was then,’ she corrected herself, adding firmly, ‘This is now.’
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
