Jade Island (10 page)

“Would it help if I asked what you were talking about?”

“Nope.”

“Just checking.”

“No problem.” Lianne tucked her arm through Kyle’s and grinned up at him. “Has anyone ever told you what a fine, handsome, really world-class stuffed elephant you make?”

“Trust me, you’re the first.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.”

He grinned. “Only the ones who might believe me.”

The elevator stopped with stomach-curdling speed. Lee punched the Door Open button and held it down.

“To your right,” he said in Chinese. As Lianne walked by him, his left hand shot out and wrapped around her free arm, stopping her. “Better that you be my cherished concubine than a foreign devil’s whore.”

“I am neither concubine nor whore. Let go of me. Johnny won’t be pleased if his honored guest, Kyle Donovan, is late.”

“Johnny is only Number Three Son.”

“Far better than zero,” she said coolly. “That is your number, Lee. Zero. You married a distant, undistinguished cousin of Uncle Wen’s and changed your name to Tang. You are no man’s son.”

“Do not speak so to me, female spawn of a foreign whore!”

“It would be my pleasure not to speak to you at all.”

Lee’s smile was as cold as his eyes. “May your fondest wish come true.”

It was an old Chinese curse. Lianne’s eyes narrowed and her chin went up. She looked at Lee’s hand on her arm and thought of the pepper spray in her purse.

The elevator beeped, announcing that it had been held open too long.

“Put a hustle on, sweetheart,” Kyle said blandly. “That snack we ate at the auction just wore off.”

“Sorry, I—” Lianne’s breath caught when she looked up at Kyle. His voice had been so neutral that the cold anger in his eyes was totally unexpected.

“Why don’t you tell this elevator jockey to take his thumb off the button?” Kyle asked in the same calm tone. “Or should I just pick him up and carry him along for you like a pet?”

The beeping became a buzzer.

Kyle glanced at Lee. Slowly Lee released Lianne’s arm.

The elevator kept buzzing while Lianne and Kyle walked toward the penthouse suite. He felt Lee’s black eyes measuring him for a shroud every step of the way. Not a jade shroud, either. The good old-fashioned linen kind.

Laughter, a woman’s voice wailing a Chinese song, and cigarette smoke flowed out of the Tang suite into the hallway. Lianne’s steps slowed. The noise surprised her. In the past, whenever she had been with a member of the Tang family, the atmosphere had been calm, almost silent, little but the whisper of Wen’s soft slippers against wood or the dry rustle of his words as he described jade pieces that had been carved five thousand years before the birth of Christ.

“Second thoughts?” Kyle asked.

Lianne winced as a man’s off-key voice joined the woman’s in dreadful harmony. “I’m wondering if Wen’s hearing has failed along with his eyes.”

“Don’t worry. Family gatherings are always noisy.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to one.”

Surprised, Kyle looked down at her. She was visibly composing herself, pulling what Americans would call her “game face” into place, her emotions retreating behind a coolly polite facade. For her, a family gathering was obviously more a battlefield than a place of safety and relaxation.

Lianne stepped into the smoky room and scanned it
quickly for familiar faces. Two things registered immediately. The first was that only Tang men had been included in the party. The second was the nature of the women who had been invited to serve the men. All were young, striking, and for hire.

At that moment Lianne was intensely grateful her mother hadn’t been included in the roster of female attendants. The humiliation would have been intense. And intentional.

“Looks like a lively family,” Kyle said, glancing at the fifteen or so men of all ages and the handful of young women who were scattered around the penthouse’s large living room. “Where do we start? Or is it just a free-for-all?”

Lianne wanted to start by turning around and heading back to the elevator, but it was too late. Johnny was already walking across the foyer. His left hand held a nearly empty plate. His other hand was out, American-style, ready to grasp Kyle’s.

“I knew I could count on Lianne’s sense of duty,” Johnny said with a big smile, shaking hands. He nodded to Lianne and then focused again on Kyle. “Come in and meet everyone. I’ll translate for you.”

Kyle looked at Lianne. Hunch and intelligence together told him that she was certainly angry and very probably hurt, but her game face was excellent. If she resented being dismissed by her father like an employee, nothing showed on her face. Perhaps she felt nothing. Perhaps she was simply an errand girl whose errand was finished. She had produced Kyle Donovan for the Tangs, and now they had no further need of her presence.

Then Kyle saw the pulse beating hotly in Lianne’s neck and knew she wasn’t nearly as unaffected by Johnny’s brush-off as she appeared.

“No need to take yourself away from your family,” Kyle told Johnny. “Lianne is an excellent translator.”

“Of course. I keep forgetting that she spent a couple of years in Hong Kong.” He turned to Lianne and spoke
in rapid Cantonese. “You did well, but do not monopolize our guest. I want Harry to meet him.”

“After Uncle Wen, I will of course introduce Mr. Donovan to Number Two Son,” she said.

Impatience thinned the line of Johnny’s full mouth, but only for a moment. “So very proper and Chinese.”

“You are very gracious.”

“After we make the necessary introductions,” Johnny said, “help the others serve drinks. I will act as translator for Kyle Donovan.”

Lianne’s eyelids flinched, the only outward sign of her sudden fury. “I think not, Mr. Tang. I am not a trained companion. Nor am I an untrained one.”

“So very proper and American,” Johnny said.

“You are kind to notice.”

“You would do better to remember that you are here at the sufferance of the family of Tang. Do not make your mother lose face by showing less than the manners she would expect.”

Chinese culture dictated that Lianne accept the reprimand with bowed head and many apologies. Part of her intended to do just that; then she saw a willowy young female kneel at the feet of Harry Tang and offer tidbits to him with a pair of ivory chopsticks. He didn’t even look away from the man he was talking to. It was typical of the treatment women expected in Asia.

And Lianne was damned if she would bow her head and take it like a good Asian girl. Not here. Not in America.

“I have an excellent memory,” she said, meeting her father’s eyes squarely. “It is my only value for the family of Tang. As for my manners, they are what one would expect from the daughter of an adulterer and his paramour.”

K
yle didn’t understand the words father and daughter were speaking, but the body language needed no translation. Lianne looked icy. Johnny looked like a man who had just taken a slap across the face and was about to return the favor.

“Sweetheart,” Kyle said, smiling engagingly at Lianne, “I hate to interrupt, but I’m hungry enough to go back and eat that damn elevator jockey. Think it would be possible for you to translate all those buffet dishes for me?”

Lianne turned away from her father. Her expression softened as she spoke to Kyle. “Of course. You’re the Tangs’ honored guest. Johnny will explain to Uncle Wen how hungry you are. Won’t you, Johnny?” she asked carelessly.

An odd combination of hope and anger crossed Johnny’s handsome face. Then he nodded curtly and headed back across the room to a place where an old man sat with a beautiful girl at his feet. She was playing tunes on a
yueqin,
a Chinese “moon guitar.” Neither the tonal scale nor the style of singing owed anything to Western traditions.

As Johnny started talking to Wen, another young, lithe woman hurried over to take the nearly empty plate from Johnny’s hand. Without a word from him, she went toward the buffet.

“I suppose it was rude of me to insist on being fed before the introductions,” Kyle said.

“No more rude than Johnny speaking to me in Cantonese in front of you.” Or dismissing her as though she was a badly trained employee.

A corner of Kyle’s mouth turned up. “That’s kind of what I thought.”

As they crossed the room to the buffet, Lianne recognized two of the young men as her half brothers, Johnny Jr. and Thomas. She didn’t wave or speak in greeting, for the simple reason that she had never been introduced to them. Johnny’s sons, along with cousins of various degrees, were debating the uses of corruption on mainland China, the relative worth of political contributions in America as opposed to outright bribes in Hong Kong, and the merits of Chinese versus American or Canadian banks.

“What’s that all about?” Kyle asked, gesturing toward three particularly passionate debaters.

“The young man on the left is trying to convince his uncle to put more money into mainland Chinese banks in order to win favors in bidding for construction jobs or import permits.”

Kyle was familiar with the argument. The Donovan clan tended to divide along age lines when it came to international finance. “What does his uncle have to say about it?”

“He doesn’t want to leave any money hostage to the next political turnaround on the mainland,” Lianne said. “He would rather buy a few key bureaucrats outright and get favorable treatment that way.”

“The nephew is a lot louder.”

“That’s because he’s losing and he knows it. The older the man, the more experience he has with China’s always unpredictable, sometimes self-destructive politics.”

“Once burned, twice shy?”

“If you’ve only been burned once, you haven’t been doing business in China very long.”

The buffet was enough to make a hungry man salivate,
but Kyle was the only man there. The other males were all being served food wherever they sat or stood.

“Bet I lose face by serving myself,” Kyle said indifferently, reaching for a plate.

Quickly Lianne took the plate from him. “I should have thought of that. I’ll serve you.”

Casually he looked around the room, not missing any detail of the interaction between the men and the young women. He turned back to the buffet and took another plate for himself. “Thanks, but I’ll serve myself. I haven’t hired you for this night or any other.”

Though red flared on Lianne’s cheeks, she spoke without emotion in her voice. “The customs in Asia and America are quite different.”

“Some are the same.”

“Please, I don’t mind serving you.”

“If we really were in America, instead of in Hong Kong East,” Kyle said, helping himself to a mound of garlic chicken, “who served whom would be a matter of convenience, not sexual politics and individual face. But we’re in a different place.”

“That’s why I should—”

“If I serve myself tonight,” he continued, gently ignoring Lianne’s attempt to talk, “it’s no skin off my, um, face. If you serve me, it says something about you that I’d deck a man for saying out loud.”

“You’re—”

“Very American,” Kyle interrupted. “We settled that earlier. Want some garlic chicken, if only in self-defense?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. An odd feeling expanded through her, both gratitude and something more. Something hungry. She touched Kyle’s wrist, taking a very female pleasure in his heat and leashed strength. “Thank you for understanding what very few people would have.”

“No thanks needed,” he said, piling chicken on her plate. “All part of being a stuffed elephant.”

“I think it has more to do with being American, and male. And…good.”

The husky hesitation of Lianne’s voice made Kyle want to put down the plates and take a loving bite out of her. Instead, he gave her a lazy kind of smile that had nothing to do with being good.

Breath filled her throat and yearning emptied her mind. She realized it would be very, very good to lose herself in passion with Kyle Donovan. No more fear, no more worry, no more Jade Emperor looming like death on her personal horizon.

“Kyle…?”

“Any time,” he said, watching her. “And if you keep looking at me like that, the time will be now.”

Startled, Lianne looked from Kyle’s mouth to his eyes. It was a mistake. She could see herself too clearly in them. She could see other things, too. The two of them naked, her hands clenching on his biceps as he lifted her and slid into her, filling her until pleasure overflowed.

Harsh words cut across her fantasy. Johnny Jr. was arguing in Cantonese with his younger brother, saying that he would have to wait a few more years before their father would approve of any marriage at all, much less one to a foreign ghost. Better that they do as their father had—marry Chinese and go whoring in whatever cultures and races tickled their cocks.

“Hey,” Kyle said, smiling despite the sexual heat flooding his body. “Don’t go all pale on me. I won’t really ravish you among the egg rolls.”

“What?” Then Lianne understood, laughed, and shut out the wrangling of her half brothers and all that it implied. “How disappointing. I was having this really tasty fantasy of you, me, and lobster sauce.”

“I’d ask you to tell me more, but I’m afraid of embarrassing myself.”

She glanced down the length of Kyle and smiled. “Embarrass yourself? Why? There isn’t a man in the room who wouldn’t be strutting if his pants fit like yours.”

Kyle snickered, then threw back his head and laughed without restraint, like the Westerner he was. She laughed with him and tried not to think about a time in the near future when he would ask and she would answer and his strong, warm hands would slide up the inside of her thighs.

“I knew we should have stayed at the condo,” he said.

Lianne’s eyes widened and laughter fled at the hunger in Kyle’s. “I don’t—we don’t know each other.”

“You won’t be able to say that tomorrow morning.”

“No,” she said quickly. “It’s—too much. Too soon.”

“Then the next morning after. I’m a patient man.”

With that, Kyle proceeded along the buffet, helping himself and her to the mostly traditional Cantonese fare. The only overtly Western foods were the desserts. They had been chosen more for their sweetness than for their elegance. Cookies crusted with cracked sugar were clear favorites.

“The Chinese have a sweet tooth,” Lianne said, seeing the direction of Kyle’s glance.

“I picked up on that.”

She smiled slightly. He had “picked up on” quite a few things tonight. Yet he seemed oblivious to the glances from the Tang men as he served her. Nor was he reacting to the frankly inviting smile being lavished on him by the young woman who was waiting a few feet away with an empty blue-and-white plate in her hands.

The girl had the kind of beauty that was both vivid and ethereal. Black hair, golden skin, full red lips, cat-slanting eyes, a waterfall of straight black hair that went just below her hips. The skirt of her tight black dress was the same length as her hair, which made for a rather startling view from the rear.

The fact that she had Johnny’s plate in her hands did nothing to make Lianne feel more charitable.

“Hi,” the girl said, walking up and standing close to Kyle. Very close. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“I’m Kyle Donovan. This is Lianne Blakely.”

The smile the young woman gave Lianne was a lot
cooler than the one she had given to Kyle. After a scant second, she fixed her big black eyes on Kyle again and reached for the plate he was holding.

“It would be my pleasure to serve you,” she said, her voice low, erotic, “in any way.”

“Thanks,” Kyle said casually, “but I’m in the mood to serve myself.”

The girl ran the tip of her index finger around the edge of his plate and smiled slowly at him. “If you change your mind, just whistle.”

“Are you a dog to be whistled to heel?” Lianne asked in curt Cantonese.

“If whistling awakens the sleeping turtle head,” the hostess retorted in the same language, “I will be honored to find it a warm, snug refuge from a cold world.”

Lianne grimaced. “Turtle head” was one of the less reverent Chinese names for penis. “Attend to the men who hired you,” she said.

“You refuse to attend the handsome foreign ghost yourself, yet you send me away. Why is that, sister?”

Lianne thought of Kyle’s universal answer and smiled thinly. “Because I can.”

The hostess gave a very American shrug to Lianne and a smile that didn’t require translation to Kyle. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Kyle Donovan. Perhaps we can meet again. Soon.”

As she walked away, the black waterfall of her hair stirred and shimmered in time to the lithe hips swinging invisibly beneath. The legs weren’t invisible and were well worth watching.

“Whew,” Kyle muttered. “That’s quite a hood ornament.” He turned back to the buffet. “Do you want to drink wine, beer, or this orange stuff?”

Lianne sent another hard look after the friendly, bilingual hostess. “Remember our earlier discussion about wine and China?”

“Good point.” He picked two beer bottles out of the
crushed ice and opened them. “That should hold me for a few minutes. What about you?”

She looked down at her plate. While she had been thinking about the gorgeous, available girl, Kyle had piled her plate high with food. “This should hold me for a week.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll help you out.”

“Translation: if I don’t eat fast, there won’t be much left for me.”

“You got it. Hold these for a minute,” he added, handing her the beers. As soon as she took them, he snitched a spring roll off her plate and ate it before she could object. “Better stop talking and start eating, or all you’ll get out of this is a dirty plate,” he said, licking his lips and reaching for another roll.

When Lianne realized she couldn’t eat because her hands were full, and Kyle was rapidly devouring her food, she laughed out loud and forcefully handed the beers back to him. Her open, quintessentially American laughter made several heads turn. She didn’t even notice. She was having too much fun with her sexy, surprising stuffed elephant.

Kyle winked at her as he gently, efficiently, herded her away from the buffet table. He chose a place where he could stand with his back to a wall and still be close enough to the doorway for a fast exit. It was Archer’s First Rule of Parties:
Pick where you want to be when the fighting starts.
Kyle didn’t really expect a brawl to begin any time soon, but there was no percentage in being a naive, trusting stranger in a strange land. In short, an American outside America.

The Towers might have been in Seattle, and Seattle in the U.S.A., but right now the penthouse was a ripe, smoky slice of Hong Kong before the Turnover.

Letting the gusts of Chinese flow past him, watching the party, willing his aroused body to relax, Kyle ate quickly. Though the language, music, and food were uniformly Chinese, everyone—even the bent, white-haired ancient at the other end of the room—was dressed in Western clothing. Kyle didn’t have to understand the
words to see that there was a clear pecking order among the men. Yet none of them acted like a bodyguard or employee.

The furniture was Western, with couches, overstuffed chairs, and coffee tables. The design of the fabric was a stylized cloud pattern that could have been taken right off an ancient Chinese robe. Nondescript incense burners added to the smoke in the living room without managing to cover the harsh smell of tobacco. Young women circulated like bright, honey-seeking butterflies. Though there was no difference in the richness of male plumage, each girl knew who was where in the pecking order.

Wen was first. He had a girl playing the guitar at his feet and, as often as not, another hostess at his elbow feeding him. In Wen’s case, the service was probably necessary; the hands that rested on an intricately carved, jade-headed walking stick were gnarled and enlarged by arthritis. Holding chopsticks would have been difficult for him. If the way he stared straight ahead was any indication, seeing the plate would have been impossible.

The second most important man in the room was never far from Wen. Whether this man sat or stood, a hostess was always at his elbow, ready to fetch food or drink as required. She looked older than the others, more woman than girl. And a stunning woman at that. Elegant limbs and a richly curved body. She wore a spectacular diamond-and-ruby bracelet that almost equaled her own physical beauty.

“The man in the corner,” Kyle said quietly to Lianne. “The one close to Wen. Who is he?”

Lianne glanced over. “That’s Harry Tang, Wen’s Number Two Son.”

“And from the look of it, his Number One Girl is right next to him,” Kyle said, biting into a dumpling filled with pork and ginger.

“I don’t know her name. Assuming she has one.”

He didn’t miss the flick of anger in Lianne’s voice. “If
that bracelet she’s wearing is any sign.” he said, “Harry has known her name for a long time.”