Donovans 02 - Jade Island

you’d accuse Lianne of stealing,” Kyle said. “Which you did.”
    “I had good reason.”
    “You had shit,” Kyle said curtly. Lianne stopped translating, but he kept talking. “You were so jealous of Lianne’s relationship with Wen that you couldn’t wait to accuse her. The fact that she’s the daughter of your father’s lifelong lover just made revenge sweeter.”
    Daniel’s eyelids flinched. “I have apologized to Wen and to my family.”
    “Not to all of it. You have a half sister—”
    “Kyle,” Lianne interrupted. “That’s enough.”
    “—who refused to point a finger at you, even though it would have helped her at a time when she needed help very badly. You had the means, the motive, and the opportunity to steal jade, but she never said a word against you.”
    Anger darkened Daniel’s face. “I wouldn’t steal from my own grandfather!”
    “Yet you assumed Lianne would steal from her own grandfather,” Johnny said in a strained voice. “You assumed my daughter—your half sister—was a thief. Why? What has she done to you that you hate her so?”
    Daniel had no answer except the one Kyle had already given. Jealousy.
    Wen’s voice rasped in a demand that needed no translation. Johnny spoke quickly in Chinese. Wen listened, then banged his walking stick on the floor for silence.
    “Daniel misjudged his half sister,” Wen said.
    Joe and Johnny froze. Never had they heard their father speak of any blood relationship with Lianne Blakely.
    “But the fault is mine,” Wen continued. “The example was mine. I was content to use Lianne’s inborn gift for jade and her natural hunger to be part of the Tang family.”
    Lianne’s voice faltered. Johnny took up the translation without a pause.
    “My first two sons followed my example,” Wen said. “They used Lianne. But unlike me, they felt no affection for her. Nor did they worry what would happen if they sacrificed her for their own foolish ambitions. She was, after all, merely a woman, and a woman without family at that.”
    “She has a family,” Kyle said fiercely. “Mine. There isn’t a Donovan who wouldn’t go to war for her. Pass the word through the Tang family, Wen. Lianne isn’t alone anymore. Find your next sucker somewhere else.”
    Lianne turned toward Kyle, but he didn’t notice. He was concentrating on Wen. Something very much like a smile was tugging on the old man’s thin, pale lips.
    “I wish I could see my granddaughter’s defender,” Wen said. “It would give me an idea of what my great-grandchildren will look like. Marry soon. I have little time left.”
    “Nothing has been said about a wedding,” Lianne said over her father’s translation.
    “That’s one way of keeping the Neolithic blade in the family,” Kyle pointed out. “It would make a good wedding present.”
    Lianne stared at him like he had gone crazy.
    “Haven’t you figured it out yet, sweetheart?” Kyle asked, smiling gently at her. “Men know right away when they find their mate. It’s women who need time to be convinced. How much more time do you think you’ll take to add one and one and get two?”
    Wen’s dry laughter followed Johnny’s translation. When Lianne started to speak, Wen smacked his walking stick on the floor in a command for silence.
    “That virtuous blade will be the least of my gifts to you when you wed Kyle Donovan,” Wen said to Lianne. “It is only fitting that the Jade Emperor’s granddaughter go in wealth to her new family.”
    Lianne was too stunned to say anything.
    Wen smiled as though he could see her face. “It is true, girl. Look around you and know that you have been privileged to shape and polish your jade skills among the greatest jade treasures ever gathered. Centuries ago, your Tang ancestors found the secret way into the Jade Emperor’s Tomb.” Wen lifted one frail, trembling hand in a gesture that took in the vault. “It became ours. All of it.”
    He thumped the walking stick on the floor once more. “Leave me, now. I am tired.”
    Kyle put his arm around Lianne and urged her out of the vault. “I owe you dinner at the Rain Lotus. It’s a quiet place. We can talk.”
    “About what?”
    “Upgrading my collection of erotica,” he said blandly.
    Lianne gave him a wary, sideways glance. “I didn’t know you had one.”
    “I’m working on it.” Kyle smiled at her. “And you’re going to help me.”
    “I am?”
    “Sure. Think about all those hours of jade training you