CHAPTER ONE

Kira St. James swept through the charcoal tinted glass doors, leaving the noisy bustle of downtown Hong Kong behind her a she entered into the cocooned silence of The Gau Lung Building. The spiked heels of her Manolo Blahniks clicked loudly against the black marble floor in a steady cadence that emphasized the confident stride with which she crossed the cavernous lobby. Like her ultra-modern surroundings, she was all graceful curves and sleek lines with a smooth mane of honey-brown hair that ended bluntly just below her chin and a jet black power suit that clung snugly to the litheness of her petite frame. Entering a private elevator to the right of the lobby, she swiped her employee I.D. card through the electronic key reader and then pressed the button marked “Executive Suite”.

When the elevator doors opened on the sixtieth floor of the super-high rise building, she was greeted by a breathtaking view of Victoria Harbor from the massive walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that encompassed that vast office suite. Misty daylight filtered into the maze of offices through the gray veil of rain and storm clouds that enveloped the building, adding another layer of murkiness to the already dark, streamlined architecture.

Kira made her way towards a set of massive double-doors leading into the Executive Boardroom, brushing the curtain of dark hair that swept artfully across her forehead to one side and tucking it behind her ear. Taking a moment to inspect her reflection in the mirror-like obsidian surface of one of the two ferocious dragon sculptures positioned on either side of the doors like a pair mythological guard dogs, she assessed her appearance. The fierce look in the eyes of the glass beast mirrored the one in her own amber eyes as she prepared to enter the corporate arena. As the Corporate Troubleshooter for The Gau Lung Group, Kira needed the ferocity of a fire-breathing dragon as she dealt with the myriad of problems that cropped up within the multi-national corporation, from minor nuisances to major catastrophes and everything in between. Her duties included not only finding solutions to existing problems of all sorts but also identifying any potential problems and nipping them ruthlessly in the bud. It was the latter duty that brought her to the Executive Boardroom that rainy day.

She had been asked by Yi Wong, the founder and CEO of Gau Lung, to sit in on a preliminary meeting with a representative of Rising Phoenix Unlimited, a new, upstart gaming corporation looking to acquire the gambling sub-concession necessary to build a new mega resort-casino in Macau, the small, island nation off the coast of Hong Kong that had become the mecca of the international gambling industry. When the government of Macau had ended it’s monopoly on the gambling market a decade earlier, Gau Lung was one of less than a half dozen entities granted a gambling concession. Under the licensing system, each of the concession holders was allowed to enter into partnerships with other gaming companies through the sale of sub-concessions. Since, unlike the Las Vegas Market, the booming Macau gambling market showed no signs of slowing down, it attracted many high powered players in the gaming industry, all wanting in on the action. The limited number of sub-concessions coupled with the incredibly lucrative profits to be derived from Macau’s casinos made the Wong sub-concession a very valuable commodity, one that Yi Wong intended to be extremely careful about doling out and that was where Kira came in. Although her preliminary research into Rising Phoenix Unlimited found nothing outwardly untoward about the company, she still hadn’t been able to figure out who the primary shareholder was and that sent up a red flag. Today, she was going to finally put a name and face on the company which she hoped would help her dig up more information. Satisfied that she looked like a woman not to be trifled with, Kira turned away from the onyx dragon and pushed her way through the double doors like a gunslinger preparing for a duel yet still found herself completely unprepared for what she saw when she entered the room.

He sat at the far end of the large, round boardroom table, in the midst of a small huddle of people who seemed to somehow recede into oblivion in his presence. Silhouetted against the large window directly behind him, his chiseled features standing out in sharp contrast against the misty storm clouds behind him, he looked as devastatingly handsome as ever, damn him. Even from a distance, Kira could see the corners of his full lips inching upward in a slight grin and a hint of amusement sparkling in his green eyes. For a moment that seemed to linger on for an eternity, Kira stood frozen in place as a tidal wave of memories of both the deliriously wonderful and horridly awful varieties came flooding back to her at once, threatening to drown her in the tumult of conflicting emotions they triggered .

“Come join us,” Yi said from his seat directly across from the source of those unwanted emotions, motioning her towards them with a beckoning hand. With suddenly shaky legs, Kira cautiously skirted the long, elegant curve of the oblong table, making it a point to sit on the side opposite from the man watching her with a dangerous gleam in his eyes, as if the expanse of polished ebony could somehow be a sufficient barrier against a man like him.

“Ms. St. James, this is Ethan Chance.”

Yi’s introduction was completely unnecessary. Kira knew Ethan Chance all too well but she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Chance,” she said, extending a surprisingly steady hand to Ethan as she struggled to keep a polite smile plastered to her face. Rising to his feet, he took her hand into his much larger one, his skin feeling warm, smooth and vaguely erotic against her own.

“I believe we’ve met before,” he said, the slight grin on his face taking on a subtly mocking air.

“Have we?” Kira placed her black leather attaché case on the table with a conspicuously loud thump, silently cursing herself in anger that was directed as much at herself for foolishly expecting Ethan to be gentlemanly enough to play along with her pretense that they didn’t know each other as it was at him for failing to do so.

“Yes, we have. In Las Vegas, two years ago,” Ethan pressed on mercilessly as he cocked his head to one side, causing a lock of dark brown hair to flop appealingly across his forehead.

“Is that so?” Kira replied, as she sat down next to Yi, determined to keep up the pretense that she didn’t know who he was. Surely, he wouldn’t be unseemly enough to announce that they had been lovers right in the middle of the boardroom. Although, she had found out the hard way that Ethan Chance was capable of a lot of things, a great many of them unseemly. “In that case, I apologize for not remembering you. I meet so many people in my line of work that I can’t possibly remember them all. I hope you’re not offended.”

“Not at all,” Ethan said, finally taking pity on her as he retook his seat, his tall, lean frame reclining in his chair with a casual air that managed to make Kira feel even more irritable then she already did.

Ethan smiled inwardly as he watched Kira trying to hide her anger behind an overly cheery smile, pleased that he was still able to push her buttons. He’d always loved pushing her buttons, bringing out the fiery, passionate woman that she kept hidden beneath the cool, unflappable façade that she liked to present to the world. Ruffling her beautiful feathers had been one of the activities he had derived the most pleasure from while they were together. As his eyes swept slowly over her tight little body as she wriggled out of the heavy wool jacket of her suit and folded it neatly over the back of her chair, revealing the snug fitting sleeveless sheath dress that she wore beneath it, his own body tensed at the memory of the other pleasurable activities he used to engage in with her.

“Have you had a chance to review the proposal, Kira?” Gabriel Wong asked from his seat on the other side of his father, his soft brown eyes emanating warmth from above the sharp ridge of his high cheekbones as he looked over at Kira. The English accent with which he spoke revealed his Eurasian ancestry. “I know we sprung this meeting on you at the last minute and you do have a lot on your plate right now.”

“She’s the company’s troubleshooter for Pete’s sake.” Jeremy Wong flashed an annoyed glare at his brother as he slouched in his seat next to Ethan, the petulant scowl on his handsome face aptly highlighting the difference between him and his much more genial identical twin. “It’s her damn job to have a lot on her plate.”

“Watch your language.” Gabriel’s voice was sharp with disapproval. “There’s a lady present.”

Jeremy’s face twisted into an even more petulant scowl as he ran a hand through the dark, stiff peaks of his short, spiky hair.

Kira graced Gabriel with a grateful smile at his characteristic yet completely unnecessary display of chivalry. “Thank you, Gabriel.”

The obvious warmth and affection in Kira’s smile reflected brightly in her eyes as she glanced over at Gabriel, causing Ethan to shift in his chair with annoyance.

“To answer your question, yes, I have reviewed the proposal, and I have some concerns.” Kira’s gaze suddenly turned icy as it shifted back to Ethan pointedly. “A lot of concerns.”

As the group of five exited the boardroom an hour later, no closer to making a deal than they had been when they'd entered, Ethan masked his displeasure behind the charming smile that was his trademark. When his brother, Donovan, had presented him with the dossier on the Wong family that revealed that Kira had been working as their troubleshooter for the past year and a half, he had expected that he would encounter some resistance in getting this deal through. What he hadn’t expected was to run into a buzz saw. Kira had shot down his proposal with the rapid fire intensity of an Uzi submachine gun, finding a way to take every argument that he made in favor of a partnership between Gau Lung and Rising Phoenix and shredding it to pieces. Jeremy had enthusiastically joined in on her wholesale assault against the partnership just as Ethan had anticipated he would since, as Ethan very well knew, he had already struck an unofficial deal to sell the sub-concession to Ethan’s father, Jared Halifax née Jacob Chance. That secret deal had been the impetus for the proposal Ethan and his brother had made to the Wong family and it was also the reason that Ethan was not leaving Hong Kong without that sub-concession. Keeping Jared from being able to build a casino in the white hot Macau market was critical to their plan to finally destroy him once and for all and Ethan would allow nothing to stand in the way of that. Not even the beautiful woman standing before him barely suppressing a smirk as she peered up at him with feigned benignity.

Ethan couldn’t really blame her for smirking. She was clearly dead set on derailing this deal before it even got off the ground and the deck appeared to be stacked in her favor. He had been counting on using the well documented case of virulent sibling rivalry that existed between Gabriel and Jeremy Wong to his advantage, turning Jeremy’s expected opposition to selling the sub-concession to Rising Phoenix into an incentive for Gabriel to push for it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t counted on the fact that Gabriel Wong appeared to be quite thoroughly wrapped around Kira’s little finger. Not that he could really fault him for that as it was quite a lovely little finger to be wrapped around. However, the possibility that he may be wrapping himself around the rest of Kira’s body added an extra layer of sourness to Ethan’s disposition.

“You have presented a very intriguing proposal,” Yi said as the group paused in front of the elevator doors. “It will require some time to contemplate. How long will you be in Hong Kong?”

“As long as it takes to make this deal happen.”

A shadow of a smile flickered over Yi’s distinguished features. “You are a very determined man.”

“That I am,” Ethan said as he cut a quick, emerald glance in Kira’s direction. “I firmly believe that this partnership is in the best interest of both of our companies. After all, the Phoenix is the Yin to the Dragon’s Yang.”

The shadow of a smile that had been on Yi’s face blossomed into a full blown one as he nodded slightly at Ethan’s oblique reference to the Nine Dragons, the English translation of Yi’s company, Gau Lung. The reference hadn’t been lost on Kira as she rolled her eyes disdainfully at Ethan. She wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had personally chosen the name Rising Phoenix for the specific purpose of trotting out that cheesy line. Ethan paid meticulous attention to details when he embarked on a seduction, be it in the boardroom or in the bedroom, as she had learned from bitter, personal experience.

“Since you are going to be in town for a while, I hope that you will do me the honor of attending the antiquities exhibition that I am hosting tonight,” Yi said. “It promises to be a very exciting evening.”

“Ah, yes. The Dragon’s Breath,” Ethan said wistfully, referring to the ancient Chinese ceremonial dagger that Yi had recently purchased, with much public fanfare, for the sum of ten million dollars. It was a particularly exquisite object d’art, to be sure. So much so that Ethan had once attempted to acquire it himself…for free. Unfortunately, it’s previous owner, a wealthy collector in Miami of the criminal variety, while typically crude in most respects, had employed a surprisingly sophisticated security system with which to protect it, managing to frustrate even Ethan’s well honed skills in what he liked to think of as ‘special acquisitions’. By the time Ethan had devised a way to circumvent the security system, The Dragon’s Breath had become the property of Yi Wong.

“Well, a great many of the Chinese artifacts that I have collected throughout the years will be on display, but yes, The Dragon’s Breath is indeed the Belle of the Ball, as you say in America.”

“And I will definitely be on hand to witness her public debut.”

Kira bristled visibly at Ethan’s words as she impatiently pressed the elevator button repeatedly. The sooner Ethan left the building, the better.

“Then I look forward to seeing you there,” Yi said with a slight bow that was returned by Ethan as the elevator doors opened. Turning on his heels, Yi walked off, heading for his office with Jeremy and Gabriel following dutifully behind him. Kira attempted to follow suit but was halted by Ethan’s long, slender fingers wrapping themselves firmly around her forearm.

“We need to talk,” he said, the flatness in his voice belied by the intensity of his eyes as he tightened his grip around Kira’s arm.

“We just spent the past hour talking,” Kira replied meeting his intense gaze defiantly, ignoring the sudden heat that tingled beneath her skin in response to Ethan’s touch. “That didn’t go very well for you, now did it?”

A deep, deceptively lighthearted chuckle escaped Ethan’s lips a split second before he unceremoniously hurled Kira through the open elevator doors with one hand. Exhibiting the speed and dexterity that served him so well in his sideline in ‘special acquisitions’, Ethan smoothly slipped through the elevator doors and pressed the button to close them before Kira even had a chance to recover her bearings. When she did, she found Ethan physically blocking her access to the panel of buttons that controlled the elevator.

“Get out of my way,” Kira seethed through clinched teeth.

“I’m afraid that you are the one who’s in my way, sweetheart,” Ethan said as he hit the button for the lobby. “We need to come to some sort of understanding. I can’t allow you to derail this deal.”

“You can’t stop me, sweetheart.” Kira mimicked his term of endearment with unmasked contempt.

“Is that a dare?” Ethan arched a dark brown eyebrow at Kira, the mocking smile returning to his lips as he reached behind his back and hit the “stop“ button, bringing the smooth descent of the elevator to a sudden, jarring halt.

“No, it’s a fact,” Kira said, trying her best not to sound rattled.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ethan leaned casually against the wall behind him. His green eyes swept slowly over Kira’s body from head to toe, lingering dangerously over it’s graceful curves as they darkened with a smoldering heat that she immediately recognized. Instinctively, she stepped backwards, unexpectedly bumping into the back wall of the elevator compartment which suddenly seemed much smaller than before.

“I thought you were just being irritatingly prim when you professed not to know me back in the boardroom, but apparently, you really have forgotten who you’re dealing with,” Ethan said as he closed the distance between them with two strides of his long, athletic legs, causing Kira to press herself even more firmly against the wall. Placing his hands against the space of the wall on either side of her head, he leaned in closely, positioning himself so that they were eye-to-eye. “Perhaps I need to jog your memory.”

Kira lifted her chin stubbornly, refusing to be intimidated even as her heart slammed violently against her chest at Ethan’s overwhelming physical proximity, the familiar scent of his aftershave bringing back flashes of carnal memories that quickened her pulse. “My memories of you are crystal clear. I remember all too well just how untrustworthy you are.”

“Spare me the wounded victim routine. You were hardly some poor, little old lady that got mugged on the street. You gave as good as you got, as I recall.”

“So that’s how you justify what you did?”

“No, that’s how it was. You’re just being a sore loser because I got the better of you in our little game.”

Kira’s spine stiffened with wounded personal and professional pride as bitterness over the way that Ethan had used his relationship with her to gather information that he later used to steal Enclave, the Las Vegas mega resort now owned by his brother, right out from under the nose of her former client, bubbled further to the surface. “Be that as it may, there is still no way in hell that I’m going to allow you to get your hands on that sub-concession. I’ll fight you every step of the way.”

Ethan peered into Kira’s eyes, seeing both determination and the deep emotion that she was trying so hard to hide lurking within their beautiful, molten depths. These were the eyes that had haunted him over the past two years, eyes that he thought that he would never see again. His hard, verdant gaze softened as he leaned in even closer to Kira, a soft lock of his dark hair gently brushing against her forehead as his face hovered a breath away from her own. Kira sucked in a sharp breath at the faint physical contact.

“I don’t want to fight you.” Ethan’s voice was low and husky as he inhaled the sweet, soft scent of her. She smelled just as he remembered, like vanilla and Jasmine. Familiar yet exotic.

“Then don’t.” Kira placed her hands on Ethan’s chest and firmly pushed him away. Warily, she circled around him, being careful not to turn her back on him as she edged to the other side of the elevator compartment. “All you have to do is leave Hong Kong and forget all about Gau Lung.”

“I can’t do that,” Ethan said as he turned around to follow her movements, allowing her to slip between him and the elevator controls.

“You mean you won’t do that.”

Ethan shrugged. “Let’s not get into semantics. Either way, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Closing in on Kira, he slipped a hand between the narrow opening between her right arm and the curve of her waist, gently sliding the back of his hand against her bare forearm as he reached out and pressed the button to restart the elevator. His touch was slow, deliberate and unnervingly sexual. “So that means we are going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

His whispered words managed to sound like both a threat and a promise as the elevator came to a stop on the garage level and the doors sprang open. Exiting the elevator without another word, he confidently swaggered away. With trembling fingers, Kira quickly pressed the button on the control panel of the elevators, tapping it several times in her impatience. In response, the doors of the elevators finally closed with a soft swoosh, shutting out the image of Ethan’s retreating back. As the elevator swept Kira back up to the Executive Suite in silent efficiency, she leaned unsteadily against the back wall, tightly clutching the metal hand rail to steady herself.

Shaken to her very core.

***

Ethan spotted the two goons from the corner of his eye the moment he stepped into the parking structure of The Gau Lung Building. Not that they were making much of an effort to conceal themselves. Jared Halifax was not exactly known for his subtlety. Ethan had known that news of his arrival in Hong Kong would reach his father sooner rather than later, making the upcoming un-pleasantries inevitable. Unbuttoning his suit jacket to clear the path to the Glock holstered beneath his left arm, Ethan decided against pulling out his weapon. Opting to allow the situation to play out, he made his way towards his rented Porsche. As expected, the two goons followed. When Ethan opened the driver’s side door, a large meaty hand reached over his shoulder and slammed it shut.

Ethan turned to face the two men. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?” He asked, his voice nonchalant, his eyes intense and watchful.

“Your father wants to talk to you,” the beefy one explained as he watched Ethan with a look of boredom in his already dull eyes.

“Thanks for the message, I’ll be sure to give him a call,” Ethan said turning his back on the man as he tried to open his door once again. Once again the door was slammed shut.

“He wants to talk to you face to face. Now.” Grabbing Ethan’s arm in a vice-like grip, the bulky goon guided Ethan towards a black stretch limo parked nearby, emphasizing the point that this was not a request. Ethan yanked his arm free but continued to walk in the direction of the limo, flanked on both sides by Jared’s men. When the trio reached the limo, Ethan reached for the handle of the back passenger’s side door.

“Not so fast, hot shot,” the smaller of the two men said as he reached into Ethan’s jacket an pulled out the Glock. Handing the gun to his stocky cohort, he then patted Ethan down for more weapons. When he was satisfied that Ethan was unarmed, he opened the door to the limo and waved him inside the car with a quick nod of his head.

Ethan paused briefly as he peered into the backseat of the limo and saw the face of the man he hated more than anything staring back at him. The face that still haunted his dreams over twenty-eight years after the nightmare of living with him had come to a violent, horrifying end, creating a new, more insidious type of nightmare for he and his two brothers. Fighting against the powerful surge of rage that he felt bubbling up inside of him at the sight of his father, Ethan slid into the backseat of the limo and slammed the door behind him.

“What do you want?” Ethan asked, fixing Jared with a look of pure hatred.

Jared's expression remained impassive in the face of his son’s unconcealed contempt. “I want you to back off of the Wong sub-concession.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Ethan replied firmly.

Jared’s dark green eyes, practically identical to the one’s staring daggers at him, watched Ethan curiously as he brought a hand up to his chin and began stroking it idly. Ethan was unnerved by the gesture, having seen it from his older brother, Donovan, more times than he could count when the eldest Chance brother was contemplating his next move. The only thing missing was the long, jagged scar etched into the side of Donovan's chin, which had come courtesy of the man seated in front of him now, eying him like a cat eying a canary. It was damned eerie how much Donovan resembled Jared. And, though he loved his brother dearly, he knew that the resemblance was more than skin deep. In his own, more subtle way, Donovan was just as dangerous as their father. They both had an indomitable will to have their own way and God help anybody that got in their way. It was remarkable how Donovan could be the spitting image in so many ways of a man who had walked out of his life at the age of nine. It made Ethan wonder what traits he himself may have inherited from the man, inwardly shuddering at the idea that their may be any hint of Jared lurking inside of him.

“I could just kill you right now and dump your body into the harbor,” Jared suggested casually, pressing the button that automatically locked all the doors to the limo for dramatic effect. “You’ve certainly made that option easy enough for me.”

Ethan smiled grimly. “You’re not going to kill me, old man.”

Jared cocked a thick, gray eyebrow. “What makes you so sure about that?”

“Because you’re a lot of things but suicidal isn’t one of them,” Ethan replied matter-of-factly. “You and I both know that if it were left up to Donovan, he’d have already ripped your throat out with his bare teeth. Dylan and I have been the only things keeping Donovan from your jugular all these years. If I were to turn up dead in the harbor, there’s no way that Dylan would be able to keep Donovan on a leash by himself. You’d be dead before my body even had a chance to dry out.”

Jared snorted. “You think too highly of your brother. I’m not nearly as easy to kill as you seem to think. The world is littered with the dead bodies of men who found that out the hard way.”

“But how many of those men were willing to die in the process? You and I both know that there is nothing harder to defend against than a man with nothing to lose.”

Jared sighed as he leaned back into his seat. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe killing you would just cause more problems than it fixes. Kira St. James, on the other hand is another story,” Jared steepled his fingers as he looked over to gauge Ethan’s reaction. “Her being in the mix is quite fortuitous and brings up all kinds of interesting possibilities.”

It took every bit of self-control he could muster for Ethan not to reach across the backseat of the limo and strangle Jared with his bare hands. He knew that Jared was on a fishing expedition, trying to find out if Kira was a weakness that he could exploit. If Ethan wanted to keep Kira safe, he could show no weakness where she was concerned. “Kira was a means to an end back in Las Vegas. Now she’s an obstacle. I don’t give a damn what you do to her. It still won’t stop me from getting the Wong family’s sub-concession.”

“I hear that you’re a really good poker player which means that you know how to bluff,” Jared leaned in closer to Ethan, narrowing his eyes as he studied his son's face for any signs of a tell. “The question is, are you bluffing now?”

Ethan kept his face impassive as he withstood Jared’s scrutiny, knowing that Kira's life depended on it. After a long, lingering silence, Jared sat back in his seat without answering the question that hung ominously in the air between the two men. “Get out.”

Shrugging his shoulders indifferently, Ethan exited the limo. Accepting his gun back from Jared’s goon, he jammed the Glock back into its holster as he watched Jared and his two thugs drive off in the limo, silently praying to God that Jared had bought his bluff.