Dragon and the Dove

by Janzen, Tara

  While she was waiting for her connection the flight attendant approached her with a tidily wrapped, congealed omelet in hand. Jessica blanched, but managed a wan smile before waving her on. Once the attendant had the offensive meal out of view, Jessica settled back into the comfort of her seat. Now that she knew what she needed to accomplish, the London trip should go smoothly, if not exactly pleasantly. There shouldn’t be any more surprises.

  * * *

  Cooper stood outside the Boarshead Tavern, looking up at the signboard swinging in the wild English wind. Rain had soaked him near through, and he still had not found Jessica Langston and George Leeds. Ms. Langston had not taken one look at the green folder and his London associate and turned tail as she was supposed to have. Leeds had not taken one look at the woman and sent her packing. Rather, the two of them had hit it off and, according to Leeds’s associate, Mr. Zhao, were even now carousing around the seedier dockside pubs of London.

  The Boarshead was the worst of the lot. Cooper had saved it for last because it was the last place he would have expected to find his Ms. MBA-from-Stanford assistant. If she didn’t belong in his San Francisco office, she most certainly did not belong in the Boarshead with the likes of George Leeds.

  A fresh gust of wind blew up the river, snapping his coat around his legs, and Cooper pushed on into the familiar pub. He wasn’t known for misjudging people. He found it particularly hard to believe he’d misjudged Ms. Langston. But her surprising affinity for pints and Leeds wasn’t what had made him pay Concorde prices to get to England before the dawn of another day.

  The Boarshead was dimly lit inside, with a few men leaning against the bar. The tavern’s other patrons were scattered about a maze of booths and tables. Cooper’s gaze skimmed over the seamen and bawds, looking for a woman who didn’t fit in with the rest of the clientele. She should have stuck out like a sore thumb or, more accurately, like a hothouse hybrid in an untended garden. She didn’t.

  “Damn,” he muttered. He was about to admit that sending her to London had been a bad idea when a woman’s laughter captured his attention. He needed no other clue to locate the reason for his inopportune international flight. He turned toward the clear, fresh sound and began walking down the length of the pub to its farthest, darkest corner. He hadn’t heard her laughter before, but he recognized it with the same certainty that he’d have recognized his own heartbeat. He wasn’t pleased with the knowledge.

  He’d waited two days for her to do her transatlantic flip-flop and show up with her resignation. The least he’d expected was the courtesy of an irate phone call. All he’d gotten was a fax Wednesday afternoon: Negotiations with Mr. George Leeds, representing the Somerset Shipping Federation, will extend beyond the projected date. We are awaiting the arrival of Mr. Andrew Strachan from the North Star Line.

  George Leeds had his unsavory moments, but there were lines he never crossed when it came to women. Andrew Strachan had his noble traits, but none of them applied when it came to women, especially beautiful women.

  Cooper had gotten on the plane because, as Jessica’s employer, he had responsibilities for her well-being. She was out of her area of expertise when it came to dealing with Strachan. He’d also felt an uncomfortable measure of guilt for sending her off so ill-prepared. Of course, that had been the whole idea behind his decision, for her to be ill-prepared for a man like Leeds. That he’d thought about her more often than he’d liked over the last few days had been a minor consideration.

  It had also been as compelling as hell.

  She was sitting in the last booth with her back to the wall, and he wondered if the precaution was instinctive or learned. He knew Leeds wouldn’t have allowed her to accidentally take his preferred spot. She had to have maneuvered herself into it, and for reasons all too obvious from Cooper’s point of view, Leeds didn’t seem to mind.

  Light from an overhead glass globe cast soft shadows over her face and played with the highlights in her hair, giving her an air of mystery she had not had when he’d seen her standing in his office all wide-eyed and staring. Her iridescent blue dress was slightly disarrayed, baring one satiny shoulder. Unwillingly, Cooper followed the naked curve with his eyes. It was a sweet sight, but arousal and assistants were mutually exclusive by his rules.

  Or they were supposed to be. Dammit.

  He lifted his gaze to her face. She looked consummately at ease in the dreary surroundings, her smile flashing every few moments at what Leeds was saying, her hands embellishing her own words with graceful movements. She had pinned her hair up, and a few tendrils had fallen back down to curl against her neck. She was more than attractive, lounging in a buttoned and rolled Boarshead booth. She was beautiful.

  She was also drunk. The lineup of empty pint glasses on the table didn’t leave him a doubt. He’d never expected the woman to be so much trouble, or so damned tenacious—or so damned intriguing. Anyone else would have quit.

  But not Ms. Langston, he thought with a grudging, wry grin. She looked ready to give everything right down to her virtue for the good of the company, and Cooper knew Leeds would be glad to take whatever was offered. Strachan, on the other hand, had never been known to wait for an offer. Fortunately, Cooper had arrived in time to save her from the Scots wolf.

  He stepped closer to the booth, drawing her attention, and he knew he’d once again misjudged her. She wasn’t drunk, not by a long shot. The look she gave him was lucid and piercing, with an element of surprise she quickly hid. As he took his final steps her gaze dropped to his bad leg and his limp. Her eyes softened, then she hid that emotion too.

  “Leeds,” he said, startling the other man into spilling his beer.

  Leeds looked over his shoulder and immediately stumbled to his feet, his pockmarked face stark with surprise. “Coop, hell, man. I didn’t—I mean, I didn’t expect, or, uh, do anything. Nothing. I swear. Hell, look at her.” He swung one brawny arm wide, encompassing half the bar before sweeping past Jessica Langston. The action upset his equilibrium and sent him tumbling back into the booth. Once his head got lower than his heart, the rest was history. Leeds slid under the table in a state of blissful unconsciousness.

  Cooper didn’t believe what he’d just seen any more than he believed what Leeds was wearing. The reprobate had on a suit coat with matching pants. He was even wearing a tie and, of all things, a collar bar, a gold one to match the ring in his ear. The man had gone all out to impress someone. When Cooper looked up, he found that someone scooting out of the booth, a concerned frown on her face.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” she said accusingly, pulling up the tight skirt of her dress so she could kneel beside Leeds’s supine body. “You’ve completely unnerved the man.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Cooper said, his gaze riveted to her rising hemline. “I couldn’t unnerve George Leeds on my best day.”

  “He was fine until you showed up .” She tucked loose strands of George’s gray-streaked hair into his ponytail and smoothed her fingers over his brow. “Dammit. He’s out cold, and I was just this far away from closing the deal.” She lifted her hand, her thumb and index finger barely half an inch apart.

  “I thought you were waiting for Strachan.” By his estimation, her legs went on forever.

  “I came to the conclusion,” she said tightly, “that it would be better for Daniels, Ltd. if I worked out the initial deal with Leeds. Then, if Strachan wanted to sweeten the pot, fine, and if he didn’t, I would already have Somerset Shipping on board at our price. I did not expect you to show up from out of nowhere and frighten my client half to death.”

  She kept touching George, checking his pulse, loosening his tie, removing the ridiculous collar bar, and Cooper wished like hell that she would quit. He didn’t like her fussing over the other man.

  He felt his jaw tighten in irritation when she went so far as to unbutton the first two buttons of George’s white shirt. Leeds had never worn a suit in his life. Never. His normal attire tended toward mix and match and
cheap and serviceable, with a little leather thrown in for good measure. He usually had two or three earrings in his ear, not a single, discreet gold ring.

  “What made you think Leeds would be more agreeable than Strachan?” he asked, as if the truth of the matter wasn’t lying at her feet in a drunken stupor. Over the years he and Leeds had swilled enough gin and beer to float an oil tanker, and he’d never seen the old man flat on his back—until now.

  “I checked Strachan out,” she said, finally rising to her feet. “He doesn’t have a reputation for taking women seriously.” She smoothed her dress, and Cooper did his best not to follow the movements of her hands as she straightened her neckline. After her shoulder had been covered, he looked down just in time to catch the slight shimmy she gave her hips to shake her hemline back down to her knees.

  “You checked him out?” he asked around the growing lump in his throat.

  “I made some phone calls. Half of what I paid Stanford for was good connections. It’s about a tenth of what you pay me for.”

  “What are the other nine tenths?” he asked. She’d finished rearranging her dress, which still didn’t cure his staring problem. They were closer than they’d been in his office, and he couldn’t help but notice things he’d missed then, like her scent, and the pale dusting of freckles on her chest and across the bridge of her nose. She looked sun-kissed, sweet, and sultry. It was a deadly combination.

  He hadn’t eaten much on the plane, and nothing since his arrival. He could only hope that was his problem. He did not want his problem to be her mouth and what looking at it made him want to do. That was trouble he didn’t need.

  He shouldn’t have sent her to London. He should have sent her back to Elise Crabb and demanded a refund.

  She met his eyes squarely and said, “One tenth is for my accounting degree, two tenths for my MBA, and two tenths for my natural intelligence.”

  “That’s six.” Damn, he thought. It was her mouth and not his empty stomach. He could tell by the effect watching her talk had on his groin.

  She waited a moment before answering, and under her unwavering gaze, he felt sized up and measured from the inside out. He only hoped she wasn’t able to read his mind.

  “The other four tenths,” she said, “are for not turning around and walking out when I realized that counseling you on your potential Pacific Rim investments wasn’t going to take up nearly as much of my time as brokering your rather questionable skills.”

  “My skills are not questionable,” he said, irritated with himself and her, and with all the reasons his body was coming up with for wanting to take her to bed. All he’d really wanted to do was fire her. He shouldn’t have let his practical business side or his sense of responsibility get the better of him. He shouldn’t have followed her to London.

  “Your skills are not questionable in degree,” she agreed, “but most definitely in form. I have serious doubts about working for a maritime bounty hunter, which I have surmised is the correct term for your line of business.”

  She was a cool one. He had to give her that much credit.

  “You have six days left on your contract,” he said. “I’ll still give you a thousand dollars for each of them.”

  She ignored his offer. “I haven’t figured out why you wanted an assistant of my caliber at all. An executive secretary could have met your needs for a lot less money. Right now I’m planning on counseling you to replace me with someone who can manage your office, and for you to do your own contract negotiating when the occasion arises, which Leeds explained isn’t very often. You’re usually on your own, bringing in the pirates for a price that was set without any input from you.”

  Cooper wasn’t prepared to discuss any of her chosen conversational topics with her, especially in the Boarshead.

  “Have you ever heard of anyone being too smart for their own good?” he asked, one eyebrow raised in warning, his implication hopefully clear.

  She arched one eyebrow back at him, her implication crystal clear, and Cooper wondered where in the hell he’d gotten his first impression of innocence. The woman had the cojones of a rhinoceros, and she’d drunk George Leeds under the table.

  Maybe Mrs. Crabb had been right. Maybe Jessica Langston was exactly what he needed.

  God, he hoped not.

  “Come on,” he said, taking her arm. “Let’s get you out of here before something happens we’ll both regret.”

  Jessica would have balked on principle alone, but the strength of the hand on her elbow gave her no choice but to comply.

  “What about Mr. Leeds?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at the man they’d left lying on the floor.

  “I’ll take care of Leeds after I’ve taken care of you,” Cooper said.

  “This really isn’t necessary, you know,” she said, struggling to keep up with him despite his limp. “I can take care of myself.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” he said wryly.

  She would have liked to argue with him, but their headlong retreat out of the Boarshead was having an unhappy effect on her equilibrium, and she didn’t want to end up like George, especially in front of Cooper Daniels.

  “Could we slow down, please?” she asked, inadvertently leaning into him. “The room is starting to spin a little to the left.”

  He came to a sudden halt and pinned her with a green glare. “You are drunk.”

  “No,” she said, grabbing onto him for support. “No, I’m not. But I do have a limit when it comes to alcohol consumption, and I have reached it.”

  He swore, succinctly, looking right at her. That his words were spoken in a Chinese dialect did not confuse her in the least. She understood him perfectly.

  “An apt sentiment, I’m sure,” she said. “But I’d still appreciate it if you would slow down.”

  Cooper did, holding her close to his side to keep her from slipping to the floor, and holding on to his anger by the thinnest of threads. It was bad enough to have found her in the Boarshead with her companion inebriated to the point of unconsciousness. It was worse to realize what situation she would have found herself in if he hadn’t shown up. He didn’t have to look around to know how many men were staring at them. Half of them had probably been waiting for Leeds to pass out so they could move in on her.

  Actually, he knew there was no probably about it, a fact quickly proved when a sailor still smelling of the sea stepped in front of them. The man was big and barrel-chested, with short-cropped hair. He wore a tight T-shirt that showed off a pair of sizable biceps.

  “No need to call it a night, luv.” He spoke directly to Jessica, ignoring Cooper. “Just because the old man weren’t up to snuff don’t mean you have to leave. Billy Ellen’ll be glad to see you home, after we finish a couple more of the Boarshead’s own.”

  “No, thank you,” Jessica said with all politeness, giving Cooper a discreet push to direct him around the man. Cooper leveled a scowl at her. He didn’t need her telling him what to do. Drunken sailors were his specialty.

  “Forget the gimp, luv,” the sailor said, moving in front of them again. “Stay and have a good time with Billy boy.”

  “Billy boy” was a wall of immovable chest and palpable aggression standing in Cooper’s way and silently daring him to fight.

  Cooper didn’t need the added incentive of the dare. He was only too happy to oblige the oaf who had called him a gimp. In his present mood, he had neither the time nor the patience to suffer fools, so he flexed the muscles in his left hand and took a deep breath. The giant fell while he was still inhaling, before he’d had a chance to balance the tension in his muscles, let alone strike his blow.

  The woman at his side brushed her hands together and straightened her neckline again. “I think you’re right, Mr. Daniels. We should leave.”

  She’d tripped the bastard, put him to the floor, and she’d done it half-drunk. Cooper had seen it, but he hardly believed it.

  Jessica slipped her arm through her employer’s and ushered him toward the
door before the man on the floor could clear the confusion out of his head. She’d had the advantage of surprise. She often did. She didn’t look particularly athletic, she didn’t look like a martial-arts disciple, and she certainly didn’t look as dangerous as her employer. The sailor had made a wise choice in watching Cooper Daniels instead of her. It just happened to have been the wrong choice.

  Once outside, she hailed a cab, and Cooper let her. The woman amazed him, and provoked him, and fascinated him. He remembered the look on her face when she’d seen him limping toward her across the pub, and he had an idea why she’d taken the initiative in dispatching the sailor. The thought that she might be pitying him, or that she believed he needed her protection, was damned aggravating and damned intriguing.

  He needed somebody he could trust at his back. That somebody had always been Jackson, but Jackson was gone. The realization never came without an accompanying sense of loss, but it would never have occurred to him in a million years that the kind of protection and loyalty he’d received from his younger brother could be replaced, or that it could be replaced by a woman.

  Jessica Langston had been hired to track the financial investments of Fang Baolian and to thereby bring down the dragon lady. He’d tried to fire her because he’d thought she wasn’t up to the job. He’d thought she wasn’t tough enough, or seasoned enough, or that the angelfish even knew where the jugular was on a man-eating shark.

  He watched her flag down a taxi and lean inside to give directions. She knew what she was about. The last half hour had proven that much to him. A long conversation with Elise Crabb two days earlier had assured him that Jessica knew at least as much about the money game as she did about handling herself in the Boarshead.

  That only left him with one problem—her legs, and her face, and her mouth, and the indefinable something that attracted him to all three. He had no business wanting her, but he did.