Free Dragon and the Dove by Tara Janzen

America, he’d done an amazing
regression into taciturnity.
    “Precaution against what?”
    He briefly met her gaze, his eyes assessing
her with cool briskness. “Involvement,” he finally said, returning
his attention to the road. “Since you’re not sticking around for
very long, there’s no reason for anyone to know you’re involved. If
everything turns out the way we want, great. You can put Daniels,
Ltd. on your résumé and go straight to the top of another
organization.”
    “And if things go bad?”
    “Then you’re well out of it.” He ran his
hand through his hair and shot her another glance. “You can tell
people as much or as little as you like. I’ll back you up.”
    He had a generous nature, she thought, which
shouldn’t have surprised her—considering the salary he was
paying.
    Given his show of support, she felt she
should be more up-front with him. “I have to tell you, Mr. Daniels,
that I don’t think too much is going to happen in one week.” She
tilted her head in his direction to gauge his reaction. There was
none—except for a slight narrowing of his eyes. She pushed ahead.
“The kind of investigation you want can take months. The kind of
information I’ll need can be very hard to track down. Then there’s
the time involved in determining the best course of action once we
have the information.”
    She didn’t consider her statements a
concession of defeat before the game had even gotten started. She
had more confidence in herself than that. But there were realities
they both needed to take into consideration, and she hoped he was
considering them.
    “Call me Cooper,” was all he said, checking
the traffic before changing lanes to pass a car, giving a good
impression of a man who hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
    Oh-kay
, she thought,
drawing the word out in her mind. If he didn’t want to take her
seriously, that was fine with her. But now they’d both been warned.
She just hoped he realized it.
Five
    Cooper took her up to the office in the
private elevator. It was a throwback, he explained, to when the
building had been owned by one of the old San Francisco shipping
magnates who had gone head-to-head with the Damn Line and lost.
Given the ancient workings and grumbling and groanings of the
contraption, Jessica could only wonder in which century the battle
had been waged.
    The doors opened with a grinding noise,
making each inch seem hard won. She waited, foot tiredly tapping,
her chin down and her eyes lowered. When freedom was a few grinding
seconds away, Cooper pulled her back from the door and stepped in
front of her.
    The rudeness of the action left her
speechless. She hadn’t burned her bras. She was entitled to a
little consideration, and she wanted out of his ancient cage of an
elevator.
    “Excuse me,” she said with soft sarcasm.
    He had the audacity to flash her a grin over
his shoulder. “We’ve got company.”
    She looked past him and realized he’d spoken
with typical understatement. A number of Oriental men were crowded
into his office, sitting around his table, standing against his
walls, and walking all over his dragon. Most of them were dressed
like businessmen in suits and ties, but one was not. He was dressed
like a Mandarin
overlord, complete with
arrogant demeanor and haughty composure. It took her less than a
minute to realize the businessmen were actually the overlord’s
bodyguards.
    “Remember, I’m paying you to think on your
feet,” Cooper said before stepping out of the elevator, his brief
smile replaced by a more somber expression.
    Those were the last words she understood for
quite a while. Cooper greeted the silk-clad gentleman in a Chinese
dialect and with great deference, an attitude she would have
thought too alien to his nature for him to pull off convincingly.
He proved otherwise with his low bow and his silent acceptance of
the invasion of his domain.
    During the introductions, she did manage to
determine that the man’s name