The Silver Bride

When she checked her watch, she was surprised to realize that she had been out for a couple of hours. She walked back towards the beach house.

From a distance, she saw Dior poised on the verandah, apparently waiting for her. Her mouth ran dry. The closer she got, the more she drank him in. He looked sensational. The unstructured beige jacket he wore over a black tee shirt simply shrieked cool designer elegance.

black chinos hugged his long, powerful t.h.i.g.hs. She wished he wasn't wearing sunglasses which masked his eyes. 'I got a call on my mobile,' Dior drawled when she was still several feet away. And, that quickly, Stella realized that something was badly wrong.

His tone was ice cold and so empty of emotion it ran a real chill down her spine. She came to a halt, green eyes betraying her anxious uncertainty. 'What's wrong?' she asked tautly.

"The minute the market opened, the price of a stock in Marco Technic started heading for outer space,' Dior informed her with lethal quietness. Stella stared back at him in bewilderment, too shaken by the change in him to immediately understand what he was telling her.

You said you didn't manage to make that phone call from the airport. But you did,' Dior continued with the same lack of emotion. 'You passed on that confidential data you overheard and naturally, it's been used.

I hope the tip-off paid handsome dividends.' Stella unfroze and started forward. "The only call I made from the airport was made on your phone! For Lord sake, Dior...' she protested feelingly. 'If something's gone wrong, it's got nothing to do with me. I haven't passed on any data...I wouldn't even know where to pass it to!' 'One too many coincidences, Stella.

Like where were you when I woke up this morning?' She blinked in disconcertion. 'I—' 'Tell me, were you afraid of how I might react when the bad news broke and the balloon went up?' Dior enquired flatly. 'You knew that I'd find out what you'd done before you got off this island, but you were too greedy to stop and think about that, weren't you?'

The sun was beating down on Stella. Perspiration was dampening her skin. But inside herself, the coldness of shock was spreading like a glacier.

Now that she had finally grasped what she was being accused of—selling the content of that wretched conversation in some covert phone call—if anything, she felt even more bemused. 'Dior, you've got this all wrong,' Stella protested. 'If that data has got out somehow, I'm sorry, but I don't like being accused of something I didn't do.

I did warn you that there was someone else listening at that doorway—' Savage derision curled Dior's expressive mouth. 'Don't insult my intelligence—' 'What intelligence?' Stella demanded thinly, an unstable combination of anger and piercing fear beginning to rise out of her shock.

If you had any, it should be telling you that it's highly unlikely to be me responsible for any data leak!' 'You blew my deal. And then you crawled into bed with me and practically p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.ed yourself in the hope of placating me,' Dior spelled out with menacing softness. That savage judgment hung there in the hot, still air. Stella shivered, white as death, her beautiful face a frozen oval.

Dior whipped off his sunglasses and surveyed her with eyes that glittered black as night over her. 'No...looking at you now, I do believe it was a little more personal than that,' he drawled with silken insolence, his accent l.i.c.k.i.n.g around every vowel sound in the stillness. '

You jerk,' Stella whispered, reacting to that calculated cruelty with instinctive recoil. 'So I went slumming for one night,' Dior derided. 'It was an experience, but not one I ever intend to repeat.' Stella threw back her bright head, eyes burning like emerald daggers.

No, I was the one slumming, Dior. All you've got is a bottomless bank account. You have as much class as an illiterate goat-herd!' Dior jerked and froze to the spot. Stella stalked up onto the verandah, brushing past him to gain entry to the beach house. All that was guiding her was a somewhat formless d.e.s.i.r.e to get some shoes on and escape.

She sped into the bedroom, where her clothing was. As she crossed the threshold, a powerful hand suddenly closed around her forearm. 'Say that again,' Dior invited in a raw undertone of pure threat.

'You have as much class as an illiterate goat-herd,' Stella framed woodenly, staring blindly into space. 'And, in making that comparison, I do not doubt that I am insulting the shepherd. He might well be poor and decent, and if he's poor and means, well, at least he's got some excuse—' 'Whereas I?' Dior slotted in, a whole octave louder in volume.