Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

walk to the elevator.
    “Why do I feel like he was saying good-bye?” Hannah asked.
    “Because he was.”
    “He knew I would never be a married man’s mistress,” she said, and in her voice was the same mix of desire, regret, and anger as she had heard in Chang’s. “I thought Ian was my friend . . . .”
    “He is.”
    The sideways look she gave Archer was as sardonic as the curl of her lip.
    “He just went against his family’s business interests and warned you not to trust him when it comes to Pearl Cove,” Archer said. “I call that an act of friendship.”
    “Ian warned me in Australia, when he was trying to buy me out.”
    Archer said nothing. He hoped she wouldn’t follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion.
    She did.
    “Now he’s not trying to buy me out,” she said. “Why? Does he think you’ll sell more quickly than I would?”
    “What Ian thinks doesn’t matter anymore. His daddy is calling the shots now.”
    “Right,” she said impatiently. “I figured that out. But does his daddy think you’ll sell?”
    “Sam Chang thinks that I’ve got better protection in this game than you do. He’d rather buy me out than take me out.”
    Her eyes widened. “Take you out?”
    “The way Len was taken out.”
    “Are you saying that Sam Chang . . . ?” she whispered.
    Archer shrugged. “He could have, but the Chinese don’t have a corner on doing business the jugular way. Whenever commerce slides over to become political leverage, things get dirty real quick all over the world.”
    She let out a breath in a rush of air. No matter how she felt about Ian Chang and his many mistresses, the thought of him being involved in Len’s death made her sick.
    “Anyway,” Hannah said, swallowing hard, “nothing has changed. Not really. I knew I was in trouble when I called you.” Yet even as she spoke, she was shaking her head in slow denial of her own words. “No, that’s not quite true. I was afraid when I called you. Now I know. Thank you for—”
    “Don’t thank me,” Archer cut in, watching the elevator again. “If I wasn’t your partner, you would have sold out to Ian when he offered the first time. You would be out of the game.”
    “No.”
    Archer looked back at her. “Why not?”
    “I wouldn’t sell to anyone who might have benefited from Len’s death. To anyone who might have practiced— What did you call it?”
    “Jugular business.”
    “Right.” Hannah smiled crookedly. “Every time I think I’ve escaped my childhood, it comes back to haunt me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “At my core I believe that personal honor matters and murder shouldn’t go unpunished.”
    Archer agreed, but all he said was, “Acting on those kinds of beliefs could get you killed.”
    She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t want to die. And I don’t want to live if I can’t look at myself in a mirror.”
    He wanted to hold her, to tell her that everything would be all right. He knew better. Yet it was like a knife turning in him.
    “The Donovan family will do what it can about the first,” he said evenly. “The rest is up to you.”
    The elevator doors opened. A man and a woman walked out. They were of average height, dressed in average business clothes, and had uncommonly alert eyes. They spotted Archer the same instant that he spotted them. Without pausing, they walked to the nearest booth and began looking at pearls.
    “Is that them?” Hannah asked.
    “Our government tails?”
    “Yes.”
    He nodded.
    “Why are they following us?” she muttered.
    “Because America has a stake in the outcome of the pearl game.”
    “Who do they want to win?”
    “Today? I don’t know, but I suspect it’s not us. Tomorrow?” He smiled thinly. “Who knows? Some diplomats could exchange cables, some new international business deals could be made, and bingo, today’s hero is tomorrow’s scum, and all bets are off.”
    “That’s depressing.”
    “That’s politics.”
    “I prefer pearls.”
    “So do I.”
    She took his arm. As she did, she tried not to notice his heat, his strength, everything about him that was male. “Show me some pearls, Archer.”
    The simple pressure of her fingers went through him like electricity. It brought a tingling awareness that heightened each of his senses. Taking a slow, hidden breath, he clamped down on his body’s intense, unruly response to this one woman.
    As though they had nothing more urgent than browsing on their minds,