Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [60]
“So you would have lied to me.”
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “If I believed it was something you didn't need to know about or, worse, would put you in danger if you knew.” He drew a breath. “It seemed safest to keep you occupied during the day, and since it was definitely not a hardship—”
“You must have lost sleep doing it. Being Quinn every night and Alex during the day.”
“Some, but nothing I can't handle. Morgan, I hope you understand. There are things I didn't want to have to explain—not yet anyway—and I knew damned well that if you concentrated that sharp mind of yours on what I was doing at night, you'd figure out more than I wanted you to know.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” she said. “But I've a feeling your little plan is so twisty I wouldn't be able to find my way through it with a road map.”
He smiled slightly. “Maybe not. I think I've taken a few turns blindly myself. That happens when you have to improvise without warning.”
“Is that what you've been doing? Improvising?”
“As you said—I hadn't counted on you. I hadn't counted on being . . . distracted. Still, I thought I could handle it. Then when I came to you after I was shot, not out of reason or logic but just because . . . because I had an overwhelming need to be with you, I knew I was in trouble. And I knew I didn't have a hope in hell of keeping you in a nice, safe little compartment of my life—even to protect you.”
Morgan resisted the urge to ask him to define his feelings for her a bit more clearly; she was determined not to prod him to say anything he wasn't ready to divulge on his own. “Protect me from what?”
“From all the risks involved in what I'm doing.” He sounded frustrated. “Goddammit, Nightshade kills people, don't you understand that? Without a second thought or even an instant's hesitation, he kills anyone who gets in his way. I don't want you in his way, Morgana. I don't want him to even imagine you could be a problem. It's bad enough that you're publicly linked with me at all; the closer you are to me, the closer you are to him—visible to him and drawing his attention. Besides that, considering how many times you've already charged into dangerous situations—”
“Just that one time, when I followed those men who had you,” she objected. “You can't count the first time, because I was there by accident; my date took me to that museum in all innocence.” Then she frowned. “Well, maybe not innocence—but you know what I mean.”
“What about tonight?”
“That hadn't happened yet, so don't use it as an excuse.”
He almost—but not quite—laughed. It was actually more a sound of despair.
“All right, but even then it's been obvious all along that you're too impulsive for your own good. And I could hardly count on my good sense where you're concerned; I knew that I wouldn't be able to stay away from you. Seeing you openly as Alex Brandon seemed the best way. But it meant Nightshade would have to know I was interested in you, and his awareness of that was enough of a risk. I didn't want you getting involved with my—my nighttime activities. So I thought that being Alex during the day and being openly interested in you would both make you seem unthreatening to Nightshade and distract your attention from what I was doing at night.”
Morgan blinked. There were several things bothering her about all that, but one realization was uppermost in her mind. “Wait a minute. Are you saying that you went public just because of me? It wasn't part of your plan to find Nightshade?”
“I'd already found Nightshade,” he admitted reluctantly. “And for God's sake, don't tell Jared—he'd shoot me.”
She felt a bit dazed. “You had already found Nightshade. And being Alex won't help lure him into the trap?”
“As a matter of fact, being Alex was one of those improvised turns I mentioned—and it's complicated the situation in more ways than I want to discuss.”
Morgan stared at him. Almost idly, she said, “You know, if I find out your name isn't really Alex, I'll—”
He didn't wait to hear what she'd do. “I give you my word of honor that my mother named me Alexander.