empty. Her heart lurched sickeningly, and then started to beat frantically fast with fear.
On shaking legs Ruby ran through the suite, opening doors, calling their names, even checking the security lock on the main door to the suite just in case they had somehow opened it. All the time the hideous reality of what might have happened was lying in wait for her inside her head.
In the dreadful silence of the suiteâonly a parent could know and understand how a silence that should have been filled with the sound of childrenâs voices could feelâshe sank down onto one of the sofas.
The reason the twins werenât here must be because Sander had taken them. There could be no other explanation. He must have come back whilst she was asleep and seized his opportunity. He hadnât wanted to marry her any more than she had wanted to marry him. What he had wanted was the twins. His sons. And now he had them.
Were they already on a plane to the island? His island, where he made the laws and where she would never be able to reach them. He had their passports after all. A legal necessity, he had said, and she had stupidly accepted that.
Shock, grief, fear and angerâshe could feel them all, but over and above those feelings was concern for her sons and fury that Sander could have done something so potentially harmful to them.
She could hear a noise: the sound of the main door to the suite opening, followed by the excited babble of two familiar voices.
The twins!
She was on her feet, hardly daring to believe that she wasnât simply imagining hearing them out of her own need, and then they were there, in the room with her, running towards her and telling her excitedly, âDaddy took us to a café for our tea, because you were asleep,â bringing the smell of cold air in with them.
Dropping onto her knees, Ruby hugged them to her not trusting herself to speak, holding the small wriggling bodies tightly. They were her life, her heart, her everything. She could hardly bear to let them go.
Sander was standing watching her, making her acutely conscious as she struggled to stand up that all that covered her nudity was the towel she had wrapped round her.
Going back to her bedroom, she discarded the towel and grabbed a clean pair of knickers before reaching for her old and worn velour dressing gown. She was too worked up and too anxious to get back to the twins as quickly as she could to care what she looked like or what Sander thought. The fact that he hadnât taken them as she had initially feared paled into insignificance compared with her realisation that he could have done so. Now that she had had a taste of what it felt like to think she had lost them, she knew more than ever that there was nothing she would not do or sacrifice to keep them with her.
Her hands trembled violently as she tied the belt onher dressing gown. From the sitting room she could hear the sound of cartoon voices from the television, and when she went back in the boys were sitting together, watching a childrenâs TV programme, whilst Sander was seated at the small desk with his laptop open in front of him.
Neither of them had spoken, but the tension and hostility crackling in the air between them spoke a language they could both hear and understand.
Her headache might have gone, but it had been replaced with an equally sickening sense of guilt, Ruby acknowledged, when she sat down an hour later to read to the boys, now bathed and in bed. She watched them as they fell asleep after their bedtime story. Today something had happened that she had never experienced before. She had slept so deeply that she had not heard anything when Sander returned and took her sons. How could that be? How could she have been so careless of their safety?
She didnât want to leave them. She wanted to stay here all night with them.
The bedroom door opened. Immediately Ruby stiffened, whispering, âWhat do you
On shaking legs Ruby ran through the suite, opening doors, calling their names, even checking the security lock on the main door to the suite just in case they had somehow opened it. All the time the hideous reality of what might have happened was lying in wait for her inside her head.
In the dreadful silence of the suiteâonly a parent could know and understand how a silence that should have been filled with the sound of childrenâs voices could feelâshe sank down onto one of the sofas.
The reason the twins werenât here must be because Sander had taken them. There could be no other explanation. He must have come back whilst she was asleep and seized his opportunity. He hadnât wanted to marry her any more than she had wanted to marry him. What he had wanted was the twins. His sons. And now he had them.
Were they already on a plane to the island? His island, where he made the laws and where she would never be able to reach them. He had their passports after all. A legal necessity, he had said, and she had stupidly accepted that.
Shock, grief, fear and angerâshe could feel them all, but over and above those feelings was concern for her sons and fury that Sander could have done something so potentially harmful to them.
She could hear a noise: the sound of the main door to the suite opening, followed by the excited babble of two familiar voices.
The twins!
She was on her feet, hardly daring to believe that she wasnât simply imagining hearing them out of her own need, and then they were there, in the room with her, running towards her and telling her excitedly, âDaddy took us to a café for our tea, because you were asleep,â bringing the smell of cold air in with them.
Dropping onto her knees, Ruby hugged them to her not trusting herself to speak, holding the small wriggling bodies tightly. They were her life, her heart, her everything. She could hardly bear to let them go.
Sander was standing watching her, making her acutely conscious as she struggled to stand up that all that covered her nudity was the towel she had wrapped round her.
Going back to her bedroom, she discarded the towel and grabbed a clean pair of knickers before reaching for her old and worn velour dressing gown. She was too worked up and too anxious to get back to the twins as quickly as she could to care what she looked like or what Sander thought. The fact that he hadnât taken them as she had initially feared paled into insignificance compared with her realisation that he could have done so. Now that she had had a taste of what it felt like to think she had lost them, she knew more than ever that there was nothing she would not do or sacrifice to keep them with her.
Her hands trembled violently as she tied the belt onher dressing gown. From the sitting room she could hear the sound of cartoon voices from the television, and when she went back in the boys were sitting together, watching a childrenâs TV programme, whilst Sander was seated at the small desk with his laptop open in front of him.
Neither of them had spoken, but the tension and hostility crackling in the air between them spoke a language they could both hear and understand.
Her headache might have gone, but it had been replaced with an equally sickening sense of guilt, Ruby acknowledged, when she sat down an hour later to read to the boys, now bathed and in bed. She watched them as they fell asleep after their bedtime story. Today something had happened that she had never experienced before. She had slept so deeply that she had not heard anything when Sander returned and took her sons. How could that be? How could she have been so careless of their safety?
She didnât want to leave them. She wanted to stay here all night with them.
The bedroom door opened. Immediately Ruby stiffened, whispering, âWhat do you
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