Donovans 02 - Jade Island

party.”
    “Listen, buttercup,” Honor said sweetly. “You try getting a full set of acrylic nails and buying a wet suit, a Dolly Parton wig, size five shoes with five-inch heels, and sexy clothes in the kiddie department of Nordstrom, and see how fast you get home.”
    “It wasn’t the kiddie department,” Lianne said loudly. “Petite. Repeat after me. Petite. ”
    Faith winked at Lianne. “Honor’s just jealous. Next to you and Susa, we feel like telephone poles.”
    Lianne looked at the tall, unmistakably female twins and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”
    Archer came into the entryway wearing tan slacks and a black, silk-weave jacket. He looked casual and very, very expensive. “Twenty minutes.”
    As one, the women turned and rushed down the hall to Faith’s suite.
    “No perfume,” Kyle called after them. “If I could recognize Lianne in the dark by her scent, someone else could.”
    “Sniffing around in the dark,” Faith muttered. “Men are so primitive.”
    “Yeah,” Honor said. “Isn’t it grand?”
    Nineteen minutes later, Lianne emerged from Faith’s suite. The click of her high heels on marble was the only sound in the condominium.
    Three men stared at her with a combination of shock and automatic male lust.
    A red tube dress hugged Lianne like a hungry lover. Long sleeves and a V neck called attention to the shape of her breasts. The skirt cupped her rear and barely teased the top of her thighs. Smoky stockings made a long, sexy mystery of her legs. Faith’s deft touch with makeup turned Lianne’s eyes into a tawny challenge and gave an X-rated pout to her lips. She flipped back her curly, shoulder-length, frosted bronze hair, put one dagger-nailed hand on her hip, and said, “Ready when you are.”
    “Holy Christ,” Kyle murmured. “That’s the last time you go shopping with my sisters.”
    “You don’t like the color?” Lianne asked innocently. “It matches my nails.”
    “There’s more of it on your nails than on you! Where’s the rest of the outfit?”
    “What are you talking about? This is it.”
    “Wrong. You forgot the skirt.”
    “Quit bitching,” Archer said, smiling as he looked Lianne over thoroughly. “She’s supposed to be my date, not yours.”
    “That’s what worries me,” Kyle said sourly, glaring at his brother.
    “Ignore him,” Archer said, holding out his arm to Lianne. “I think you look good enough to eat. Twice.”
    “That’s it,” Kyle said flatly. “Lianne is sitting in the backseat with me.”
    “What are you complaining about?” Faith asked as she walked up with Honor. “You told us to make her over so that her own family wouldn’t recognize her. We did. So put a sock in the rant and get going.”
    “You tell him,” Honor said. And privately wished that Faith would show half as much sass with Tony. The man led her around like a poodle on a pink leash.
    “Is Johnny here?” Lianne asked.
    “Waiting in the lobby,” Archer said. “Let’s go.”
     
    As Archer’s Mercedes pulled up to the Tang compound, light the color of Lianne’s dress spilled across the sky. Johnny got out, spoke into the gate microphone, and climbed back in next to the driver. As he did, he glanced at the siren in the backseat and shook his head. Even at sixteen, Anna hadn’t looked like that.
    “Wen will see me in the family quarters,” Johnny said. “I told him that I was taking the Donovan brothers to dinner in Chinatown, that you were staying in Vancouver for a few days, and that you had made overtures on the subject of jade trading. Wen suggested a tour of the Tang vault, but it seems that Daniel is out on a date tonight.Wen’s hands aren’t up to opening the main vault door, and nobody else in the house knows the combination.”
    “That will make it easier,” Archer said. “Unless he wants to see us along with you?”
    “No. Daniel told me the exact truth. Wen hasn’t left his bed for three days.”
    “How ill is he?” Lianne asked tightly.
    “Not ill. Just old. Exhausted. This…all of it has been very hard on him.”
    Her chin lifted. “Go to him. I’ll take Kyle and Archer to the vault.”
    No servants hovered in the kitchen. None were in the long hall leading to the vault wing of the compound. Lianne hadn’t expected any. After five P.M., the servants went home to their rooms above Chinatown’s shops and restaurants, or to one of the old apartment buildings where three families lived in space designed for one.
    The