The Silver Bride

'What I said to you on the beach that night. You just don't expect bad things to happen to you.' "That is not at all how I would describe this situation.' Losing patience, Dior closed a determined arm around her and urged her back indoors. 'You need something to eat.' Pulling free of him, Stella sank on a sofa.

'I'm not hungry.' Dior sent the wall of glass gliding shut again in the teeth of the wind. He tossed the remote aside and studied her with black fathomless eyes. 'What happens, Yinka Mou,' he whispered wryly. 'You still didn't think it was going to happen to you.' Stella felt like a dog with a bone she had to keep on digging up, even though she knew she ought to leave it buried.

His expressive mouth quirked. 'I have to admit that I am so accustomed to more experienced women who protect themselves from pregnancy that I didn't quite compute the true level of risk we faced.' 'Why do you keep on saying we? It leaves me cold,' Stella told him thinly. 'After all, we don't have a relationship.' 'You are very upset with me.' Colliding with far too perceptive dark eyes, Stella flushed and squirmed.

There was a kind of rage inside her desperate to break out, but he had recognized it before she had. 'Come here...' Dior urged with the sort of rueful exasperation an a.d.u.l.t employs with a difficult child. Stella could feel a giant well of tears gathering behind her eyes. Instantly she scrambled upright. 'It's late, and if I'm staying, I might as well go to bed...it's not like you're going to make a move on me now, is it?'

'Not without a whip and a chair,' Dior agreed with dulcet cool. Stella moved a couple of of steps away and then paused, discovering that she was oddly reluctant to leave him. 'I thought you'd be punching walls and swearing by now,' she confided without turning round. 'Public school followed by so many years in business teaches a reasonable amount of self-control,' Dior advanced with gentle irony. 'Well, the Smooth and Cool act annoys me.

You haven't given me one genuine emotional reaction since I told you!' she condemned grittily. But even as Stella voiced that accusation she saw how foolish it was. How could he give her a genuine reaction? Did she want him to show her the volatile flipside of that cool, controlled facade which he had donned like armor? Yes, she acknowledged. She needed a good excuse to hate him.

Everything would be so much more bearable if she hated him. Closing his hand over her knotted fingers, Dior spun her back to him. Stella dropped her head, struggling desperately to control her emotions.

Dior turned her face up to his and met defiant hazel green eyes that twinkled with unshed tears. A roughened groan escaped him. 'You're panicking. Why? You are not alone with this. Trust me.' 'How do I trust a guy who asked me to be his mistress?' Stella demanded with raw, incredulous force.

'What has that got to do with this?' Dior asked with a frown. 'Everything!' Stella condemned unevenly. 'You were thinking of what suited you.. .you certainly weren't thinking about my wellbeing! Do you honestly think I'm stupid, Dior? How could I possibly trust you? If I'm pregnant, your solution will be a discreet termination...exactly what my loving father planned for me!' His hard, bronzed features froze.

As a ragged sob broke from Stella's throat, her vision of him mercifully blurred and she twisted away. With a stifled expletive in his language, Dior closed his arms around her. She made a frantic effort to pull free, but he was so much stronger she might as well have been trying to break through solid steel bars.

Stella finally subsided against him, weak as water after that outburst which had come from the very depths of her. Crushed against his c.h.e.s.t, she Listened to the solid, reassuring thump of his heart and drank in the achingly familiar scent of him.

She shut her eyes tight and wished the world could stop forever at that moment 'I can promise you that I will not suggest that as a remedy,' Dior breathed, his Greek accent very thick. The tight knot of fear inside her began to uncoil. 'I just don't want that pressure put on me...it's not fair,' she muttered shakily. '

At least your mother withstood that pressure—' A humorless laugh was dredged from Stella. 'Only because she was terrified of what the procedure might involve.' She snatched in a jagged breath. 'She didn't even see that my father just didn't want me to be born.

He told her that he couldn't bear the thought of her having to live as an unmarried mother and she believed him.' 'You never did tell me the rest of that story.' "There was no happy ending.'

'So?' Dior challenged, his deep-pitched drawl reverberating through his c.h.e.s.t, making her quiver in reaction. Stella lifted her head and looked up at him.

It was a long way up, but those stunning hazel green eyes of his could have gripped and held her at a hundred yards. She fought to concentrate. 'Mum was his mistress for sixteen years...' Taken aback by that bald admission, Dior expelled his breath in a fracturing hiss.

'So you weren't on a winning streak with that offer you made,' Stella pointed out, a pained attempt at a teasing smile curving her soft full mouth. 'But at least you're not someone else's husband like he was...' Dior had gone very still.

His incredible lashes lowered to screen his gaze. 'And even though it wasn't what I wanted to hear, I guess you were honest,' Stella conceded jerkily. 'Which he never was.' Tension sn.a.k.e.d through Dior's big powerful frame. His arms tightened around her.