Episode 8: That wasn't his only problem

Having employed the equivalent of blackmail, Dior Harlequin was now set on practically kidnapping her! What choice had he given her?

No choice! How could she possibly run the risk of getting Grace fired? The older woman didn't have the luxury of a second salary to fall back on, and her husband was disabled. But was she any more independent? Stella asked herself tautly. If it had simply been a question of survival, she could have managed without her earnings as a cleaner.

After all, she had a day-job as well, and healthy savings account. Stella lived like a church mouse, squirreling away every penny she could, willing to make just about any sacrifice if it meant she could attain her ultimate goal. And that goal was buying the bookshop where she had worked since she was sixteen.

However, if the steady flow of savings into her bank account ceased just when she was on the brink of asking for a large business loan, her bank manager would be most unimpressed, and her ambition to own the shop she loved would suffer a serious, indeed potentially fatal setback.

Right now, with her elderly boss be-coming increasingly eager to sell and retire, time was of the essence.

Dior Harlequin was terrified, absolutely terrified, she decided helplessly. A spy? Did he read a lot of thrillers? So a cleaner had accidentally entered his precious inner sanctum and overheard him discussing confidential business plans. A cleaner who didn't have permission to work on the top floor, a little voice reminded her.

A cleaner who shouldn't have been there, shouldn't even have entered that office, caught sneaking out from behind a door looking guilty as hell... OK, Stella conceded grudgingly, so she must have looked a bit suspicious in those circumstances.

But that still didn't justify his outrageous insistence that he couldn't trust her out of his sight for the next thirty-seven hours. And to demand that she travel abroad with him into the bargain was, in her opinion, proof of sheer insanity! That wasn't his only problem either.

The way Dior Harlequin had looked at her a couple of times had infuriated her. Even in the midst of what he had seen as a very serious situation, Dior had still been eying her up like a piece of female merchandise on offer.

Compressing her generous mouth into a most ungenerous line, Stella ruminated on that fact. Joshua Clark had been hard enough to tolerate, refusing to take no for an answer and convinced that he only had to persist to wear her down.

That she had experienced that strange sense of disorientation when Dior Harlequin had looked down at her didn't surprise Stella in the slightest.

This arrogant Greek had merely incited a stronger sense of revulsion than even his subordinate did. But then he was one of those very earthy guys, she decided grimly, the sort who couldn't look at any reasonably attractive woman without wondering what she might be like in bed!

**** ***

Quite impervious to Stella's growing antipathy, which she expressed in frigid silence, Dior Harlequin marched her through the airport to a busy shopping area. Striding straight into an exclusive boutique, he headed for a rack of lightweight black skirt suits.

Dumping the smallest size available into Stella's startled arms, he snatched a hat, purse and long black gloves down from the display shelf above and added them. The remainder of the tastefully concocted display fell flat on the stand.

Flushing to the roots of her hair beneath the aghast scrutiny of the saleswoman surging forward, Stella whispered in a mortified undertone, 'What on earth do you think you're doing?' 'Shopping,' Dior Harlequin delivered succinctly, quite indifferent to the staff eyes now trained on their every move.