The Silver Bride

'I wish I'd got the chance to meet you before the wedding. I did think of asking Dior for your number and calling you. But I knew you'd be frantically busy and I didn't want to seem too pushy.' 'I'd have been delighted,' Stella told her warmly since she was beginning to appreciate that the tall, softly spoken gynecologist was a much closer friend of Dior's than she had initially realized. Great.

I'm not much good at standing on ceremony,' Chloe confided cheerfully. 'And I was hoping you wouldn't be like—' As she bit back what she had been intending to say, she reddened like mad.

'What I meant to say was... we, well—' Maxwell stepped in to rescue his wife from her discomfiture, 'Chloe hopes you'll come and stay with us in the country sometime soon. We warn our guests—we have a muddy yard, three noisy children and a manic dog!'

'I'm not a cordon bleu cook or anything,' Chloe warned rather anxiously. 'I'm not a fussy eater, and I'd be happy to help out,' Stella said quickly, thinking that their home and family sounded delightful. Dior glanced at Stella with a raised brow.

'Can you cook?' he asked in surprise. Maxwell shot his friend a helplessly amused look and laughed outright. 'Dior, that says it all, it does! Are you aware, Stella, that Dior didn't even know how to switch on a kettle when he first came to stay with us?'

'They're a lovely couple,' Stella whispered when they' were eating their meal at the top table. 'Have you known Maxwell long?' "I was in a car smash when I was nineteen. Maxwell was doing his stint as a med student in the casualty unit.' For some reason that recollection made Dior's firm lips curve into a surprisingly amused grin.

'What's so funny about that?' 'I only had a concussion, but my father was in a highly emotional frame of mind when he arrived.' Dior grimaced. 'He behaved as if Maxwell had saved me from certain death and embarrassed the hell out of both of us.

I think Maxwell agreed to spend the weekend on our yacht just to escape being wept over and embraced!' 'Of course your dad was upset. You were an only child,' Stella scolded, dismayed even by the mention of a car accident that had happened a decade earlier, simply terrified at the idea of anything ever happening to Dior. Dior gazed deep into her anxious hazel green eyes and his mouth quirked. 'I wish he'd met you—'

'No, you don't!' Stella told him roundly. 'He'd have locked you up before he'd have let you marry someone like me!' 'What is this "someone like me" stuff?' 'It's my Cendrillon complex talking.

I certainly don't mean that you're my prince, Dior, so don't be getting a swollen head!' Stella cautioned. 'You're the guy who first switched on a kettle as an a.d.u.l.t...and I was the latch-key kid who got my tea from the age of seven!' Dior wasn't amused.

'No damn wonder you find it so hard to lean on me.' 'Most people I've tried to lean on in life fell over!' Stella joked instantly, hoping to make him lighten up again, wishing she hadn't mentioned her childhood.

'But I won't,' Dior intoned very seriously. 'You have to learn to trust me, Yinka Mou.' Sometimes men were a tonic, she decided. He had said that without a shade of irony.

Yet he didn't trust her. At least, her word didn't yet carry the same weight and value as his lifelong friend Aria 's, Stella couldn't help reflecting. But she swiftly suppressed that thought. They were married now, and it was early days yet.