The Silver Bride

Saint Aria, safe on her pedestal of perfection, Stella reflected sickly. And what had she been but a last little fling that night on the island of Chandos? A physical release, a momentary distraction from his grief? 'That night we spent together...you already knew you were going to go ahead and marry her.'

'Ultimately I always expected to marry Aria. No matter how much you resent that reality, I can't alter it,' Dior asserted with bleak emphasis. 'But you weren't honest with me. You never gave me a choice.

I can't ever forgive that. And now mat I do know about her, I find it disgusting that you were planning to set me up as your mistress before you even married her,' she admitted, with a quiver of repulsion at such n.a.k.e.d calculation. 'What's the point of marrying someone you can't even be faithful to?' Dior threw up both hands in a sudden sweeping gesture of violent frustration.

"The last twenty-four hours have been una.d.u.l.terated hell for me. I am in no mood to stand much more from you,' he vented rawly. 'Whether you like it or not, Aria is the wounded party in this situation. I have hurt her pride and let her down, but she voiced not a single word of reproach.' 'Yes, she's a very clever woman, much cleverer than I am.'

'Skylar...' Dior blazed back at her. 'How can you be so bloody spiteful? It is you whom I am going to many now!' Stella stooped to lift her bag with a trembling hand and then straightened to survey him with eyes empty of all emotion, for she was drained. 'I wouldn't have you as a gift, Dior.' Dior shot her a look of volatile black fury.

'I swear that I will strangle you before I get you to the altar!' 'I mean it,' Stella told him quietly, watching a sort of stunning light begin to make inroads into his anger as he absorbed her determination. 'Yesterday I was panicking and foolish enough to grab at your offer of marriage. But your loyalty is with Aria, not where it should be, and I'm not becoming part of some nasty triangle—'

'You are being unreasonable!' Dior condemned harshly. 'No, I'm being very sensible.' 'You are carrying my child—' 'And that's the only reason you asked me to marry you...it's not enough.' And, sidestepping him in a sudden move of desperation, Stella walked swiftly out into the hall.

'There is more than that between us, Yinka Mou,' Dior growled in her wake. 'I can get by without the s.e.x too,' Stella told him witheringly, although even the sound of that dark, deep drawl pulled at her senses. 'Come back here!' Dior grated.

'This is ridiculous!' Stella glanced back at him, her lovely face pale as marble and just about as unyielding.

'No...what was ridiculous was that we ever got together in the first place.' 'Stella—' 'Please, give me some space,' she urged with charged emphasis. 'Don't phone, don't come near me. Maybe when the dust has settled on all this we can talk about the baby...just not now.' For the next week, Stella functioned on an automatic pilot.

Locked into the need to conquer her desperate craving for Dior, even when she hated him like poison for hurting her so much, she felt detached from the rest of the world. In spite of her request that he leave her alone, Dior phoned every day. On each occasion she put the phone straight back down again, refusing to speak to him. The truth was that she didn't trust herself yet, even on the phone.

She was far too, vulnerable. Finding out about Aria Bailey had devastated Stella with guilt, jealousy, and mortification. Discovering that Dior trusted Aria infinitely more than he trusted her had torn Stella apart at the seams. How much in touch with his own emotions was Dior?