The Silver Bride

Her ignorance embarrassed her, reminded her of what vastly different worlds they inhabited, and that was not something she could bear to be reminded of. "Thank you for what you said on the beach earlier,' Dior whispered levelly.

It helped me to put the situation into perspective. If either I or my father had once suspected that he had so little time left we would have been instantly reconciled. The biggest irony is that I was already working in that direction.' 'How?' she prompted. "That conversation you overheard,' Dior reminded her wryly. '

That company I plan to buy out in a few hours. My father lost it a long time ago. The reacquisition was to have been a subtle olive branch.' 'Oh, Dior,' Stella sighed in sympathy. 'So that's why it was so important to you.'

I'll toast his memory instead. He was a strong, vital man who lived life to the full. He would not want me to remember him with sadness.' 'Explain to me the significance of what I overheard in that office,' Stella invited, to drive away from the vulnerable darkness in his eyes and distract him. 'Let's say we have company A and company B,' Dior responded. '

You buy company A stock and start a rumor that you're interested in acquiring it. The stock price rises. You resell that stock at a major profit. Then, without warning, you pounce on company B, where the stock price has not risen, and you stage a company buy-out at a good price.' Stella shook her head. 'Pretty devious.' Dior was anything but insulted by that assessment. 'I have that reputation in the business.

If word of my true intentions were to escape, the stock price of company B would rocket and I wouldn't buy.' Innately tidy, Stella couldn't relax until she had removed all the dishes from around the bed. When she returned to the bedroom, Dior had fallen asleep. Her heart, which felt as soft as melted caramel, lurched all over again at the sight of him.

He looked exhausted, but rather more at peace than he had looked at the outset of the day when she had woken him up on board the jet. Just for once in her life she was going to go with the flow, she told herself.

As a rule, she was very, very cautious, preferring to see everything etched in clear black and white before she risked herself. But it was too late for that now... Stella didn't open her eyes until eight the following morning. Dior was still sound asleep. He even looked gorgeous asleep, she decided, rather glad he wasn't awake because she was sure she looked a mess.

But Dior was a long, lithe version of sheer masculine perfection. Even his bronzed skin glowed against the pale bedding. She crept out of bed, feeling considerably less brave than she had the night before. The ultimate ache of her body rather embarrassed her.

In the clear light of a beautiful Greek morning, Stella was painfully aware that she had taken a plunge from which there was no turning back. Her emotions were involved up to the hilt, and the level of her absorption in Dior felt frankly scary. When she put on the candy-pink shorts outfit, she was amused to discover that it wasn't one bit undersized on her.

But then she didn't have four-foot-long legs like the store mannequin. She poured herself a glass of iced water from the fridge and pinched an orange and an apple from the bowl on the dining table. In need of fresh air and some temporary physical distance from the male in the bedroom, she went for a walk along the beach.

Something was reassuring about a guy who mentioned having plans for you right from the word go, Stella, told herself urgently, stamping down hard on her anxious misgivings.

Dior seemed so honest and open. All right, so she wasn't happy that she had fallen into his bed so quickly, but she was glad that he had been her first lover. At least Dior couldn't get the idea that she made a habit of that sort of thing.

Furthermore, it was a sort of inverted snobbery to imagine that she couldn't possibly have a relationship with Dior just because she was a part-time cleaner in his wretched monolith of a building, wasn't it? It didn't seem to bother him, did it? And she managed the bookshop for Watson.

She had a responsible position even if she didn't earn very much. She decided that as soon as she got home she would approach the bank about a loan to buy the bookshop. Only fear of refusal had made her hang back so long.