‘Your money means nothing to me, Sander, nothing at all,’ she told him truthfully, adding for good measure, ‘And neither do you. For me, the fact that you choose to think in terms of money simply underlines all the reasons why I am not prepared to allow my sons anywhere near you unless I am there.’

‘That is how you feel, but what about how they might feel?’ Sander pressed her. ‘A good mother would never behave so selfishly. She would put her children’s interests first.’

How speedily Sander had turned the tables on her, Ruby recognised. What had begun at least on her part as a challenge to him, which she had been confident would make him back down, had turned into a double-edged sword which right now he was wielding very skilfully against her, cutting what she had thought was secure ground away from under her feet.

‘I am…they need their moth—’ she started.

‘They are my sons,’ Sander interrupted her angrily. ‘And I mean to have them. If I have to marry you to facilitate that, then so be it. But make no mistake, Ruby. I intend to have my sons.’

Best-selling Modern™ Romance authorPenny Jordan brings you an exciting new trilogy…

NEEDED: THE WORLD’SMOST ELIGIBLE BILLIONAIRES

Three penniless sisters, pure and proud…but about to be purchased!

With bills that need to be paid,

a house about to be repossessed and little twin boys

to feed, sisters Lizzie, Charley and Ruby refuse to drown

in their debts. They will hold their heads up high

and fight to feed their family!

But three of the richest, most ruthless men in the world

are about to enter their lives…

Pure, proud, but penniless,

how far will the sisters go to save the ones they love?

Lizzie’s story—

THE WEALTHY GREEK’S CONTRACT WIFE

Ilios Manos is Greek and ruthless.A dangerous combination! Lizzie owes him thousands,but he’ll take her as his wife in payment.

Charley’s story—

THE ITALIAN DUKE’S VIRGIN MISTRESS

When project manager Charley is hired by demandingRaphael Della Striozzi, he’s adamant she must have amakeover! Now the dowdy frump has been transformed,she’s sexy enough for another role: his mistress!

Ruby’s story—

MARRIAGE: TO CLAIM HIS TWINS

Out of the blue, Alexander Konstantinakos has turnedup at Ruby’s house to take his twin sons back to Greece!Ruby will do anything to keep her boys by her side—even marry Sander!

Marriage: To Claim His Twins

by

Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

ALEXANDER KONSTANTINAKOS, powerful, formidable, billionaire head of an internationally renowned container shipping line originally founded by his late grandfather, stood in the middle of the elegantly luxurious drawing room of his home on the Greek Ionian island of Theopolis, his gaze riveted on the faces of the twin boys in the photograph he was holding.

Two black-haired, olive-skinned and dark-eyed identical faces looked back at him, their mother kneeling down beside them. The three of them were shabbily dressed in cheap-looking clothes.

Tall, dark-haired, with the features of two thousand years of alpha-male warriors and victors sculpted into the bones of his handsome face the same way that their determination was sculpted into his psyche, he stood in the now silent room, the accusation his sister had just made was still echoing through his head.

‘They have to be your sons,’ she had accused Nikos, their younger brother. ‘They have our family features stamped on them, and you were at university in Manchester.’

Alexander—Sander to his family—didn’t need to keep gazing at the photograph Elena had taken with her mobile phone on her way through Manchester Airport after visiting her husband’s family to confirm her statement, or to memorise the boys’ faces. They were already carved into his memory for all time.

‘I don’t know anything about them,’ his younger brother Nikos denied, breaking the silence. ‘They aren’t mine, Sander, I promise you. Please believe me.’

‘Of course they’re yours,’ Elena corrected their younger brother. ‘Just look at those faces. Nikos is lying, Sander. Those children are of our blood.’

Sander looked at his younger sister and brother, on the verge of quarrelling just as they had always done as children. There were only two years between them, but he had been born five years before Elena and seven before Nikos, and after their grandfather’s death as the only adult family member left in their lives he had naturally taken on the responsibility of acting as a father figure to them. That had often meant arbitrating between them when they argued.

This time, though, it wasn’t arbitration that was called for.

Sander looked at the photograph again and then announced curtly, ‘Of our blood, but not of Nikos’s making. Nikos is speaking the truth. The children are not his.’

Elena stared at him.

‘How can you know that?’

Sander turned towards the windows and looked beyond them to where the horizon met the deep blue of the Aegean Sea. Outwardly he might appear calm, but inside his chest his heart was thudding with fury. Inside his head images were forming, memories he had thought well buried surfacing.

‘I know it because they are mine,’ he answered his sister, watching as her eyes widened with the shock of his disclosure.

She wasn’t the only one who was shocked, Sander acknowledged. He had been shocked himself when he had looked at her phone and immediately recognised the young woman kneeling beside the two young boys who so undeniably bore the stamp of their fathering—his fathering. Oddly, she looked if anything younger now than she had the night he had met her in a Manchester club favoured by young footballers, and thus the haunt of the girls who chased after them. He had been taken there by a business acquaintance, who had left him to his own devices having picked up a girl himself, urging Sander to do the same.

Sander’s mouth hardened. He had buried the memory of that night as deeply as he could. A one-night stand with an alcohol-fuelled girl dressed in overly tight and incredibly revealing clothes, wearing too much make-up, who had made such a deliberate play for him. At one point she had actually caught hold of his hand, as though about to drag him to bed with her. It wasn’t something any real man with any pride or self-respect could ever be proud of—not even when there were the kind of extenuating circumstances there had been that night. She had been one of a clutch of such girls, openly seeking the favours of the well-paid young footballers who favoured the place. Greedy, amoral young women, whose one desire was to find themselves a rich lover or better still a rich husband. The club, he had been told, was well known for attracting such young women.

He had had sex with her out of anger and resentment—against her for pushing him, and against his grandfather for trying to control his life. He’d been refusing to allow him a greater say in the running of the business which, in his stubborn determination not to move with the times, he had been slowly destroying. And against his parents—his father for dying, even though that had been over a decade ago, leaving him without his support, and his mother, who had married his father out of duty whilst continuing to love another man. All those things, all that anger had welled up inside him, and the result was now here in front of him.

His sons.

His.

A feeling like nothing he had ever experienced before seized hold of him. A feeling that, until it had struck him, he would have flatly denied he would ever experience. He was a modern man—a man of logic, not emotion, and certainly not the kind of emotion he was feeling right now. Gut wrenching, instinctive, tearing at him—an emotion born of a cultural inheritance that said that a man’s children, especially his sons, belonged under his roof.

Those boys were his. Their place was here with him, not in England. Here they could learn what it meant to be his sons, a Konstantinakos of Theopolis, could grow into their heritage. He could father them and guide them as his sense of responsibility demanded that he should. How much damage had they already suffered through the woman who had borne them?

He had given them life without knowing it, but now that he did know he would stop at nothing to bring them home to Theopolis, where they belonged.

CHAPTER ONE

CURSING as she heard the doorbell ring, Ruby remained where she was, on her hands and knees, hoping that whoever it was would give up and go away, leaving her in peace to get on with her cleaning. However, the bell rang again, this time almost imperiously. Someone was pressing hard on the bell.

Cursing again under her breath, Ruby backed out of the downstairs cloakroom, feeling hot and sticky, and not in any mood to have her busy blitz on cleaning whilst her twin sons were at school interrupted. She got to her feet, pushing her soft blonde curls off her face as she did so, before marching towards the front door of the house she shared with two older sisters and her own twin sons. She yanked it open.

‘Look, I’m—’ Her sentence went unfinished, her voice suspended by shock as she stared at the man standing on the doorstep.

Shock, disbelief, fear, anger, panic, and a sharp spear of something else that she didn’t recognise exploded inside her like a fireball, with such powerful intensity that her body was drained of so much energy that she was left feeling shaky and weak, trembling inwardly beneath the onslaught of emotions.

Of course he would be dressed immaculately, in a dark business suit worn over a crisp blue shirt, whilst she was wearing her old jeans and a baggy tee shirt. Not that it really mattered how she looked. After all, she had no reason to want to impress him—had she? And she certainly had no reason to want him to think of her as a desirable woman, groomed and dressed for his approval. She had to clench her stomach muscles against the shudder of revulsion that threatened to betray her. The face that had haunted her dreams and then her night-mares hadn’t changed—or aged. If anything he looked even more devastatingly handsome and virile than she had remembered, the dark gold gaze that had mesmerised her so effectively every bit as compelling now as it had been then. Or was it because she was a woman now and not the girl she had been that she was so immediately and shockingly aware of what a very sexual man he was? Ruby didn’t know, and she didn’t want to know.

The disbelief that had frozen her into silence had turned like snow in the sun to a dangerous slush of fear and horror inside her head—and her heart? No! Whatever effect he had once had on her heart, Sander Konstantinakos had no power to touch it now.

But still the small betraying word, ‘You,’ slid from the fullness of the naturally warm-coloured lips that had caused her parents to name her Ruby, causing a look of mixed contempt and arrogance to flash from the intense gold of Sander’s eyes. Eyes the colour of the king of the jungle—as befitted a man who was in effect the ruler of the Mediterranean island that was his home.

Instinctively Ruby started to close the door on him, wanting to shut out not just Sander himself but everything he represented, but he was too quick for her, taking hold of the door and forcing it open so that he could step into the hall—and then close the door behind him, enclosing them both in the small domestic space, with its smell of cleaning fluid. Strong as it was, it still wasn’t strong enough to protect her from the scent of him. A rash of prickly sensation raised the hairs at the back of her neck and then ran down her spine. This was ridiculous. Sander meant nothing to her now, just as she had meant nothing to him that night…But she mustn’t think about that. She must concentrate instead on what she was now, not what she had been then, and she must remember the promise she had made to the twins when they had been born—she would put the past behind her.

What she had never expected was that that past would seek her out, and now it had…

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, determined to wrest control of the situation from Sander. ‘What do you want?’

His mouth might be aesthetically perfect, with that well-cut top lip balancing the promise of sensuality with his fuller bottom lip, but there was nothing sensual about the tight-lipped look he was giving her, and his words were as sharply cold as the air outside the Manchester hotel in which he had abandoned her that winter morning.

‘I think you know the answer to that,’ he said, his English as fluent and as accentless as she remembered. ‘What I want, what I have come for and what I mean to have, are my sons.’

‘Your sons?’ Fiercely proud of her twin sons, and equally fiercely maternally protective of them, there was nothing he could have said which would have been more guaranteed to arouse Ruby’s anger than his verbal claim on them. Angry colour burned in the smooth perfection of Ruby’s normally calm face, and her blue-green eyes were fiery with the fierce passion of her emotions.

It was over six years since this man had taken her, used her and then abandoned her as casually as though she was a…a nothing. A cheap, impulsively bought garment which in the light of day he had discarded for its cheapness. Oh, yes, she knew that she had only herself to blame for what had happened to her that fatal night. She had been the one to flirt with him, even if that flirtation had been alcohol-induced, and no matter how she tried to excuse her behaviour it still shamed her. But not its result—not her beautiful, adorable, much loved sons. They could never shame her, and from the moment they had been born she had been determined to be a mother of whom they could be proud—a mother with whom they could feel secure, and a mother who, no matter how much she regretted the manner in which they had been conceived, would not for one minute even want to go back in time and avoid their conception. Her sons were her life. Her sons.

‘My sons—’ she began, only to be interrupted.

‘My sons, you mean—since in my country it is the father who has the right to claim his children, not the mother.’

‘My sons were not fathered by you,’ Ruby continued firmly and of course untruthfully.

‘Liar,’ Sander countered, reaching inside his jacket to produce a photograph which he held up in front of her.

The blood left Ruby’s face. The photograph had been taken at Manchester Airport, when they had all gone to see her middle sister off on her recent flight to Italy, and the resemblance of the twins to the man who had fathered them was cruelly and undeniably revealed. The two boys were cast perfectly in their father’s image, right down to the unintentionally arrogant masculine air they could adopt at times, as though deep down somewhere in their genes there was an awareness of the man who had fathered them.

Watching the colour come and go in Ruby’s face, Sander allowed himself to give her a triumphant look. Of course the boys were his. He had known it the first second he had looked at the image on his sister’s mobile phone. Their mirror image resemblance to him had sent a jolt of emotion through him unlike anything he had previously experienced.

It hadn’t taken the private agency he had contacted very long to trace Ruby—although Sander had frowned over comments in the report he had received from them that implied that Ruby was a devoted mother who dedicated herself to raising her sons and was unlikely to give them up willingly. But Sander had decided that Ruby’s very devotion to his sons might be the best tool he could use to ensure that she gave them up to him.

‘My sons’ place is with me, on the island that is their home and which ultimately will be their inheritance. Under our laws they belong to me.’

‘Belong? They are children, not possessions, and no court in this country would let you take them from me.’

She was beginning to panic, but she was determined not to let him see it.

‘You think not? You are living in a house that belongs to your sister, on which she has a mortgage she can no longer afford to repay, you have no money of your own, no job. No training—nothing! I, on the other hand, can provide my sons with everything that you cannot—a home, a good education, a future.’

Although she was shaken by the knowledge of how thoroughly he had done his homework, had had her in-vestigated, Ruby was still determined to hold her ground and not allow him to overwhelm her.

‘Maybe so. But can you provide them with love and the knowledge that they are truly loved and wanted? Of course you can’t—because you don’t love them. How can you? You don’t know them.’

There—let him answer that! But even as she made her defiant stand Ruby’s heart was warning her that Sander had raised an issue that she could not ignore and would ultimately have to face. Honesty compelled her to admit it.

‘I do know that one day they will want to know who fathered them and what their family history is,’ she said.

It was hard for her to make that admission—just as it had been hard for her to answer the questions the boys had already asked, saying that they did have a daddy but he lived in a different country. Those words had reminded her of what she was denying her sons because of the circumstances in which she had conceived them. One day, though, their questions would be those of teenagers, not little boys, and far more searching, far more knowing.

Ruby looked away from Sander, instinctively wanting to hide her inner fears from him. The problem of telling the boys how she had come to have them lay across her heart and her conscience in an ever present heavy weight. At the moment they simply accepted that, like many of the other children they were at school with, they did not have a daddy living with them. But one day they would start to ask more questions, and she had hoped desperately that she would not have to tell them the truth until they were old enough to accept it without judging her. Now Sander had stirred up all the anxieties she had tried to put to one side. More than anything else she wanted to be a good mother, to give her boys the gift of a secure childhood filled with love; she wanted them to grow up knowing they were loved, confident and happy, without the burden of having to worry about adult relationships. For that reason she was determined never, ever to begin a relationship with anyone. A changing parade of ‘uncles’ and ‘stepfathers’ wasn’t what she wanted for her boys.

But now Sander, with his demands and his questions, was forcing her to think about the future and her sons’ reactions to the reality of their conception. The fact that they did not have a father who loved them.

Anger and panic swirled through her.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded. ‘The boys mean nothing to you. They are five years old, and you didn’t even know that they existed until now.’

‘That is true. But as for them meaning nothing to me—you are wrong. They are of my blood, and that alone means that I have a responsibility to ensure that they are brought up within their family.’

He wasn’t going to tell her about that atavistic surge of emotion and connection he had felt the minute he had seen the twins’ photograph. Sander still didn’t really understand it himself. He only knew that it had brought him here, and that it would keep him here until she handed over to him his sons.

‘It can’t have been easy for you financially, bringing them up.’

Sander was offering her sympathy? Ruby was immediately suspicious. She longed to tell him that what hadn’t been easy for her was discovering at seventeen that she was pregnant by a man who had slept with her and then left her, but somehow she managed to resist doing so.

Sander gestured round the hall.

‘Even if your sister is able to keep up the mortgage payments on this house, have you thought about what would happen if either of your sisters wanted to marry and move out? At the moment you are financially dependent on their goodwill. As a caring mother, naturally you will want your sons to have the best possible education and a comfortable life. I can provide them with both, and provide you with the money to live your own life. It can’t be much fun for you, tied to two small children all the time.’

She had been right to be suspicious, Ruby recognised, as the full meaning of Sander’s offer hit her. Did he really expect her to sell her sons to him? Didn’t he realise how obscene his offer was? Or did he simply not care?

His determination made her cautious in her response, her instincts warning her to be careful about any innocent admission she might make as to the financial hardship they were all currently going through, in case Sander tried to use that information against her at a later date. So, instead of reacting with the anger she felt, she said instead, ‘The twins are only five. Now that they’re at school I’m planning to continue my education. As for me having fun—the 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 that the thought was there it couldn’t be ignored. Sander had said there was nothing he would not do to have his sons living with him. Well, maybe she should put his claim to the test, because she knew that there was no sacrifice she herself would not make for their sakes—no sacrifice at all. The challenge she intended to put to him was a huge risk for her to take, but for the boys’ sake she was prepared to take it. It was, after all, a challenge she was bound to win—because Sander would never accept the terms with which she was about to confront him. She was sure of that. She let out her pent up breath.

‘You say the boys’ place is with you?’

‘It is.’

‘They are five years old and I am their mother.’ Ruby took a deep breath, hoping that her voice wouldn’t shake with the nervousness she was fighting to suppress and thus betray her. ‘If you really care about their wellbeing as much as you claim then you must know that they are too young to be separated from me.’

She had a point, Sander was forced to admit, even though he didn’t like doing so.

‘You need to be very sure about why you want the twins, Sander.’ Ruby pressed home her point. ‘And that your desire to have them isn’t merely a rich man’s whim. Because the only way I will allow them to be with you is if I am there with them—as their mother and your wife.’

CHAPTER TWO

THERE—she had said it. Thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak, and given him her challenge.

In the silence that followed Ruby could literally hear her own heart beating as she held her breath, waiting for Sander to refuse her demand—because she knew that he would refuse it, and having refused it he must surely be forced to step back and accept that the boys’ place was with her.

Trying not to give in to the shakiness invading her body, Ruby could hardly believe that she had actually had the courage to say what she had. She could tell from Sander’s expression that her demand had shocked him, although he was quick to mask his reaction.

Marriage, Sander thought quickly, mentally assessing his options. He wanted his sons. There was no doubt in his mind about that, nor any doubt that they were his. Marriage to their mother would give him certain rights over them, but it would also give Ruby certain rights over his wealth. That, of course, was exactly what she wanted. Marriage to him followed by an equally speedy divorce and a very generous financial divorce settlement. He could read her mind so easily. Even so, she had caught him off-guard—although he told himself cynically that he should perhaps have been prepared for her demand. He was, after all, a very wealthy man.

‘I applaud your sharp-witted business acumen,’ he told Ruby drily, in a neutral voice that gave away nothing of the fury he was really feeling. ‘You rejected my initial offer of a generous payment under the guise of being a devoted mother, when in reality you were already planning to play for higher stakes.’

‘That’s not true,’ Ruby denied hotly, astonished by his interpretation of her demand. ‘Your money means nothing to me, Sander—nothing at all,’ she told him truthfully, adding for good measure, ‘And neither do you. For me, the fact that you choose to think of my offer in terms of money simply underlines all the reasons why I am not prepared to allow my sons anywhere near you unless I am there.’

‘That is how you feel, but what about how they might feel?’ Sander pressed her. ‘A good mother would never behave so selfishly. She would put her children’s interests first.’

How speedily Sander had turned the tables on her, Ruby recognised. What had begun as a challenge to him she had been confident would make him back down had now turned into a double-edged sword which right now he was wielding very skilfully against her, cutting what she had thought was secure ground away from under her feet.

‘They need their mother—’ she started.

‘They are my sons,’ Sander interrupted her angrily. ‘And I mean to have them. If I have to marry you to facilitate that, then so be it. But make no mistake, Ruby. I intend to have my sons.’

His response stunned her. She had been expecting him to refuse, to back down, to go away and leave them alone—anything rather than marry her. Sander had called her bluff and left her defenceless.

Now Ruby could see a reality she hadn’t seen before. Sander really did want the boys and he meant to have them. He was rich and powerful, well able to provide materially for his sons. What chance would she have of keeping them if he pursued her through the courts? At best all she could hope for was shared custody, with the boys passed to and fro between them, torn between two homes, and that was the last thing she wanted for them. Why had Sander had to discover that he had fathered them? Hadn’t life been cruel enough to her as it was?

Marriage to him, which she had not in any kind of way wanted, had now devastatingly turned into the protection she was forced to recognise she might need if she was to continue to have the permanent place in her sons’ lives that she had previously taken for granted.

Marriage to Sander wouldn’t just provide her sons with a father, she recognised now through growing panic, it would also protect her rights as a mother. As long as they were married the twins would have both parents there for them.

Both parents. Ruby swallowed painfully. Wasn’t it true that she had spent many sleepless nights worrying about the future and the effect not having a father figure might have on her sons?

A father figure, but not their real father. She had never imagined them having Sander in their lives—not after those first agonising weeks of being forced to accept that she meant nothing to him.

She wasn’t going to give up, though. She would fight with every bit of her strength for her sons.

Holding her head up she told him fiercely, ‘Very well, then. The choice is yours, Sander. If you genuinely want the boys because they are your sons, and because you want to get to know them and be part of their lives, then you will accept that separating them from me will inflict huge emotional damage on them. You will understand, as I do, no matter how much that understanding galls you, that children need the security of having two parents they know are there for them—will always be there for them. You will be prepared to make the same sacrifice that I am prepared to make to provide them with the security that comes from having two parents committed to them and to each other through marriage.’

‘Sacrifice?’ Sander demanded. ‘I am a billionaire. I don’t think there are many women who would consider marriage to me a sacrifice.’

Did he really believe that? If so, it just showed how right she was to want to ensure that her sons grew up knowing there were far more important things in life than money.

‘You are very cynical,’ she told him. ‘There are any number of women who would be appalled by what you have just said—women who put love before money, women like me who put their children first, women who would run from a man like you. I don’t want your money, and I am quite willing to sign a document saying so.’

‘Oh, you will be doing that. Make no mistake about it,’ Sander assured her ruthlessly. Did she really expect him to fall for her lies and her faked lack of interest in his money? ‘There is no way I will abandon my sons to the care of a mother who could very soon be without a roof over her head—a mother who would have to rely on charity in order to feed and clothe them—a mother who dressed like a tart and offered herself to a man she didn’t know.’

Ruby flinched as though he had physically hit her, but she still managed to ask quickly, ‘Were you any better? Or does the fact that you are a man and I’m a woman somehow mean that my behaviour was worse than yours? I was a seventeen-year-old-girl; you were an adult male.’

A seventeen-year-old girl. Angered by the reminder, Sander reacted against it. ‘You certainly weren’t dressed like a schoolgirl—or an innocent. And you were the one who propositioned me, not the other way round.’

And now he was going to be forced to marry her. Sander didn’t want to marry anyone—much less a woman like her.

What he had seen in his parents’ marriage, the bitterness and resentment between them, had made him vow never to marry himself. That vow had been the cause of acrimony and dissent between him and his grandfather, a despot who believed he had the right to barter his own flesh and blood in marriage as though they were just another part of his fleet of tankers.

Refusing Ruby’s proposal would give her an advantage. She could and would undoubtedly attempt to use his refusal against him were there to be a court case between them over the twins. But her obstinacy and her attempt to get the better of him had hardened Sander’s determination to claim his sons—even if it now meant using underhand methods to do so. Once they were on his island, its laws would ensure that he, as their father, had the right to keep them.

The familiar sound of a car drawing up outside and doors opening had Ruby ignoring Sander to hurry to the door. She suddenly realised what time it was, and that the twins were being dropped off by the neighbour with whom she shared school run duties. Opening the door, she hurried down the drive to thank her neighbour and help the twins out of the car, gathering up school bags and lunchboxes as she did, clucking over the fact that neither boy had fastened his coat despite the fact that it was still only March and cold.

Identical in every way, except for the tiny mole behind Freddie’s right ear, the boys stood and stared at the expensive car parked on the drive, and then looked at Ruby.

‘Whose car is that?’ Freddie asked, round-eyed.

Ruby couldn’t answer him. Why hadn’t she realised the time and got rid of Sander before the twins came home from school? Now they were bound to ask questions—questions she wasn’t going to be able to answer honestly—and she hated the thought of lying to them.

Freddie was still waiting for her to answer. Forcing a reassuring smile, she told him, ‘It’s just…someone’s. Come on, let’s get inside before the two of you catch cold with your coats unfastened like that.’

‘I’m hungry. Can we have toast with peanut butter?’ Harry asked her hopefully.

Peanut butter was his current favourite.

‘We’ll see,’ was Ruby’s answer as she pushed then gently into the hall in front of her. ‘Upstairs now, boys,’ she told them both, trying to remain as calm as she could even as they stood and stared in silence at Sander, who now seemed to be taking up a good deal of space in the hallway.

He was tall, well over six foot, and in other circumstances it would have made her smile to see the way Harry tipped his head right back to look up at him. Freddie, though, suddenly very much the man of the family as the elder of the two. He moved closer to her, as if instinctively seeking to protect her, and some silent communication between the two of them caused his twin to fall back to her other side to do the same.

Unwanted emotional tears stung Ruby’s eyes. Her darling boys. They didn’t deserve any of this, and it was her fault that things were as they were. Before she could stop herself she dropped down on one knee, putting an arm around each twin, holding them to her. Freddie was the more sensitive of the two, although he tried to conceal it, and he turned into her immediately, burying his face in her neck and holding her tightly, whilst Harry looked briefly towards Sander—wanting to go to him? Ruby wondered wretchedly—before copying his brother.

Sander couldn’t move. The second he had seen the two boys he had known that there was nothing he would not do for them—including tearing out his own heart and offering it to them on a plate. The sheer force of his love for them was like a tidal wave, a tsunami that swept everything else aside. They were his—of his family, of his blood, of his body. They were his. And yet, watching them, he recognised immediately how they felt about their mother. He had seen the protective stance they had taken up and his heart filled with pride to see that instinctive maleness in them.

An old memory stirred within him: strong sunlight striking down on his bare head, the raised angry voices of his parents above him. He too had turned to his mother, as his sons had turned to theirs, but there had been no loving maternal arms to hold him. Instead his mother had spun round, heading for her car, slamming the door after she’d climbed into it, leaving him behind, tyres spinning on the gravel, sending up a shower of small stones. He had turned then to his father, but he too had turned away from him and walked back to the house. His parents had been too caught up in their own lives and their resentment of one another to have time for him.

Sander looked down at his sons—and at their mother.

They were all their sons had. He thought again of his own parents, and realised on another surge of emotion that there was nothing he would not do to give his sons what he had never had.

‘Marriage it is, then. But I warn you now it will be a marriage that will last for life. That is the measure of my commitment to them,’ he told her, looking at the boys.

If she hadn’t been holding the twins Ruby thought she might well have fallen down in shock—shock and dismay. She searched Sander’s face for some sign that he didn’t really mean what he was saying, but all she could see was a quiet, implacable determination.

The twins were turning in her arms to look at Sander again. Any moment now they would start asking questions.

‘Upstairs, you two,’ she repeated, taking off their navy duffel coats. ‘Change out of your uniforms and then wash your hands.’

They made a dash past Sander, deliberately ignoring him, before climbing the stairs together—a pair of sturdy, healthy male children, with lean little-boy bodies and their father’s features beneath identical mops of dark curls.

‘There will be two conditions,’ Sander continued coldly. ‘The first is that you will sign a prenuptial agreement. Our marriage will be for the benefit of our sons, not the benefit of your bank account.’

Appalled and hurt by this fresh evidence of how little he thought of her, Ruby swallowed her pride—she was doing this for her boys, after all—and demanded through gritted teeth, ‘And the second condition?’

‘Your confirmation and proof that you are taking the birth control pill. I’ve seen the evidence of how little care you have for such matters. I have no wish for another child to be conceived as carelessly as the twins were.’

Now Ruby was too outraged to conceal her feelings.

‘There is no question of that happening. The last thing I want is to have to share your bed again.’

She dared to claim that, after the way she had already behaved?

Her outburst lashed Sander’s pride into a savage need to punish her.

‘But you will share it, and you will beg me to satisfy that hunger in you I have already witnessed. Your desire for sexual satisfaction has been honed in the arms of far too many men for you to be able to control it now.’

‘No! That’s not true.’

Ruby could feel her face burning. She didn’t need reminding about the wanton way in which she had not only given herself to him but actively encouraged him to take her. Her memories of that night were burned into her conscience for ever. Not one of her senses would ever forget the role they had played in her self-humiliation—the way her voice had sobbed and risen on an increasing note of aching longing that had resulted in a cry of abandoned pleasure that still echoed in her ears, the greedy need of her hands to touch and know his body, the hunger of her lips to caress his flesh and taste his kisses, the increased arousal the scent of his skin had brought her. Each and all of them had added to a wild torrent of sexual longing that had taken her to the edge of her universe and then beyond it, to a place of such spectacular loss of self that she never wanted to go there again.

Shaking herself free of the memories threatening to deluge her, Ruby returned staunchly, ‘That was different…a mistake.’ Her hands curled into her palms in bitter self-defence as she saw the cynical look he was giving her. ‘And it’s one that I never want to repeat. There’s no way I’d ever want to share your bed again.’

Her denial unleashed Sander’s anger. She was lying, he was sure of it, and he would prove it to her. He wasn’t a vain man, but he knew that women found him attractive, and Ruby had certainly done everything she could that night to make it plain to him that she wanted him. Normally he would never have even considered bedding her—he liked to do his own hunting—but her persistence had been like a piece of grit in his shoe, wearing down his resistance and helping to fuel the anger already burning inside him. That was why he had lost control. Because of his grandfather. Not because of Ruby herself, or because the aroused little cries she had made against his skin had proved so irresistible that he had lost sight of everything but his need to possess her. He could still remember the way she had cried out when he had finally thrust into her, as though what she was experiencing was completely new to her. She had clung to him, sobbing her pleasure into his skin as she trembled and shuddered against him.

Why was he thinking of that now?

The savagery of his fury, inflamed by both her demand for marriage and her denial of his accusation, deafened him to the note of raw pain in her voice. Before he could stop himself he had taken hold of her and was possessing her mouth in a kiss of scorching, pride-fuelled fury.

Too shocked to struggle against his possession, by the time she realised what was happening it was too late. Ruby’s own anger surged in defiance, passionate enough to overwhelm her self-control and battle with the full heat of Sander’s desire to punish her. Desire for him was the last thing she had expected to feel, but, shockingly, the hard possession of Sander’s mouth on her own turned a key in a lock she had thought so damaged by what he had already made her endure that it could never be turned again. Turned it with frightening ease.

This shouldn’t be happening. It could not be happening. But, shamefully, it was.

Her panic fought with the desire that burned through her and lost, overcome as swiftly as though molten lava was pouring through her, obliterating everything that stood in its path. Her lips parted beneath the driving pressure of Sander’s probing tongue, an agonised whim-per of longing drawn from her throat. She could feel the passion in Sander’s kiss, and the hard arousal of his body, but instead of acting as a warning that knowledge only served to further enflame her own desire, quickening the pulse already beating within her own sex.

Somewhere within the torrent of anger motivating him Sander could hear an inner voice warning him that this was how it had been before—this same furious, aching, agonised need and arousal that was possessing him now. It should have been impossible for him to want her. It should always have been impossible. And yet, like some mythical, dark malformed creature, supposedly entombed and shut away for ever, his desire had found the superhuman strength to break the bonds imprisoning it. His tongue possessed the eager willingness of the softness of her mouth and his body was already hard, anticipating the corresponding willingness of the most intimate part of her if he didn’t stop soon…

Ruby shuddered with mindless sensual delight as Sander’s tongue began to thrust potently and rhythmically against her own. Beneath her clothes her nipples swelled and hardened, their ache spreading swiftly through her. Sander’s hand cupped her breast, causing her to moan deep in her throat.

She was all female sensual heat, all eager willingness, her very responsiveness designed to trap, Sander recognised. If he didn’t stop now he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking her where they stood, from dragging the clothes from her body in his need to feel her bare skin against his touch, from sinking himself deep within her and feeling her body close round him, possessing him as he possessed her, both of them driven by the mindless, incessant ache that he was surely cursed to feel for her every time he touched her.

He found the buttons on her shirt, swiftly unfastening them. The feel of his hands on her body drew Ruby back into the past. Then he had undressed her expertly and swiftly, in between sensually erotic kisses that had melted away her ability to think or reason, leaving her aching for more, just as he was doing now. His left hand lifted her hair so that he could taste the warm sweetness of that place just where her neck joined her shoulder.

Ruby felt the warmth of his breath against her bare skin. Flames were erupting inside her—the eager flames of denied longing leaping upwards, consuming her resistance. Mindless shudders of hot pleasure rippled through her. Her shirt was open, her breasts exposed to Sander’s gaze.

He shouldn’t be doing this, Sander warned himself. He shouldn’t be giving in to the demands of his pride. But that was all he was doing. The heat running through his veins was only caused by angry pride, nothing else.

Her breasts were as perfect as he remembered, the dark rose nipples flaring into deep aureoles that contrasted with the paleness of her skin. He watched as they lifted and fell with the increased speed of her breathing, lifting his hand to cup one, knowing already that it would fit his hand as perfectly as though it was made to be held by him. Beneath the stroke of his thumb-pad her nipple hardened. Sander closed his eyes, remembering how in that long-ago hotel bedroom it had seemed as though her nipple was pushing itself against his touch, demanding the caress of first his thumb and forefinger, then his lips and tongue. Her response had been wild and immediate, swelling and hardening his own body.

He didn’t want her, not really, but his pride was now demanding her punishment, the destruction of her claim that she didn’t want him.

Ruby could feel herself being dragged back to the past. A small cry of protest gave away her torment.

Abruptly Sander thrust her away from him, brought back to reality by the sound.

They stood watching one another, fighting to control the urgency of their breathing, the urgency of their need. Exposed, raw, and in Ruby’s eyes ugly, it was almost a tangible force between them.

They both felt the strength of it and its danger. Ruby could see that knowledge in Sander’s eyes, just as she knew he must see it reflected in her own.

The weight of her shame ached through her.

Ruby’s face was drained of colour, her eyes huge with shock in her small face.

Sander was just as shocked by the intensity of the desire that had come out of nowhere to threaten his self-control—but he was better at hiding it than Ruby, and he was in no mood to find any pity for her. He was still battling with the unwanted knowledge of just how much he had wanted her.

‘You will take the contraceptive pill,’ he told her coldly. His heart started to pound heavily in recognition of what his words meant and invited, and the ache in his body surged against his self-control, but somehow he forced himself to ignore the demands of his own desire, to continue. ‘I will not accept any consequences of you not doing so.’

Never had she felt so weak, Ruby thought shakily—and not just physically weak, but emotionally and mentally weak as well. In the space of a few short minutes the protective cover she had woven around herself had been ripped from her, exposing her to the full horror of a weakness she had thought controlled and contained. It should be impossible for her to want Sander, to be aroused by him. Should be.

Reaction to what had happened was setting in. She felt physically sick, dazed, unable to function properly, torn apart by the conflicting nature of her physical desire and her burning sense of shame and disbelief that she should feel that desire…Wild thoughts jostled through her head. Perhaps she should not merely ask her doctor for a prescription for the birth control pill but for an anti-Sander pill as well—something that would destroy her desire for him? She needed a pill for that? Surely the way he had spoken to her, the way he had treated her, should be enough to ensure that she loathed the thought of him touching her? Surely her pride and the humiliation he had heaped on her should be strong enough to protect her?

She couldn’t marry him. Not now. Panic filled her.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she told him quickly. ‘About…about us getting married.’

Sander frowned. His immediate response to her statement was a fierce surge of determination to prevent her from changing her mind. For the sake of his sons. Nothing else. And certainly not because of the ache that was still pounding through him.

‘So the future of our sons is not as important to you as you claimed after all?’ he challenged her.

She was trapped, Ruby acknowledged, trapped in a prison of her own making. All she could do was cling to the fragile hope that somehow she would find the strength to deny the desire he could arouse in her so easily.

‘Of course it is,’ she protested.

‘Then we shall be married, and you will accept my terms and conditions.’

‘And if I refuse?’

‘Then I will move heaven and earth and the stars between them to take my sons from you.’

He meant what he was saying, Ruby could tell. She had no choice other than to bow her head in acceptance of his demands.

He had defeated her, Sander knew, but the taste of his triumph did not have the sweetness he had expected.

‘The demands placed on me by my business mean that the sooner the arrangements are completed the better. I shall arrange for the necessary paperwork to be carried out with regard to the prenuptial agreement I shall require you to sign and for our marriage. You must—’

A sudden bang from upstairs, followed by a sharp cry of pain, had them both turning towards the stairs.

Anxious for the safety of her sons, Ruby rushed past Sander, hurrying up the stairs to the boys’ room, unaware that Sander was right behind her as she pushed open the door to find Harry on the floor sobbing whilst Freddie stood clutching one of their toy cars.

‘Freddie pushed me,’ Harry told her.

‘No, I didn’t. He was trying to take my car.’

‘Let me have a look,’ Ruby instructed Harry, quickly checking to make sure that no real damage had been done before sitting back on her heels and turning to look at Freddie. But instead of coming to her for comfort Freddie was standing in front of Sander, who had obviously followed her into the room, looking up at him as though seeking his support, and Sander had his hand on Freddie’s arm, as though protecting him.

The raw intensity of her emotions gripped her by the throat—grief for all that the twins had missed in not having a father, guilt because she was the cause of that, pain because she loved them so much but her love alone could not give them the tools they would need to grow into well balanced men, and fear for her own self-respect.

His hand resting protectively on the shoulder of his son, Sander looked grimly at Ruby. His sons needed him in their lives, and nothing—least of all a woman like Ruby—was going to prevent him from being there for them.

Oblivious to the atmosphere between the two grown-ups Freddie repeated, ‘It’s my car.’

‘No, it’s not. It’s mine,’ Harry argued.

Their argument pulled Ruby’s attention back to them. They were devoted to one another, but every now and again they would argue like this over a toy, as though each of them was trying to seek authority over the other. It was a boy thing, other mothers had assured her, but Ruby hated to see them fall out.

‘I’ve got a suggestion to make.’ Sander’s voice was calm, and yet authoritative in a way that immediately had both boys looking at him. ‘If you both promise not to argue over this car again then I will buy you a new toy each, so you won’t have to share.’

Ruby sucked in an outraged breath, her maternal instincts overwhelming the vulnerability she felt towards Sander as a woman. What he was doing was outright bribery. Since she didn’t have the money to give the boys one each of things she had impressed on them the need to share and share alike, and now, with a handful of words, Sander had appealed to their natural acquisitive instincts with his offer.

She could see from the eager look in both pairs of dark gold eyes that her rules about sharing had been forgotten even before Harry challenged Sander excitedly, ‘When…when can we have them?’

Harry was on his feet now, rushing over to join his twin and lean confidently against Sander’s other leg whilst he looked up excitedly at him, his words tumbling over themselves as he told Sander, ‘I want a car like the one outside…’

‘So do I,’ Freddie agreed, determined not to be outdone and to assert his elder brother status.

‘I’m taking both of you and your mother to London.’

This was news to Ruby, but she wasn’t given the chance to say anything because Sander was already continuing.

‘There’s a big toyshop there where we can look for your cars—but only if you promise me not to quarrel over your toys in future.’

Two dark heads nodded enthusiastically in assent, and two identical watermelon grins split her sons’ faces as they gazed up worshipfully at Sander.

Ruby struggled to contain her feelings. Seeing her sons with Sander, watching the way they reacted to him, had brought home to her more effectively than a thousand arguments could ever have done just what they were missing without him—not financially, but emotionally.

Was it her imagination, or was she right in thinking that already they seemed to be standing taller, speaking more confidently, even displaying a body language they had automatically copied from their father? A small pang of sadness filled her. They weren’t babies any longer, her babies, wholly dependent on her for everything; they were growing up, and their reaction to Sander proved what she had already known—they needed a male role model in their lives. Helplessly she submitted to the power of the wave of maternal love that surged through her, but her head lifted proudly as she returned Sander’s silently challenging look.

Automatically Ruby reached out to stroke the tousled dark curls exactly at the moment that Sander did the same. Their hands touched. Immediately Ruby recoiled from the contact, unable to stop the swift rush of knowledge that slid into her head. Once Sander’s hands had touched her far more intimately than they were doing now, taking her and possessing her with a potent mix of knowledge and male arousal, and something else which in her ignorance and innocence she had told herself was passionate desire for her and her alone, but which of course had been nothing of the sort.

That reality had left her emotions badly bruised. His was the only sexual male touch she had ever known. Memories she had thought sealed away for ever were trying to surface. Memories aroused by that kiss Sander had forced on her earlier. Ruby shuddered in mute loathing of her own weakness, but it was too late. The mental images her memories were painting would not be denied—images of Sander’s hands on her body, the sound of his breathing against her ear and then later her skin. But, no, she must not think of those things. Instead she must be strong. She must resist and deny his ability to arouse her. She was not that young girl any more, she was a woman, a mother, and her sons’ needs must come before her own.

CHAPTER THREE

RUBY’S head was pounding with a tension headache, and her stomach cramped—familiar reactions to stress, which she knew could well result in her ending up with something close to a full-scale migraine attack. But this wasn’t the time for her to be ill, or indeed to show any weakness—even if she had hardly slept since and had woken this morning feeling nauseous.