Jade Island (5 page)

“Lianne?”

She realized that Kyle had been speaking to her, but even when she tried, she couldn’t remember anything he had said. Her thoughts were a turmoil of speculation and unease.

“Excuse me,” Lianne said. “I was thinking about…jade.”

And fear.

It wasn’t impatience she had seen in her father’s eyes when he talked about the need to contact Kyle Donovan. It was fear.

T
he Sung dynasty jade bowl collected admirers like a magnet sucking up bright metal pins. Asian and Caucasian, collector and collected alike crowded around the single high display case and whispered in mingled awe and avarice.

Carved from a single piece of highly translucent white jade, with hints of pale green in the curves, the bowl was as simple as it was spectacular. It glowed like a dawn moon against the dark velvet of the case. The discreet card said two things: the jade belonged to Richard Farmer, and it was not for sale.

“Normally I don’t care for Sung pieces,” Kyle said, staring over the heads of several people at the case. “This one might rearrange my prejudices. Just as well it isn’t for sale. It would take pockets as deep as Dick Farmer’s to buy it. Is he one of your clients?”

“I’ve never dealt directly with him,” Lianne said.

Kyle wondered if she was being intentionally evasive. Farmer could be a client of hers and still never have seen her face-to-face. A self-made multibillionaire in the gray world of international technology resale, Farmer had legions of people sweating with eagerness to take care of his business for him. And his billions.

“Do you know who acquired this bowl for Farmer?” Kyle asked.

“Chang Wo Sun would be my guess.”

“Never heard of him. Is he a jade player?”

“No. He’s a facilitator for SunCo.”

“I didn’t know SunCo had any deals going with Farmer.”

“They don’t. Yet. I suspect the bowl is part of a rather complex and very Chinese courtship ritual.”

As Lianne spoke, she stood on tiptoe and tried to look over two men to see the Sung bowl. When her view was cut off by a casual shift of shoulders, she made a frustrated sound.

Then she made a startled one as the floor dropped beneath her feet until she was head and shoulders above the crowd, suspended between Kyle’s big hands.

“Better view?” he asked blandly.

“Much. Um, thanks.”

“All part of the stuffed-elephant service.”

Lianne laughed even as she wondered if he felt the sudden drumming of her heart the way she felt the warmth of his hands locked around her ribs. She hoped he would assume that the sudden speeding of her heart came from surprise, rather than from a simple feminine response to the heat and strength of the man holding her.

After the first few breaths, Lianne decided that she liked the view very well indeed. Just below her, a woman’s intricate hair ornament dipped and swayed like a pearl ballerina as the woman tilted her head from side to side, studying the elegant Sung bowl. Just over her shoulder, a man’s head revealed a bald spot on top, a natural tonsure he tried to conceal by combing hair over it. A delegation from mainland China stood to one side of the case. In defiance of Seattle civic law, they had cigarette smoke like a permanent fog over their heads.

And when Lianne looked over her shoulder, she saw that the same man who had followed her in lockstep from her car was still behind her. He was trying quietly, quickly, urgently to fade out of her newly enhanced line of sight.

Gotcha.

Lianne smiled with grim pleasure even as anxiety prick
led hot and cold over her skin. No doubt the man had thought keeping track of her discreetly would be easy—just follow the tall Anglo, and short, little old Lianne would never be far away.

“Don’t worry, I won’t drop you,” Kyle said, feeling the sudden tension in Lianne’s body. “I’ve carried packs heavier than you over high mountain passes.”

“I’m not worried about you.”

The man who had succeeded in pulling the crowd around him like a multicolored fog was another thing entirely. He worried Lianne. She stared at the people behind her for a minute longer, but didn’t see him again. He had vanished as though he was no more than a product of her imagination.

And maybe he was. Maybe she was just jumpy about wearing nearly a million dollars in jade jewelry that wasn’t hers.

“Thanks, I’ve seen enough,” Lianne said.

Kyle lowered her to the floor, leaned down, and asked against her ear, “Did you recognize him?”

The flinch of surprise that she couldn’t conceal told Kyle that he was right: her attention hadn’t been on jade.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lianne said.

Disappointment and impatience flared in Kyle. Apparently the little lady thought he was as stupid as a stuffed elephant.

“Right,” he said, opening a path away from the Sung bowl. “What’s next on your jade agenda?”

“The auction won’t begin for two hours. What exhibits haven’t you seen?”

“The buffet,” Kyle said bluntly. “Or did you eat dinner before you came?”

“No. I was too nervous,” she admitted.

“About what?” he asked casually, leading her out of the atrium toward the buffet that had been set up in the ballroom.

“The Jade Trader exhibit,” she said, only half the truth. But she wasn’t about to admit to Kyle that the thought of
having to approach him had tied her stomach in knots. “It was my responsibility to choose the jades.”

“I thought the patriarch would have done that.”

“Wen?”

“Last time I checked, he was the grand old man of the Tang clan.”

“He is. It’s just that he’s…awfully busy.” Lianne finished weakly.

Kyle gave her a sideways look that said he wasn’t buying that one, either.

She told herself that Wen’s health was an open secret, one that Kyle would be sharing as soon as she introduced him into the Tang family.

“Wait,” she said, pressing against Kyle’s arm. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned close enough to speak without being overheard. “Wen’s eyesight is very bad. Even his touch isn’t reliable anymore. Arthritis, I guess, but no one speaks of it. Yet he still took part in the exhibit. Joe passed Wen’s suggestions on to Harry or Johnny, who gave them to me.”

Kyle tried not to let Lianne’s unique scent distract him from the main point: one of the world’s wealthiest trading families was undergoing a quiet change in leadership. Following the shock of Hong Kong’s reversion to mainland China, Wen’s increasing frailty must have had the many branches of the Tang family scrambling and clawing to see who would lead the clan through the profitable minefields of the twenty-first century.

“Joe? Harry? Johnny?” Kyle asked.

“Joe Ju Tang is Wen’s oldest son. Harry Ju Tang is the second oldest. Johnny is his youngest.”

“You know them well?”

“Yes,” Lianne said, no expression on her face. “The Tang family is very interested in jade. They are among my biggest clients.”

Kyle kept his face as blank as Lianne’s while he guided her toward the tables of hors d’oeuvres. As he handed her
a plate, he asked casually, “What does the Tang family have to say about the Jade Emperor’s Tomb?”

She shrugged. “The same thing everybody else is saying.”

“Which is?”

Lianne gave him a look, but his attention was on the spectacular variety of hors d’oeuvres, as though the conversation was merely polite rather than pointed.

“A combination of curiosity and naked greed,” she said, reaching for some miniature pot stickers. The aroma lifting from the spicy morsels of sausage wrapped in thin dough had her mouth watering. “The collectors are dancing in place, dying to know whether their personal collections will be enhanced or diminished by the tomb goods.”

“You think that fine blade might have come from the Jade Emperor’s Tomb?” Kyle asked.

“I…don’t know. Anything is possible, I suppose.”

He put a tiny, incredibly delicate spring roll in his mouth and chewed, watching Lianne without seeming to. It wasn’t exactly hard duty. Her cheekbones would have made a model weak with envy. Light shimmered and flowed like a lover’s breath over her black hair. Her lips were full, ripe, inviting.

And she was lying through her white, even teeth about the Neolithic blade. She had a good idea where it came from. Kyle was as certain of this as he was that her heart had beaten very quickly beneath his hands when he lifted her above the crowd. He wondered if her response had come from fear or desire. Or both. Then he wondered if he would find out Lianne’s truth before he found out the truth of the Jade Emperor’s grave.

Lianne popped one of the pot stickers in her mouth and made a murmurous, humming sound of pleasure that drew Kyle’s body tight with a hunger that no amount of hors d’oeuvres would ever satisfy.

“God,” she said, almost shivering with pleasure. “Food like this must be against the law. Are the spring rolls nearly as good?”

“You tell me.” He tucked one of the crispy morsels between her lips and watched while she chewed and swallowed.

“Incredible,” she said, then added in dismay, “but I’ll never be able to taste all of it before I’m full.”

The look of distress on Lianne’s face as she eyed the table of hors d’oeuvres would have made Kyle laugh, but he wanted too badly to lick up the tiny crumb of roll that was clinging to the corner of her mouth. The need twisted inside him with startling force. Even as he told himself he had been without a woman too long, he felt an unsettling certainty that he could have just crawled out of bed with a female and he still would want Lianne Blakely.

“You can stuff my pockets,” he offered.

“Don’t tempt me.” She laughed, then looked at the table again and sighed. “If only we had some decent wine…What a feast.”

“I know the chef. She understands wine. Obviously none of the wines here tonight were her choice.”

Lianne’s hand paused on the way back from an hors d’oeuvre plate. A small, ginger-spiced shrimp hovered on a bright toothpick next to her open lips. “You know the chef?”

“Yeah. Now eat that shrimp before I do.”

The unsubtle threat in Kyle’s voice surprised her more than the excellent food. Hastily, she offered the shrimp and several other tidbits besides.

“You should have told me you were starving,” Lianne said when Kyle instantly polished off every scrap she gave him. “We could have come to the buffet first. Who’s the chef?”

“Mei O’Toole. Her husband works for Donovan International. She and her sisters got tired of hearing about fusion cooking that ignored Asia and decided to show Seattle how Pacific Rim cooking should be done. They opened the Rain Lotus two months ago.”

“I should have guessed,” Lianne said, seeing for the first time the discreet card indicating which restaurant had
donated the table of food. “I’ve been trying to get into that place since I heard about it. They’re booked solid for the next six months.”

“How about tonight after the auction?” Kyle asked. “Or were you planning on staying for the dance?”

“No, I wasn’t, and what about tonight?”

“A late supper for two at the Rain Lotus.”

Lianne simply stared at him. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. All part of the stuffed-elephant escort service.”

“I’d love any kind of supper at the Rain Lotus—early, late, or middle.”

He smiled at her eagerness. Whoever said that the way to a woman’s heart was a diamond bracelet hadn’t met Lianne. Maybe he could feed her until she begged for mercy, and then he could quiz her on the Tang family and the Jade Emperor’s stolen art.

“It’s a deal,” Kyle said. “I take you to supper and you tell me what you’ve heard about the Jade Emperor.”

She shook her head. “Not you, too.”

“Me what?”

“Part of the Jade Emperor craze.”

“Why should I be immune to the hottest jade rumors since Chiang Kai-shek creamed mainland China’s treasures on the way to Taiwan?”

“Unlike Chiang Kai-shek, there’s no proof that the Jade Emperor ever existed, much less that he had a tomb filled with jade from all previous eras of Chinese history,” Lianne pointed out.

As she spoke, she filled her plate with an anticipation and hunger she didn’t bother to conceal. Idly Kyle wondered if she approached sex that way—directly, openly. When she tucked a bit of crab between her lips, then licked her fingertips, his curiosity took on a more urgent edge.

“Assume the Jade Emperor existed,” Kyle said, turning away and filling his own plate at random. Anything that came from Mei O’Toole’s kitchen was fine with him. “And assume his grave was found.”

“When?” Lianne said, chewing and swallowing quickly. “Before or after Mao?”

“Does it matter?”

“If the goods left mainland China before Mao, the problem of rightful ownership is sticky but not insurmountable.”

“Like your fingers?”

Caught with her tongue in mid-lick, Lianne managed to look both guilty and defiant. “There aren’t any chopsticks, and the toothpicks are too slippery.”

Kyle laughed and wished he knew Lianne well enough to lick those elegant, saucy fingertips himself. “But provenance is insurmountable after Mao?” he asked, watching her closely.

She nodded, hesitated, then calmly finished licking hoisin sauce from the side of her finger before she put another hors d’oeuvre in her mouth. Slowly her eyes closed while the flavors and textures melted through her.

“Unbelievable,” Lianne said, and reached for another sliver of duck in a tiny nest of shredded raw vegetables. The second bite was even better than the first. She savored it as she reached for a third tidbit. “Addictive.”

Kyle forced himself to look away from her intriguing sensual pleasure. “Why are things stickier after Mao?” he asked after a moment.

“Because it became illegal to export anything more than fifty or a hundred years old from China. Except people,” Lianne added wryly. “They aren’t considered cultural treasures.”

“Since when has provenance become such a problem for collectors? An avid collector is the last one to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Of course. But when the U.S. and China started to do the trade dance, provenance became a hot-button topic. You can still buy, sell, and own anything your morals are comfortable with; you just can’t display black market goods publicly anymore.”

Kyle wondered where Lianne drew the line on collectors
and ethics, but he didn’t ask. That would have been as rash as sucking sauce off her fingers.

A large group of Japanese men approached the buffet tables. Despite the clots of people standing around the food, the men proceeded to go through the buffet as though no one else was in the room. There was nothing intentionally rude in their actions. They were simply accustomed to being at the top of the cultural pecking order.