Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [27]
Morgan gritted her teeth but kept smiling. “I'm in no mood to fence with you. Did Max get you into the house?”
“I've been on the guest list for this party since the beginning, sweet.”
Forgetting to keep smiling, she frowned up at him. “What? You couldn't have been. Leo's always planned to throw a party the night of the Mysteries Past opening, and he sent out invitations more than a month ago—in fact, more than two months ago. How could you possibly—”
Quinn shook his head slightly, then guided her away from the center of the room. Not many of the guests seemed to take note of them, but Morgan caught a glimpse of Max Bannister watching from the other side of the room, his gray eyes unreadable.
Now that she knew Quinn was—supposedly, anyway—helping Interpol catch another thief, Morgan didn't feel quite so troubled about her previous encounters with the cat burglar, and after having nursed him back to health when he'd been shot, she could hardly look on him as a stranger. But she didn't trust him.
Yeah, you're willing to take him into your bed, but you don't trust him. That's smart.
That's just smart as hell.
He led her from the crowded ballroom without giving her a chance to protest, finding his way easily down a short hallway and out onto a slightly chilly, deserted terrace. Leo hadn't opened the French doors of the ballroom, probably because it had been raining when the party began; the flagstone terrace was still wet, and a heavy fog was creeping in over the garden. Still, if a guest did happen to wander out, the party's host was prepared: There were Japanese-type lanterns hung to provide light for the terrace and garden, along with scattered tables and chairs—very wet at the moment.
Everything gleamed from the rain, and the incoming fog made the garden an eerie sight. It was very quiet on the terrace, unnaturally so, with the thick mist providing its usual muffling effect; both the music from the ballroom and the sounds of the ocean could only just be heard.
Morgan assumed that Quinn wanted to talk to her without the greater chance of being overheard inside, so she made no effort to protest or to ask him why he'd brought her out here.
Still holding one of her hands, Quinn half sat on the stone balustrade edging the terrace and laughed softly as if some private joke amused him greatly. “Tell me something, Morgana. Have you ever stopped to think that I might be . . . more than Quinn?”
“What do you mean?”
His wide, powerful shoulders lifted in a shrug, and those vivid eyes remained on her face. “Well, Quinn is a creature of the night. His name's a pseudonym, a nickname—”
“An alias,” she supplied helpfully.
He let out a low laugh. “All right, an alias. My point is that he moves in the shadows, his face masked to the world—most of the world, anyway—and few know very much about him. But it isn't always night, Morgana. Masks tend to look a bit peculiar in the daylight, and Quinn would hardly have a passport or driver's license—to say nothing of a dinner jacket. So who do you think I am when I'm not Quinn?”
Oddly enough, that question hadn't even occurred to Morgan. “You're . . . Alex,” she answered a bit helplessly.
“Yes, but who is Alex?”
“How could I know that?”
“How could you, indeed. After all, Alex Brandon only arrived here yesterday. From England. I'm a collector.”
The sheer audacity of him had the usual effect on Morgan; she didn't know whether to laugh or hit him with something. So Alexander Brandon was supposed to be a collector? “Tell me you're kidding,” she begged.
He laughed again, the sound still soft. “Afraid not. My daytime persona, you see, is quite well established. Alexander Brandon has a rather nice house in London, which was left to him by his father, as well as apartments in Paris and New York. He has a dual citizenship—British and American—and, in fact, attended college here in the States. He came into a trust fund at twenty-one and manages a number of investments, also inherited,