Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [49]
“It has a certain something,” Quinn commented, leaning close to Morgan so she could hear him over the noise filling the large room. His expression was grave.
She winced at a discordant clash of notes from a band that seemed to have come from some twilight zone of amateur nights. “Oh, yeah, it has something. It has a beat and you can dance to it. But please don't ask me to.”
He chuckled. “Well, we've done our duty. We listened to the speeches, ate the meal, and conversed intelligently with our table companions.” He glanced around their table, which, like all the others in the room, seated twelve people—and was now deserted except for them and a very young couple on the other side who were totally wrapped up in each other.
“Most of whom bailed half an hour ago,” Morgan pointed out, half closing her eyes as the enthusiastic drummer showed off his talents.
Quinn leaned even closer to her and, his breath warm against her neck, said, “I think they all showed good sense. Why don't we follow suit? It's a beautiful night, and I happen to know of a coffee shop about two blocks from here; what do you say? We can walk off that mystery chicken dish and get some fresh air—and a decent cup of coffee.”
Morgan was in complete agreement, though she did feel a bit guilty in joining the exodus from the building. “I should find Ken and tell him he did a good job,” she said to Quinn.
“Tell him tomorrow at the museum,” he suggested. “It'll give you time to construct a really sincere face.”
She couldn't help laughing as they got up. “Is nothing sacred to you?”
Guiding her through the jungle of pushed-back chairs and the occasional—and inexplicable—dancers, Quinn said, “In the area of manners and mores, you mean? Sure. I just happen to believe we should all be completely honest with ourselves—especially when we have to lie to be polite to others.”
Morgan thought about that while they made their way from the hotel that was hosting the fund-raiser. She thought about lies. And she wondered which man had told her the most lies, Alex or Quinn.
As long as she followed her instincts and emotions, she had little hesitation in trusting Quinn. She wasn't so sure about Alex Brandon, partly, she suspected, because she hadn't quite convinced herself he was a real person. A psychologist would no doubt have found that as interesting as Storm had, but the truth was that after hearing about him for years and having several rather dramatic nighttime encounters with him, Quinn was the most real man she had ever known.
CHAPTER
NINE
“You're very quiet, Morgana. Something wrong?”
She looked at her hand resting lightly on his arm, then drew in a breath of the clear night air and turned her gaze ahead of them again as they strolled along the sidewalk toward the coffee shop. “No. I was just thinking. Are you always honest with yourself, Alex?”
“Anyone who plays . . . identity games has to be.”
“Identity games,” she repeated slowly. “Is that what you do?”
He was silent for a moment, then spoke in an unusually serious tone. “I could say that when I was a boy I could never decide what I wanted to be when I grew up, but that wouldn't be true. What is true is that I had certain . . . talents that were not exactly suitable for your average career.”
“Such as?” She thought he would say something about opening locks or blending into the night, but his answer was far more complex.
“The ability to reinvent myself whenever I had to. The ability to function well under . . . unusual kinds of pressure. The ability to work completely alone—and a liking for it.” He shrugged. “I don't know what I might have done, but in college a friend dared me to . . . liberate something from the dean's house one night. I did it. And I liked it.”
Morgan looked up at him curiously. “A college prank is a long way from professional burglary.”
He smiled. “True.”
“Was there any one thing that . . . bridged that distance? Something that happened to you, I mean.”
“A tragedy that propelled me into a life of crime?”
She couldn't