The Silver Bride

Lying on her stomach, Stella watched him recline back against the padded headboard. His brilliant hazel green eyes were screened from her but she could feel his sudden distance like a cold chill in the air. He was talking in Greek, his darkly handsome features grave and taut.

Stella frowned, anxiously wondering what the call was about. A couple of minutes later, Dior cast the phone aside. 'I need a shower, and then I might work for a while,' he announced, his stunning eyes veiled, his jawline clenched.

''Try to get some sleep, Stella.' When he sprang off the bed without another word, Stella paled. 'What's wrong?' 'Nothing that needs concern you.' 'Maybe you'd just like me to vanish in a puff of smoke now!' Stella exclaimed rawly.

Dior drove exasperated fingers through his hair and swore long, low and viciously in his language. hazel green eyes glittering, he drew in a deep, shuddering breath, visibly attempting to control a temper that was now, it seemed, on a hair-trigger. 'Stella, just lie down and go to sleep—' 'I'm going home.'

Her face a furious pink, but her eyes mirroring her pain and confusion, Stella swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Dior loosed a savage groan. 'I want you to stay!' Stella flung back her head in a challenge. 'It doesn't feel like it.'

'I'm not about to beg, Yinka Mou,' Dior incised in a stark warning. It was the endearment that soothed her. At least she assumed that the thing he'd called her was a term of affection. She listened to the shower running in the bathroom, but all happy contentment had now been wrested from her.

Maybe he had got some bad news during that phone call. But if the mat was true, why hadn't he just said so? Her insecurity level began to climb. Inevitably she started questioning the renewed intimacy she had personally invited, and her misgivings mushroomed.

In a desperate need to convince herself that they did have a relationship, she had just thrown herself at Dior. All right, she loved him and was currently suffering from the most embarrassing need for reassurance, but that was certainly not an excuse.

Tonight, prompted by the fear that she was pregnant, she had tried to attach strings that didn't exist, hadn't she? If Dior was feeling in need of some space now, how could she possibly blame him? She should have resisted her weakness and slept elsewhere. Why, oh, why did she always get it wrong with Dior? she asked herself in positive anguish.

Getting out of bed, Stella hurriedly gathered up her clothes. She crept down the corridor to the room in which she had changed earlier and climbed into the bed there. If Dior wanted her with him, he would come and get her.

If he didn't—well, then she had done the right thing, hadn't she? Stella lay awake for a long time, but Dior didn't put in an appearance to persuade her back into his arms. Dior's manservant brought her breakfast in bed the following morning.

Then Dior called her on the internal phone to tell her that he had made a provisional appointment for her with a consultant gynecologist willing to see her at noon.

'Maxwell Murphy is a personal friend. If you feel uncomfortable with that fact, I'll make other arrangements,' Dior asserted with scrupulous care and tact. 'I don't care who I see,' Stella responded flatly, worn down by her sleepless night and thoughts that overflowed with regret and self-loathing.

She was impervious to Dior's every impossibly smooth conversational Chloe on the drive across London. A pretense of polite cool was beyond her. She might love him, but just then she hated him for succ.u.mbing to her moment of weakness the night before.

Succ.u.mbing with enthusiasm and then making her feel ten times worse. She wished she had never met him. She wished it so hard that she said it out loud just as she climbed out of his fabulous sleek blue Ferrari.

'I don't wish that,' Dior delivered grittily as he strode up onto the pavement beside her, six foot three inches of aggressive masculinity. 'And neither do you.' 'What do you know about how I fee]?' she demanded shakily. 'And why have you got out of your car?'

'Naturally, I'm coming in with you—' 'Like heck you are! This is one thing I do on my own!' Twenty minutes later, Stella's suspense came to an end. 'You're pregnant,' Maxwell Murphy informed her levelly.

'Definitely... That is, without any room for doubt?' Stella prompted jerkily. 'Definitely. No room for doubt' Stella dropped her head and studied her tightly linked hands. Why had she even bothered to question his diagnosis?

'At this stage, feeling a little sick is normal,' the lanky blond man continued. 'But I'm not entirely happy with your weight. You're quite thin.' 'I've been skipping meals recently,' Stella admitted grudgingly. 'Nausea does tend to kill one's appetite,' he allowed. 'But try to eat small meals regularly. That often helps.'