The Silver Bride

Her bright hair shone like heavy silver silk against the darkness of her jacket 'You see, not fake.' his black eyes flared gold and lingered on that twinkling fall. The silence set hi then, thick as a sheet of solid steel.

She watched him covertly from beneath her lashes. So very tall, so exotically dark, so still and silent. Sheathed in a sensationally well-cut black double-b.r.e.a.s.ted suit, he looked truly amazing. Stop it, stop it.

What's the matter with you? a shaken voice screamed inside her bemused head. Perspiration beading her short upper lip, Stella quivered, agonized by the awful reality that her brain seemed to be romping out of control. In a hectic way that it had never gone in before.

Even in the depths of infatuation at nineteen, with the latest and last of the users and abusers she'd seemed to attract, she hadn't felt overwhelmed and taken over, her very thoughts no longer her own. And there hadn't been this ghastly, utterly desperate s.e.x.u.a.l d.e.s.i.r.e which flooded her every tune she looked at Dior Harlequin. She just could not cope with feeling like that around a man.

It was so weak, so irrational, so embarrassing... 'What's it like being a cleaner?' Dior enquired with quite staggering abruptness. 'Look, you don't have to make conversation with me.' 'It was a sincere question.' 'OK...it's very boring, repetitive and poorly paid,' Stella told him with a touch of defiance.

'So if you're expecting me to say I'm some weirdo who gets a real high out of dusting and polishing—well, sorry to disappoint you!' 'So why are you doing it?' "The hours suit me and I've got nobody on my back.

I don't like being boss around.' 'I noticed. You should deal with that problem and then consider the possibility of more challenging employment.

But perhaps you have no training for any other spheres.' 'I've got plans of my own. I'm an ambitious woman hi my small way.

I won't be polishing your floors for much longer,' Stella told him with open mockery. Dior studied her with hard green eyes. 'In the situation, you're in, it's not a good idea to drop hints of that variety. I never joke about business, Stella.' 'Neither do I. Business comes first and last in my life—' 'Really?' 'And you're running up quite a bill already,' Stella informed him gently.

'You do realize that I expect you to pay me for every hour of the last twelve?' 'Naturally.' 'Double time too,' Stella specified, tilting up her chin and ready to fight her corner. 'I take a dun view of being starved, deprived of breaks and kept up until three in the morning.'

Grudging amus.e.m.e.nt stirred in his brilliant eyes. 'You're your own worst enemy,' he whispered silkily. 'I'd have paid one hell of a lot more if you had just kept quiet.' 'I'm not greedy, and by the way, when I said I wouldn't be working in the maintenance department for much longer, I wasn't thinking about that stupid conversation I overheard,' Stella told him impatiently. 'I'd forgotten about that.'

'How could you have forgotten about it?' Dior growled in disbelief. 'Even if I did understand the importance of what you said in that office—which I don't—I'm an honest person and I wouldn't take advantage.'

"Those who stress how honest they are, are almost always lying in their teeth,' Dior countered crushingly. Feeling oddly hurt that his barriers had gone up again, Stella felt her beautiful face stiffen and flush.