Ruby dropped the pair of shoes she had been holding, glad that the act of bending down to pick them up gave her an opportunity to hide her shock. How much she loved Sander? What on earth had made Anna think and say that? She didn’t love him at all.
Did she?
Of course not. After all, he hadn’t exactly given her any reason to love him, had he?
Since when had love needed a reason? What reason had she needed in that Manchester club, when she had looked across the bar and felt her heart leap inside her chest, as though he himself had tugged it and her towards him?
That had been the silly, naive reaction of a girl desperate to create a fairytale hero—a saviour to rescue her from her grief, Ruby told herself, beginning to panic.
Anna was mistaken. She had to be. But when she had recovered her composure enough to look at the other woman she saw from the warm compassion in her eyes that Anna herself certainly didn’t think that she was wrong.
Was it possible? Could she have started to love Sander without realising it? Could the aching, overwhelming physical desire for him she could not subdue be caused by love and not merely physical need? He was, after all, the father of her children, and she couldn’t deny that initially when she had realised that she was pregnant a part of her had believed she had conceived because of the intensity of her emotional response to him. Because she had been naive, and frightened and alone, she had wanted to believe that the twins had been created out of love.
And this new baby—didn’t it too deserve to have its mother’s body accept the seed that began its life with love?
‘You will like Elena,’ Anna repeated, ‘and she will like you.’
Ruby was clinging to those words several hours later, after their plane had touched down in Athens and they were in the arrivals hall, as an extremely stylish dark-haired young woman came hurrying towards them, her eyes covered by a pair of designer sunglasses.
‘Sander. I thought I was going to be late. The traffic is horrendous—and the smog! No wonder all our precious ancient buildings are in so much danger. Andreas said to tell you that he is pretty sure he has secured the Taiwan contract—oh, and I want you both to come to dinner tonight. Nothing too formal…’
‘Elena, you are like a runaway train. Stop and let me introduce you to Ruby.’ Sander’s tone was firm but wry, causing his sister to laugh and then turn to Ruby, catching her off-guard when she immediately enveloped her in a warm hug.
‘Anna has told me what a fortunate man Sander is to have married you. I can’t wait to meet the twins. Wasn’t I clever, spotting them at Manchester Airport? But for me you and Sander might never have made up your quarrel and been reconciled.’
They were out of the airport now, and Sander was saying, ‘You’d better let me drive, Elena. I have some expensive memories of what happens when you drive and talk at the same time.’
‘Oh, you.’ Elena mock pouted as she handed over her car keys, and then told Ruby, ‘It wasn’t really my fault. The other driver should never have been parked where he was in the first place.’
Anna was right—she was going to like Elena, Ruby acknowledged as her sister-in-law kept up a stream of inconsequential chatter and banter whilst Sander drove them through the heavy Athens traffic.
Elena had obviously questioned Sander about their relationship, and from what she had said Ruby suspected that he had made it seem as though the twins had been conceived during an established relationship between them rather than a one-night stand. That had been kind of him. Kind and thoughtful. Protecting the twins and protecting her. The warm glow she could feel inside herself couldn’t possibly be happiness, could it?
The Athens night was warm, the soft air stroking Ruby’s skin as she and Sander walked from the taxi that had just dropped them off to the entrance to the exclusive modern building that housed Sander’s Athens apartment. They had spent the evening with Elena and Andreas at their house on the outskirts of the city, and tomorrow morning they would be returning to the island. Of course she was looking forward to seeing the twins, but… Was she simply deceiving herself, because it was what she wanted, or had there really been a softening in Sander’s attitude towards her today? A kindness and a warmth that had made her feel as though she was poised on the brink of something special and wonderful?
Sander looked at Ruby. She was wearing a pale peach silk dress patterned with a design of pale grey fans. It had shoestring straps, a fitted bodice and a gently shaped slim skirt. Its gentle draping hinted at the feminine shape of her figure without revealing too much of it, and the strappy bodice revealed the tan her skin had acquired in the weeks she had spent on the island. Tonight, watching her over dinner as she had talked and smiled and laughed with his sister and her husband, he had felt pride in her as his wife, as well as desire for her as a man. Something—Sander wasn’t prepared to give it a name—had begun to change. Somehow he had begun to change. Because Ruby was a good mother? Because she had trusted him about the twins’ care? Because tonight she had shown an intelligence, a gentleness and a sense of humour that—a little to his own surprise—he had recognised were uniquely hers, setting her apart from his mother and every other woman he had known?
Sander wasn’t ready to answer those questions, but he was ready and eager to make love to his wife.
To make love to her as his wife. A simple enough statement, but for Sander it resonated with admissions that he would have derided as impossible the day he had married her.
As they entered the apartment building Sander reached for Ruby’s hand. Neither of them said anything, but Ruby’s heart leapt and then thudded into the side of her chest. The hope she had been trying desperately not to let go to her head was now soaring like a helium balloon.
On the way up to the apartment in the lift she pleaded mentally, ‘Please let everything be all right. Please let things work out for…for all of us.’ And by all she included the new life she was carrying as well.
She was going to tell Sander, but today whilst she had had the chance she had slipped into a chemist’s shop and bought a pregnancy testing kit—just to be doubly sure. She would wait until they were back on the island to use it, and then she would tell Sander. Then, but not now. Because she wanted tonight to be very special. Tonight she wanted for herself. Tonight she wanted to make love with Sander, knowing that she loved him.
In the small sitting room of the apartment, Sander removed the jacket of his linen suit, dropping it onto one of the chairs. The small action tightened the fabric of his shirt against the muscles of his back, and Ruby’s gaze absorbed their movement, the now familiar ache of longing softening her belly and then spreading swiftly through her. Her sudden need to breathe more deeply, to take in oxygen, lifted her breasts against the lining of her dress, causing her already aroused and sensitive nipples to react even more to the unintentional drag of the fabric. When Sander straightened up and turned round he could see their swollen o
utline pressing eagerly against the barrier of her dress. His own body reacted to their provocation immediately, confirming the need for her he had already known he felt.
She couldn’t stand here like this, Ruby warned herself. If she did Sander was bound to think she was doing so because she wanted him and was all too likely to say so. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to be accused of being a woman who could not live without sexual satisfaction. What she wanted was to be told that he couldn’t resist her, that he adored her and loved her.
Quickly Ruby turned towards the door, not wanting Sander to see her expression, but to her astonishment before she could reach it he said quietly, ‘You looked beautiful tonight in that dress.’
Sander was telling her she looked beautiful?
Ruby couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything other than stare at him, torn between longing and disbelief.