Donovans 02 - Jade Island

satin bathrobe, and waited to see what kind of deal the steel-eyed devil would offer her.

Chapter 20
    K yle sat down next to Lianne in the breakfast nook, hemming her in against the cedar wall. She gave him a cold sideways look, the kind she would give a stranger who took up too much of the bus seat next to her.
    She didn’t know what else to do. How did you treat a man who was a demon lover one night and a comforting teddy bear the next? The contrast, like so much about Kyle, kept her off-balance. So she simply ignored him and went back to eating the omelet Archer had prepared.
    “That was good,” she said, finishing the last bite.
    Archer sat down across from her. “You sound surprised that a man can cook.”
    “Not at all. I’d be surprised if you could find a woman to cook for you.”
    Archer looked at Kyle. “I should have been giving you combat pay.”
    “Don’t bother. I was putty for him,” Lianne said before Kyle could speak.
    “More like fire,” Kyle muttered.
    “I was referring to my brain,” she said, watching Archer. “This would go faster without your brother.”
    “My name is Kyle, sweetheart, and I’m not going anywhere you don’t go.”
    Lianne didn’t answer, but Archer saw the subtle flinching of her eyelids, the slant of her body away from Kyle, and the bone white of her fingers clenching the coffeemug. For a bright woman—and Archer had no doubt that Lianne was very bright—she was real slow to follow up on the advantage she had by being Kyle’s lover. She gave every impression of not wanting to touch him with anything softer than a knife, as though she really had been outraged to discover that he had had an ulterior motive for getting to know her.
    Archer began to reassess his opinion of Lianne Blakely. Even as he did, he hoped it wasn’t necessary. Life would be so much easier if she was a simple crook who could give Uncle Sam a nice, easy solution to the diplomatic hot potato of the jade burial shroud. If Lianne wasn’t a crook, any solution that came down the road wouldn’t be simple.
    “Why were you following me around?” Kyle asked her after a moment. “And please, no stud-muffin routine. You aren’t the type to pick up men.”
    “Type?”
    “Brash, casual, party-loving, ready to have sex with any male who catches your eye,” he said, reaching for the coffeepot.
    She smiled thinly at him. After a few days, he knew her better than her father did after a lifetime. “Johnny asked me to pick you up and bring you home to the Tangs.”
    “Johnny? You mean your father?” Archer asked.
    “After a fashion,” she agreed sardonically.
    “What did Johnny want with me?” Kyle asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    Archer didn’t bother to conceal his impatience or his disbelief. “What did Johnny usually want when he sent you out to fetch a man?”
    “This was the first time.”
    “Yeah. Right.”
    Lianne looked directly at Archer. Her face was calm. Her hands were aching from holding onto the coffee mug.
    “Believe what you want to,” she said evenly. “I’m telling you the truth.”
    “Do you have any idea why your father wanted to talk to me?” Kyle asked.
    She frowned, trying to remember exactly what Johnny had said. “When I asked him, he said it was important, very important. And it was family business. That’s all.”
    “Were you aware that Donovan International was approached by the Tang Consortium with an idea toward some kind of business alliance?” Archer asked.
    Lianne shook her head.
    “When?” Kyle asked his brother.
    “Last year. We declined.”
    “Why?” Lianne asked. “Wasn’t it a good match?”
    Archer hesitated, then decided that the truth was more useful than any lie he could think of. “Same reason we turned down SunCo. Triads.”
    “What?” Kyle and Lianne said together.
    “Both families—Sun and Tang—are heavily involved with Chinese gangs.”
    She frowned. “Many triads aren’t gangs in the sense that you mean in America. Criminal. And in any case, China isn’t a society of law in the same way America is. In China the state, whether Confucian, Communist, or capitalist, transcends the law. In America the law transcends the state.”
    “Even allowing for cultural differences,” Archer said, “we found the triad connection with the Tangs—and especially the Suns—to be too close for our comfort.”
    “Is Johnny the Tang Consortium liaison with the gangs?” Kyle asked.
    “No. His brother Harry is. Harry’s