The Silver Bride

START TWO

Eyes as dangerous as black ice scanned Stella's pale face. 'The instant I allowed you out of my sight, you rushed to the phone to pass on the data you overheard. You have betrayed my trust!' Dior Harlequin condemned with scantily suppressed savagery.

Even trembling, and with her stomach knotted light with apprehension, Stella was fascinated by the volatile charge of that explosive Mediterranean temperament and that innate sense of drama.

Both were so utterly foreign to her. ' Harlequin—' she began, keen to disabuse him of his eagerness to assume the worst. 'You have made your choice.

So be it.' Dior surveyed her with a cold, lethal threat. 1 will destroy you for this. Stella's tummy performed an unpleasant somersault. 'You've got it wrong,' she protested feverishly.

I only got as far as dialing the operator!' With a look of thunderous derision, Dior swung on his heel and strode away, outrage etched in every line of his lean, tight, powerful body.

For an instant, disconcertion froze Stella to the spot. Oh, yeah, just drag me out to the airport on your stupid helicopter and then dump me with no money and a very nasty threat! Only unfreezing as fear for her co-worker Grace's future job security assailed her, Stella raced after Dior Harlequin, hating him like poison.

'Get out of my way,' he growled when she got in front of him. 'That call I was trying to make wasn't what you thought it was either!' Stella argued hotly. He simply sidestepped her. 'You are so stubborn!' Stella flung wrathfully in his wake.

'All I did was try to make a reverse-charge call to my boss at the bookshop...all right?' Stilling, Dior swung back with stormy reluctance. 'What bookshop?' he ground out. Stella stared at him with a frown, sensing something missing, and then she exclaimed, 'What the heck have you done with the bags?

For Pete sake, you just walked off and left them lying on the floor, didn't you?' Stella went into automatic reverse, spinning round to retrace his steps. Her attention settled on the abandoned carrier bags with relief. Hurrying back, she grabbed them up. 'What bookshop?' Dior repeated stonily when she'd made it back to his side, laden like a packhorse.

'I work in one during the day. I also live above the shop...' Stella paused to get her breath back. 'I have to contact Watson to warn him that I'll be taking time off. He'll call the police if I suddenly vanish—' 'Rubbish! He'll assume that you've taken off with some boyfriend. The staff of your age are often unreliable,' Dior Harlequin asserted, unimpressed.

Affronted by the response, Stella breathed in very deep to control her temper, but it didn't work. 'You know, I've had it up to here with you!' she told him bluntly, tipping back her silvery fair head to survey him with upset resentment. 'I do not have a boyfriend and I am not unreliable. Don't underestimate me and don't talk down to me, Harlequin.

I always turn in for work. I've been in the same job for five years, and for the past two I've virtually been running the business—' 'So what are you doing slogging as a cleaner five nights a week?' he incised drily. 'I need the money...OK?' she flared. 'Is that any of your business?' 'Your insolence outrages me."

Shimmering dark, deep-set eyes raked over her, the lean, bronzed features hard as steel. 'So I don't like you...what do you expect? I haven't done anything wrong. I made a silly mistake, but it's being treated like a major crime!' Stella recounted in an accusing undertone.

'You're blackmailing me into doing what I don't want to do...and I don't appreciate your conviction that because I'm poor I'm more likely to be dishonest!' 'Are you quite finished?' Feeling as if she had run smash-bang into a brick wall and bruised herself all over, Stella reddened and compressed her lips.

'Today of all days,' he breathed with harsh emphasis, 'I am not in the mood for this nonsense. Come on. We have wasted enough time.' 'You believe me, then...?' Stella prompted a minute or two later as she struggled to keep up with his long, powerful stride.

'All I believe is that I caught you before you contrived to disobey my explicit warning not to telephone anyone,' Dior contradicted with succinct bite. 'You're little and sneaky. Why does that not surprise me?' 'I am not sneaky!' 'You could have explained that you had another employer.

I'm not an unreasonable man,' Dior stated grimly. 'But you chose to sneak instead of being open and honest.'

If he said 'sneak' again, she swore she would slap him. Her cheeks flamed, but the threat of thirty lashes at dawn wouldn't have dragged an apology from her. Asking him permission to do anything would have choked her.

And, whether he liked it or not, that call to Watson still had to be made. Unfortunately, the prospect of telling little white lies to Watson in Dior Harlequin's presence made her squirm. Stella didn't make a habit of lying.