The Silver Bride

'No, it's not true! Dior would have told me....' And then her voice just faded away into nothingness as she recalled that conversation on the beach. 'Why should he have told you? You were just one more in a long line of little amus.e.m.e.nts, none of whom were destined to be of any lasting importance in Dior's life,' Aria retorted drily, watching all the remaining color drain from Stella's face.

'Had you belonged to our social circle, you would have been aware that our friends and families have been awaiting an announcement of a formal engagement for some time now.' The mists of sheer disbelief had now cleared from Stella's mind. She was gutted, her sense of betrayal immense.

Aria Bailey, whom she had foolishly assumed to be a mere relative! She felt sick with pain and mortification. An arranged marriage. Only Dior had termed it, 'picking one's life partner with intelligence'.

Of course Aaron Harlequin had had a bridal candidate in mind when he'd urged his son to many! And Dior had said, 'I'm not ready yet.' Too busy having a good time with a variety of gorgeous willing women to settle down into matrimony at the age of twenty-nine. But throughout Aria had been waiting patiently in the wings.

'I just don't understand how you could accept Dior's b-being with other women...' Stella stuttered helplessly. 'Dior and I have bonds that you could never hope to understand. We share the same background, status, and expectations.

We are a perfect match,' Aria informed her with supreme superiority. 'Unfortunately, Dior rejoices in a rather touching but very destructive sense of humor. He believes that he has to marry you for his child's sake.' Aghast that Dior had admitted that she had fallen pregnant, Stella felt exposed and shamed. 'Dior told you—?' 'He flew over to Paris yesterday and spent the entire evening with me.

Weren't you aware of that either?' A small scornful smile tilted the brunette's lips. 'Believe me, he was quite devastated by his over-active conscience. However, I am a very practical woman. How much will it cost me to persuade you that an abortion would be in your best interests?

Five hundred thousand pounds?' Stella gazed back at Aria Bailey in appalled disbelief. 'One million? I am an extremely wealthy woman and I'm prepared to be generous,' Aria spelled out with icy calm. 'You can always tell Dior you had a miscarriage.

I won't even insist that you get out of his life. You can still be his mistress. Believe me, you won't last five minutes as his wife!' 'I don't want your money...and I'm not getting rid of my baby,' Stella asserted strickenly, unnerved by the other woman's total lack of emotion.

'But you can't possibly marry him! Can you imagine the headlines? "Diornysios Harlequin marries a cleaner"?' Aria suggested in a mocking tone revealing her disgust revulsion. 'He's a very proud man. You'll be nothing but an embarrassment to him. And by the time the newspapers have finished hauling out the sordid circ.u.mstances of your birth and all your former lovers, Dior will have begun to hate you.'

'What do you know about the circ.u.mstances of my birth?' Stella demanded with a raw edge to her strained voice. 'I know everything there is to know about you, Stella. Money buys data.' Aria dealt her stricken face a pitying appraisal.

'You're in love with Dior. Thankfully I have never felt the need to indulge myself with such messy emotions. Well, make your choice. If you marry Dior, it'll end in the divorce court. True, you'll get the kudos of being his first wife, but you'll lose him completely.' 'I'm not going to marry him,' Stella framed numbly. 'Now you're being sensible.'

The other woman awarded her a cool smile of satisfaction. 'When you trap a man into marriage, it can only end with him hating you. As for the child—you should learn by your own foolish mother's mistake. It didn't do her much good bringing you into the world, did it?

All those pathetic years of loyalty, only to be rewarded by the sight of your father marrying a secretary half his age the minute he was free!' Savaged by that cruel attack out of the blue, Stella scrambled dizzily up and started to get out of the car.

'I'm not listening to any more of this—' 'The door's locked. I'm not finished yet. I do not want you to have this child —'

'My child is my business!' Stella exclaimed in upset distrust. 'Now open this door and stop threatening me!' With a languid hand, Aria Bailey signaled her chauffeur. 'Think about what I've said. I make a very bitter enemy, and you will discover that Dior has tremendous respect for me.' Stella practically fell out onto the pavement in her eagerness to escape.

She hurried through the shop and upstairs to her bedsit. But when she got there the tears didn't come. Instead, the kind of outraged and inexpressible pain which Stella hadn't felt since her mother's death began to mount inside her.

Dior had not been honest with her. She had been dragged into a situation in which she had no defense but that of her ignorance. She was pregnant by a man who had been virtually engaged to another woman. She had unwittingly poached on another woman's territory and was now being blamed for the entire ghastly mess which had resulted.

As for Dior...as for Dior, with his wretched sense of honor and his cold, malicious witch of a future wife—well, Aria Bailey was welcome to him! And the sooner Stella told him that, the better she would feel!