Free Marriage: To Claim His Twins by Penny Jordan

feel, and it certainly wasn’t what she wanted to feel. Sander was her enemy—an enemy she was forced to share her sons with because he was their father, an enemy who had ripped from her the protection of her naivety with his cruel contempt for her.
    Determinedly Ruby started to push herself free, but instead of releasing her Sander tightened his hold of her.
    He’d seen that she was slender, Sander acknowledged, but it was only now that he was holding her and could actually feel the bones beneath her flesh that he was able to recognise how thin she was. She was shivering too, despite her claim not to need a coat. Once again he was reminded of the report he had commissioned on her. Was it possible that in order to ensure that her sons ate well and were not deprived of the nourishment they needed she herself had been going without? Sander had held his sons, and he knew just how solid and strong their bodies were. The amount of energy they possessed alone was testament to their good health. And it was their good health that mattered to him, not that of their mother, whose presence in his life as well as theirs was something he had told himself he would have to accept for their sakes.
    Even so… He looked down into Ruby’s face. Herskin was paler than he remembered, but he had put that down to the fact that when he had first met her her face had been plastered in make-up, whilst now she wore none. Her cheekbones might be more pronounced, but her lips were still full and soft—the lips of sensual siren who knew just how to use her body to her own advantage. Sander had never been under any illusions as to why Ruby had approached him. He had heard her and her friend discussing the rich footballers they intended to target. Unable to find one, Ruby had obviously decided to target him instead.
    Sander frowned, unwilling to contrast the frail vulnerability of the woman he was holding with the girl he remembered, and even more unwilling to allow himself to feel concern for her. Why should he care about her? He didn’t. And yet as she struggled to pull free of him, her eyes huge in her fine boned face, a sudden gleam of March sunshine pierced the heavy grey of the late afternoon sky to reveal the perfection of her skin and stroke fingers of light through her blonde curls, Sander had sudden reluctance to let her go. In rejection of it he immediately released her.
    It was the unexpected swiftness of her release after Sander’s grip had seemed to be tightening on her that was causing her to feel so…confused, Ruby told herself, refusing to allow herself to use the betraying word bereft , which had tried to slip through her defences. Why should she feel bereft? She wanted to be free. Sander’s hold had no appeal for her. She certainly hadn’t spent the last six years longing to be back in his arms. Why should she,when her last memory of them had been the biting pressure of his fingers in her flesh as he thrust her away from him in a gesture of angry contempt?
    It had started to rain, causing Ruby to shiver and call the boys to them. It was no good her longing for the security of home, she told herself as they headed back to the hotel in the taxi Sander had flagged down, with the twins squashed in between them so that she didn’t have to come into contact with him. She must focus on the future and all that it would hold for her sons. Their happiness was far more important to her than her own, and it was obvious to her how easily they were adapting to Sander’s presence in their lives. An acceptance oiled by the promise of expensive toys, Ruby thought bitterly, knowing that her sons were too young for her to be able to explain to them that a parent’s love wasn’t always best shown though gifts and treats, and knowing too that it would be part of her future role to ensure that they were not spoiled by their father’s wealth or blinded to the reality of other people’s lives and