“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 w
earing is any sign.” he said, “Harry has known her name for a long time.”
Mentally Lianne gave herself a shake. She had to stop reacting to this “family” gathering like a child who had just found out why she didn’t have a live-in father. There was no need for her to be so raw about the circumstances of her birth. Her mother had made her choice long ago, a choice that her daughter didn’t have to understand but had to live with anyway.
As though they had nothing to do with her, Lianne looked coolly at Harry and his beautiful ornament. Kyle was right. This woman wasn’t a one-night hostess. She knew Harry well enough to anticipate his demands and still have enough attention left to oversee the rest of the girls in the room. She wasn’t the wife of Number Two Son, but she was ruling the roost tonight.
And the bracelet she wore was worth a good deal more than Anna Blakely’s ring. But then, Johnny was only Number Three Son. His mistress would naturally have less costly jewelry than the woman who belonged to Harry.
“It isn’t unusual for wealthy men to have mistresses,” Lianne said neutrally. “Before the revolution, it was expected. And before Christianity, a Chinese man had a wife and as many concubines as he could afford. As for the women, there was more prestige in being a wife than a concubine, but often the concubine had more actual power.”
“Yeah, you grab a man by his dumb handle and he’ll follow you anywhere.”
When Lianne understood what Kyle meant, she barely managed to swallow a mouthful of garlic chicken without choking. “Dumb handle,” she said, clearing her throat. “I’ve never heard it called that.”
“What do they call it in Chinese?”
“Oh, many things. Reverent things. ‘Jade stem’ is a favorite. ‘Jade flute,’ sometimes.”
“Jade, huh? The Stone of Heaven.”
“Um. Perhaps.” She tried not to snicker, but the light in Kyle’s eyes made it difficult. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“What did you think the jade in ‘jade stem’ referred to?” he asked dryly.
“Texture and, ah, rigidity.”
“Are you saying a man’s best buddy isn’t heavenly and immortal?”
Lianne gave up trying to eat and laughed openly again, not caring that she drew glances from various Tang men. Smiling, Kyle slid his empty plate under hers, took both in one hand, and began eating. By the time she had subsided into snickers, her plate was nearly clean.
“You’re amazing,” Lianne said, looking at the few crumbs that remained of her food.
“Just eating for two.”
“You and who else? Me?”
“Nope, my buddy. Be amazed how much energy it takes to keep him up to expectations.”
Shaking her head, trying not to add to the wicked light in Kyle’s eyes, Lianne handed her half-drunk beer to a passing hostess and glanced around the room once more.
A torrent of Chinese burst out of a corner where two older men sat eating salted nuts.
“Another difference of opinion?” Kyle asked.
“No, they’re unanimous. SunCo has to be kept from getting any more leverage in America.”
“That could prove difficult.”
Lianne looked at Kyle. He was studying the room, his unusual gold-and-green eyes taking in faces and body language.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“SunCo and Dick Farmer are rumored to be cutting a trade deal that would benefit both China and America.”
“I’ll bet it benefits SunCo and Dick Farmer more.”
“That’s like betting that the sun will come up in the east,” Kyle said. “So who’s third in the pecking order here?”
“Johnny Tang. He’s Number Three Son. Joe Tang, the Number One Son, isn’t here tonight. I think Harry said something about Joe going to Shanghai on family business.”
Without appearing to, Kyle watched Lianne as she talked. If he hadn’t already known that Johnny was her father, nothing in her actions—or in Johnny’s, certainly—would have given away the relationship. It was the same when Lianne talked about her uncles. If there was anything filial in anyone’s feelings, it didn’t show on the surface.
“After Johnny, the order of precedence begins to blur,” Lianne said. “The older men are cousins or brothers-in-law who are employed by the Tang Consortium. The younger males are sons and nephews of the Tang brothers.”
Kyle looked at the well-dressed young men and tried to pick out which ones were Lianne’s cousins and which were her half brothers. He was tempted to ask her, if only to break the professional mask that she had pulled so seamlessly over her feelings when he started asking questions about her secret family. But the thought of seeing her without defenses in this den of Tangs stopped him.
“Finished eating?” he asked.
“I never started.”
“Want to?”
Lianne shook her head. “I’m not hungry. Nerves, I guess.”
“The Jade Emperor?”
She flinched subtly. “Among other things.”
“Was the auction that important to you?”
“It was an honor to be chosen to select the Jade Trader’s display,” she said. What she didn’t say was that she had spent her entire lifetime working toward being accepted into her father’s family. “One way or another, most honors are nerve-racking.”
As Lianne spoke, she thought of Kyle’s newly purchased Neolithic blade and of Wen’s superb collection of ceremonial blades, of Wen’s secret jade burial shroud and Farmer’s very public one. Beneath her calm face and easy conversation, fear and urgency coiled, making her stomach clench.
She had to talk to Wen. Tonight, if possible. If not, then tomorrow, when she returned the exhibition jades to the Tang vault in Vancouver.
But right now she had to take care of Johnny’s business with Kyle Donovan.
“Are you ready to meet Wen?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Am I?”
“Yes,” she decided. “You’re ready.”
She led Kyle across the room. Nobody greeted her, though one of the young men certainly looked her over with a thoroughness that raised Kyle’s hackles. He wondered if the guy knew he was leering at a first cousin or a half sister.
When Johnny saw Lianne walking toward Wen, he shed his beautiful companion without a backward glance. He went over to his father, motioned the dainty guitar player into silence, and spoke in rapid Cantonese.
Wen nodded and tried to focus on the stranger who was now standing in front of him. All he saw was a tall shadow with a golden nimbus around his head, like an angel in an old Christian hymnal. A very large angel. The familiar scent of Lianne’s perfume told Wen that she was the vague, pearly shadow standing at the stranger’s side.
No sooner had Johnny finished the introductions than Harry appeared. More introductions followed. At a gesture from Johnny, three chairs appeared and the girls vanished to wait on other men. Harry’s companion walked up on small, high-heeled feet. She stood to the side and behind him, waiting to be needed.
Wen spoke in the papery voice of an old man.
“He asks that you sit,” Lianne translated for Kyle. “He is no longer able to stretch his neck to see the top of such a tall tree.”
Kyle looked around for a chair. Johnny had already taken one, and Harry another, leaving the last one for Kyle. There was no chair for Lianne.
“Please,” she said softly, understanding why Kyle didn’t sit down right away. “As you pointed out earlier, we aren’t in America. In any case, Wen’s voice is very soft and speaking tires him. To hear, I must stand very close to him.”
Kyle shrugged and sat down. Even seated, he was head and shoulders above Wen and half that much above his sons.
Lianne thanked Kyle with a smile, positioned herself so that she could hear her grandfather’s frail voice, and pulled the impersonal role of translator around her like a welcome armor.
Kyle watched and listened while the Tang family paid court to him in the leisurely, gracious, indirect manner of th
e Chinese culture. All except Harry. The Number Two Son’s attitude made it clear that he wasn’t quite convinced that Kyle should be a guest, much less an honored one.
After the initial round of pleasantries, Wen settled back wearily in his chair. As though that was a signal, Harry and Johnny switched to English. Lianne continued to translate, but for Wen’s benefit, not for Kyle’s.
It was half an hour before the conversation passed from politely trivial to perhaps—just perhaps—meaningful.
“Wen understands that you are a connoisseur of archaic jade,” Harry said.
“Specifically Neolithic,” Kyle responded, looking at Lianne’s unacknowledged uncle.
Harry looked older than Johnny by at least ten years, clean-cheeked, and thicker through the shoulders and thighs. He had as much silver as black in his hair. His English was stilted but serviceable. He moved in the abrupt manner of a man accustomed to wielding power. His companion, who hadn’t been introduced, lit his cigarettes, refreshed his beer, and kept a dish of salted nuts within his reach at all times. She did the same for Wen, Johnny, and Kyle, but it was Harry she looked to for instructions.
“My father is also interested in jade,” Harry said.
“So I’m told,” Kyle said. “Wen Zhi Tang’s collection is the envy of everyone who has heard of it. Although now, I suppose, Dick Farmer will be the king of jade connoisseurs. A modern-day Jade Emperor. I presume you heard about Farmer’s spectacular jade burial suit?”
A flick of Harry’s immaculately manicured hand dismissed Dick Farmer, the Jade Emperor, and Kyle’s question. “Is your father interested also in jade?” Harry asked.
“No.”
“What are his passions? Gambling? Politics? Women?”
“He’s a one-woman man.”
Harry blinked. “Oh? Well, it is that way for some men, I am told. So he is a man with one passion and no, ah, hobbies?”
“Donald Donovan’s hobby is the finding, mining, and refining of metallic ores. His four sons prefer precious and semi-precious gemstones. In my case, jade.”
Harry nodded and lifted his right hand in the direction of his silent companion. Moments later a lighted cigarette appeared between his fingers. He puffed, blowing smoke in a long stream that blended with incense and other cigarettes. When he spoke, he appeared to choose his words carefully.