Donovans 02 - Jade Island

We’d rather have the whole pipeline from here to China so this kind of thing won’t happen again real soon. But if all we can get now is a small fish, we’ll fry it crisp and pretend it’s the whole damn feast. I’m sure you understand.”
    Archer nodded. He understood. It was what he would have done, once.
    “Three days, slick,” April said, looking from one Donovan brother to the other. “Then Farmer’s museum opens and we start frying sweet little Lianne.”
     
    Maybe it was the artificial light outside Anna Blakely’s condominium. Maybe it was the glittering jewelry and designer clothes she wore. At first glance, Kyle thought that Lianne didn’t take after her blond, deliberately expensive mother very much. Then he took another, better, look and decided that the biological link was there in the tilt of her smile, the chin lifted to take on the world, the singing female allure of her walk, and the graceful length of her fingers as she reached for her daughter. They hugged as though it had been months rather than three days since they had last seen each other.
    After repeated assurances that Lianne was all right, Anna pulled back and gave her daughter a long look.
    “You should have called right away, baby,” she said, her voice husky. “When Johnny told me, I went crazy.”
    “I left word at your hotel. When you didn’t call back…” Lianne’s voice died. The silence from her mother had been harder to bear than Wen’s belief that she was a crook.
    “The Tangs need a new travel agent,” Anna said, her mouth turning down. “There was a mix-up in the reservations. We had to change hotels. If Johnny hadn’t thought to check with the original hotel for messages, we’d still be in Tahiti and you’d still be here alone.”
    “Let them come in,” Johnny said, walking up behind Anna. “We can talk more safely inside.”
    Lianne stiffened and stepped away from her mother.She hadn’t expected Johnny Tang to be here. She hadn’t wanted him to be. She was afraid that he, like Wen, believed she was a thief.
    “Inside,” Johnny repeated, drawing Anna into the room.
    Kyle shot him a look, but the older man was too busy staring past the women to the street to notice. Kyle had the distinct feeling that Johnny was worried.
    We can talk more safely inside.
    Maybe someone in the Tang family had told Johnny that his backdoor daughter was attracting the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people. Or maybe Johnny hadn’t had to be told. Maybe he had known all along.
    And maybe he had known about the attack, too.
    Cold rage shot through Kyle. He didn’t like to think that Johnny had known in advance that Lianne was going to be arrested, so he packed up his mistress and took off for Tahiti, leaving Lianne to face the cops alone. The possibility that Johnny also might have known in advance about the attacker was enough to make Kyle killing mad.
    Using a gentleness that was at odds with his thoughts, Kyle put his arm around Lianne’s shoulders and urged her inside. Johnny and Anna were clear across the room, talking in low voices near the counter that separated the kitchen from the living area.
    Even when the door shut behind him and automatic locks clicked into place, Kyle kept his arm around Lianne. She gave him a look that was surprise and something more, relief and yearning and wariness. She leaned against him for just a moment, then straightened instantly as though stung. When she would have stepped away from him entirely, his fingers tightened. His free hand came up under her stubborn chin and he kissed her very gently on the mouth.
    “This is one you don’t have to do alone,” he said simply.
    “Part of the stuffed-elephant escort service?” Lianne asked coolly, but her lips trembled.
    “I met you because Archer asked me to,” Kyle said. “I made love to you because I wanted you. I still do, and it has nothing to do with anything except us.”
    Lianne was too surprised to say anything. The hunger in Kyle’s eyes was as real as his kiss had been tender. She was caught between the two, afraid to trust either, needing so much to believe in both. She told herself she would be a fool to believe in Kyle now, when she knew he was bound to his family just as Johnny was bound to his.
    Then she was leaning into Kyle’s arm and her own arm was stealing around his waist. No matter what had come before or what came after, she would take what he was offering to her now. She desperately