AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This was what her body had yearned and hungered for—this completeness and wholeness, beyond any other, as she clung to Sander, taking him fully within her and holding him there, welcoming and matching the growing speed of his rhythm.
He was lost, Sander recognised. His self-control, his inner self stripped away, taking from him his power to do anything other than submit to his own need as it rolled over him and picked him up with its unstoppable force.
He heard himself cry out, a male sound of mingled agony and triumph, as Ruby’s fresh orgasm took them both over the edge, his body flooding hers with his own release.
Her body still racked by small aftershocks of the seismic pleasure that had erupted inside her, Ruby lay silently against Sander’s chest, heard their racing heartbeats gradually slowing.
Tonight they had shared something special, something precious, Ruby thought, and her heart overflowed with love.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE twins’ matter-of-fact response to their return to the island proved more than any amount of words how comfortable they had been in Anna’s care during her absence, Ruby reflected ruefully in her bedroom, as she changed out of the clothes she had travelled home in. Sander had gone straight to his office to check his e-mails.
But getting changed wasn’t all she needed to do.
Her handbag was on the bed. She opened it and removed the pregnancy testing kit she had bought in Athens. Her hands trembled slightly as she took it from its packaging, her eyes blurring with emotion as she read the instructions. Six years ago when she had done this she had been so afraid, sick with fear, dreading the result.
She was equally anxious now, but for very different reasons.
Things had changed since she had first realised that she might be pregnant again, she tried to reassure herself. When Anna had referred to her love for Sander, initially Ruby had wanted to deny it. But once that truth had been laid bare for her to see she hadn’t been able to ignore it. Of course she loved Sander. The real shock was that she hadn’t realised that for herself but had needed Anna to tell her. Now, just thinking about him filled her with aching longing and pain.
Maybe this baby would build the bridge between them, if she lowered her own pride and told him how she felt. She had begged him to give her the possession of his body—would it really be so very difficult to plead with him to accept her love? To plead with him that this child might be born into happiness and the love of both its parents? He loved the twins—surely he would love this child as well, even if he refused to accept her love for him? Telling herself that she must have faith that the love she had seen Sander give the twins would not be reserved for the twins alone, she walked towards the bathroom.
Ten minutes later Ruby was still standing in the bathroom, her gaze fixed on the telltale line. She had known, of course—impossible for her not to have done. But nothing was the same as visible confirmation. Against Sander’s explicit wishes she had conceived his child. Ruby thought of the contraceptive pills she had taken so carefully and regularly every evening, in obedience to Sander’s conditions for their marriage. Perhaps this baby, conceived against all the odds, was meant to be—a gift to them both that they could share together? She put her hand on her still flat body and took a deep breath. She would have to tell Sander now, and the sooner the better.
The sudden childish scream of anger she could hear from outside had her letting the test fall onto the marble surface surrounding the hand basin as she ran to the patio doors in the bedroom in automatic response to the outraged sound. Outside on the patio, as she had expected, she found the twins quarrelling over a toy. Freddie was attempting to drag it away from Harry, whilst Harry wailed in protest. Anna, alerted as Ruby had been by the noise, wasn’t far behind her, and the two of them quickly defused the situation.
Once they had done so, Anna said matter-of-factly, ‘You will have your hands full if it is twins again that you are carrying.’
Ruby shook her head. She wasn’t really surprised that Anna had guessed. The homemade ginger biscuits that had discreetly begun to appear with her morning cup of weak tea had already hinted to her that Anna shared her own suspicions.
Sander pushed back his chair. They had only arrived at the villa an hour ago, and yet already he was conscious of an urge to seek out Ruby, and with it an awareness that he was actually missing her company—and not just in bed. Such feelings made him feel vulnerable, something that Sander instinctively resisted and resented, and yet at the same time he was opening his office door and striding down the corridor in the direction of their bedroom.
Ruby would be outside with the twins. As their father, he could legitimately get changed and go and join them. Doing so would not betray him. And if he was there as much so that he could be with Ruby as with his sons, then only he needed to know that. The conditioning of a lifetime of fearing emotional betrayal could not be overturned in the space of a few short weeks. Others close to him, like Anna and Elena, might admire Ruby and think her a good wife, but Sander told himself that he needed more proof that he could trust her.
He noted the presence of Ruby’s open handbag on their bed as he made his way to the bathroom, but it was only after he had showered and changed that he noticed the discarded pregnancy test.
The first thing Ruby saw when she went back into the bedroom was Sander’s suit jacket on the bed. Her heart started to hammer too heavily and far too fast, with a mixture of guilt and fear. She walked towards the bathroom, coming to an abrupt halt when she saw Sander standing beside the basin, holding the telltale test.
There was a blank look in his eyes, as though he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. A blank look that was soon burned away by the anger she could see replacing it as he looked at her.
/>
‘You’re pregnant.’
It was an accusation, not a question, and Ruby’s heart sank.
‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I thought I might be, but I wanted to be sure before I told you. I know what you said when we got married about me taking the pill because you didn’t want another child—and I did take it,’ she told him truthfully. When he didn’t say anything, but simply continued to look at her she was panicked into pleading emotionally, ‘Please don’t look at me like that. You love the twins, and this baby, your baby, deserves to be loved as well.’
‘My child? Since you have said yourself that you were on the pill, it cannot possibly be my child. We both know that. Do you really think me such a fool that I would let you pass off a brat conceived with one of the no doubt many men who happened to be enjoying your body before I found you? If so, then you are the one who is a fool. But you are not a fool, are you, Ruby? You are a venal, lying, amoral and greedy woman.’
The words exploded into the room like randomly discharged machine gun fire, meant to destroy everything it hit. Right now she might be too numb to feel anything, but Ruby knew that she had been mortally wounded.
‘You obviously knew when you demanded that I marry you that you were carrying this child,’ Sander accused her savagely.
He had claimed that he was not a fool, but the opposite was true. He had allowed her to tempt him out of the security of the emotional mindset he had grown up with and to believe that maybe—just maybe—he had been wrong about her. But of course he had not been. He deserved the punishment of what he was feeling now for dropping his guard, for deliberately ignoring all the safeguards he had put in place to protect himself. The bitter, angry thoughts raked Sander’s pride with poison-dipped talons.
‘I thought you had married me for the financial gain you believed you could get from our marriage, but I can see now that I didn’t recognise the true depth of your greed and lack of morals.’
