Donovans 02 - Jade Island

right, by the way. While you wereflying to Tahiti, Harry told Lianne to take some jades for trade with good old Seng.”
    “It wasn’t the first time such trades had been arranged,” Johnny said calmly. “It was simply the Tang way of presenting Lianne with an opportunity to become intimate with Seng. The connection would have benefited the Tang family.”
    Kyle’s eyes glittered with anger. “‘An opportunity to become intimate,’” he repeated savagely. “Well, that’s one definition of rape, I suppose.”
    Johnny sighed. He had wanted an American protector for Lianne, one who wouldn’t kowtow to the Tangs. He had gotten one, for better or for worse. “A liaison with Seng would have benefited Lianne greatly as well. He is a very wealthy, very influential man. His enthusiasms are brief, but he is known to be generous with his women. Since Lianne won’t accept money from Anna, and the Tangs pay her barely enough to survive…” He shrugged.
    The only thing that kept Lianne from jumping to her feet was the weight of Kyle’s hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
    “So Seng is generous,” Lianne said in a low, vicious tone. “Let me tell you how generous, Johnny. An appointment was set up for me to see his jades. The appointment was at night, on Farmer Island. Since there isn’t any ferry service, arrangements had already been made for me to be picked up by the institute’s launch. I was expected to spend the night. And I was to come alone, of course.”
    Johnny’s eyelids flinched. It was what part of him had secretly feared but none of him had really believed. Wen was pragmatic and quick to defend or enlarge the interests of the Tang family, but he wasn’t a cruel man. He wouldn’t have set up his granddaughter’s rape.
    “When I showed up,” Lianne continued, “Seng was wearing lounging pajamas and perfumed like a whore. Instead of the party I was told he was hosting, the place was empty except for his assistant and his armed bodyguard. Tell me, Johnny. If Kyle hadn’t been with me, howmuch choice would I have had about becoming one of Seng’s women?”
    Johnny closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about that.” He turned to Anna, who was watching him with pain thinning her full mouth. “Anna, it never occurred to the Tangs that Lianne wouldn’t be open to Seng’s offer. In Asia, women pursue Seng. As I said, he is generous. And it’s not as though she was a virgin who had never taken a lover.”
    The nod Anna gave was tight, her eyes devastated. “I pity those women with nothing to sell but themselves. Lianne isn’t that desperate. Tell your family. Immediately.” She vibrated like a plucked string. “Never again, Johnny. Promise me. Lianne isn’t what I was—homeless, rootless, forced to survive by—” Her voice shattered. “ Tell them. ”
    “I will.”
    Lianne let out a breath and pushed a wing of thick, black hair away from her cheek. “Don’t worry, Mom. The Tang family won’t be trying to fix me up with a generous rapist anymore. They’re too busy hating me for pissing Seng off.”
    “By refusing him?” Johnny asked. “He’ll simply buy a willing woman with three times your beauty.”
    “That could be tough,” Kyle said dryly. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Lianne is gorgeous.”
    Lianne ignored Kyle. “The only refusal Seng was truly upset by was my refusal to trade superior Tang jades for inferior Seng pieces.”
    “You refused a trade?” Johnny asked in disbelief.
    “Yeah,” Kyle said. “Seng didn’t sic his guard dog on us until we headed out the door with Tang jades still wrapped and sealed in their boxes.” He turned Lianne’s face toward him. “You are gorgeous, you know.”
    “I know no such thing,” she retorted. Then she smiled. “But thanks anyway. Every woman likes to think that a dropdead handsome man would see something gorgeous in her.”
    Kyle laughed and skimmed his thumb over her high, slanting cheekbone.
    Frowning, Johnny sat without really listening, still caught by something about the trade that hadn’t been consummated. “Those boxes…” he began.
    Lianne turned toward her father. “What about them?”
    “What was in them?”
    “Three very fine pieces of the Tang erotica collection,” she said. “There were other pieces as well, but I don’t know what they were. The boxes were sealed when I picked them up in Vancouver.”
    Relief swept over Johnny, taking years off his appearance. “That