The Silver Bride

'So he was raised to be a real snob?' Dior nodded. 'And he wanted to be sure you didn't let the side down?' Dior nodded again.

'So you were indoctrinated from a very early age to believe that Aria was your future.' 'A future I kept putting off.' Dior breathed in deep. 'I could never admit even to myself that I didn't like Aria —' 'You didn't...like Aria ?'

Stella interrupted in astonishment. 'Did you find her a warm, inviting personality when you first came in contact with her on Chandos?'

'No, but—' Dior's jawline hardened. 'I could never fault her behavior. Her every accomplishment was continually paraded before me, and she is very accomplished. It was instilled in me that I had to marry her.'

'So you decided you'd marry her and have a mistress to supply the warmth she so conspicuously lacks.' Recognizing her scorn, Dior dealt her a wry look of reproach. 'Such marriages are not uncommon in my world. Until I met you, I didn't realize what I might be missing.' Stella sighed.

'I can't believe that.' 'OK...so there have been a few women in my past,' Dior conceded, an indistinctly charged understatement. 'But not one of them got to me the way you did. We had that one magical night and then I blew it. But I couldn't stay away from you—'

'So you married me and blew it again,' Stella slotted in painfully. Dior crossed the carpet and hunkered down to look up into her wan face. He tried to reach for her hands. She put them behind her back. Dior's mouth was quirked.

'The night you told me that you might be pregnant, I realized that I was in love with you— head over heels in love.' 'You would tell me anything to keep a hold on our baby, wouldn't you?' Stella muttered with a sob in her voice.

'I knew then that I would never marry Aria, and that's when the guilt kicked in. Then she phoned after we had made love and I felt even worse!" A little shard of hope pierced Stella's emotional turmoil. Now she was locked onto his every facial expression, his every word. She remembered the way he had reacted after that phone call that had interrupted them.

'You should have explained about her then!' Dior released his breath in a rueful hiss. 'I didn't want to upset you. I also didn't feel right talking to you about her at that stage,' he admitted. 'First I needed to see her and tell her that I had fallen in love.' 'Is that what you told her?' Dior gave her a questioning look.

'What else would I have told her? I knew she wouldn't be too impressed by the announcement, but it was the truth. When you came out of Maxwell's surgery, I was pleased about the baby, but I'm afraid my guilt over Aria ruined what should've been a very special occasion.' 'I can understand how you must've felt.' Dior grimaced.

'No, you can't. I was very upset with myself for letting that understanding with Aria drift on for so long. I believed that I was letting her down very badly,' he confessed. 'But if I felt bad then, it was nothing to how I felt when I faced Aria in Paris.'

Stella frowned, her hands tightening their hold on his. 'What did she do to you?' 'She played me like a violin,' Dior grated with a perceptible rise of blood to his bronzed complexion as he recalled that meeting. '

She said that she would be a laughing stock and that no man would ever marry her if I didn't. But she kept on reiterating that of course she understood and forgave me...I was there for hours!' He gave a feeling shudder of recollection. 'I felt like a complete jerk. I honestly thought that I had ruined her life.' 'She's a terrific actress...or maybe...maybe she does love you, Dior,' Stella suggested unhappily. Dior gave her an aghast look.

'You've got to be joking!' 'I love you...why shouldn't she? She's known you a lot longer—' 'Stella...' Dior vaulted upright and carried her with him, his dark eyes ablaze with intense p.l.e.a.s.u.r.e and relief at that simple confession.

'Stella, darling, darling, gorgeous Stella...' he breathed raggedly. 'If I was a poor man, Aria wouldn't give me the time of day. She's obsessed with marrying a wealthy man worthy of her ill.u.s.trious family tree.

She simply could not credit that I could be wet enough to start talking about love...she said I could have you if I wanted you—' 'As a mistress—' 'And I said I loved you too much for that' Dior brushed her hair from her brow with gentle fingers, so much tenderness in his warm dark eyes that Stella finally believed that he loved her.

'Even after all she's done to you?' Dior demanded with n.a.k.e.d incredulity. Stella stretched up to loosen his tie in a very proprietorial way. 'I can be very generous when I've won,' she shared rather smugly. Dior caught her up in his arms and crushed her mouth with hungry intensity beneath his. As he buried his face in her hair, she quivered, feeling as weak as a kitten.

'I never dreamt that hearing a woman telling me that she loved me could mean so much,' he confided with roughened sincerity. 'And to think that if you had told me rather than Aria,' Stella could not resist remarking, 'that you loved me, I'd never have left you.' 'Don't you ever leave me again,' Dior warned fiercely.

'I wouldn't dream of it...' She gave him a teasing glance, rejoicing in this new intimacy of mutual trust which allowed her to do and say what she liked. 'Not if it means you're likely to drown in buckets of booze and self-pity...' Dior brought her down on the bed and pinned her there, hazel green eyes alight with immense appreciation.

'You are a minx." 'I've got your number now...you'd better watch out...' 'I adore you,' he husked feelingly. 'But you're not going to boss me around.' Stella slid loving fingers into his luxuriant black hair and whispered, 'Kiss me...' And he did. Then he lifted his head with a glint of mocking comprehension in his keen gaze.

'Pregnant, barefoot and in the bedroom, Yinka Mou,' he told her slumberously. 'You're misquoting.' A slashing smile curved Dior's mouth. 'It was a statement of intent.' 'Well, if we're negotiating, what about all that "You don't tell me what I can do, where I can go or who I can be with" stuff?' Stella inquired playfully. 'I just knew you would remember every word of that.' 'Because I reserve the right to.'