Always a Thief - Kay Hooper [79]
Intelligence was only a part of it, though she certainly had plenty of that. She had a sense of humor that was sometimes ironic or offbeat and always sharp. A keen perception. More sensitivity and sentimentality than she wanted to reveal. And she possessed a deep reserve despite her talkative disposition and charm.
Quinn thought she had been profoundly hurt in her life—and not only by the fiancé too unspeakably stupid to look past her surface shine to the pure gold underneath. She had been taken at face value too often in her life, he thought, and that had taught her to guard her vulnerable heart.
Which made it all the more remarkable that she could have fallen in love with him. He still couldn't quite believe it. A part of him even considered that if they spent enough time together, she would eventually decide she'd been mistaken in what she felt. But a deeper part of him saw and recognized a luminous truth in her eyes.
She loved him.
And it was going to cost her.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Late on Saturday evening, Quinn pulled himself reluctantly from the warmth of Morgan's bed to get dressed. It was nearly eleven, and he had to return to his hotel briefly before he could begin his night as Quinn. They had spent most of the evening in bed, and though he hadn't gotten very much sleep during the past few days, he felt peculiarly energized.
Morgan banked pillows behind her and absently drew the sheet up over her naked breasts as she watched him, and in the lamplight her eyes seemed bottomless. For the first time since they had discussed it earlier in the day, she brought up the subject of Nightshade, her voice calm but deliberate.
“Have you thought of a reason why I would have expected Alex Brandon to be on a rooftop at midnight?”
“Only one,” he confessed, sitting on the side of the bed to pull his boots on. “If Alex had told you that's where he'd be—not, of course, expecting you to come calling.”
Morgan frowned, then realized. “You were dressed as Quinn. All-black cat-burglar attire. Which you wouldn't have wanted me to see if I didn't know you were Quinn.”
“That is a bit of a problem in explaining things, yes.”
She watched him for a moment, still frowning, then said, “Well, you can always fall back on the unpredictability of women. You tell me you're going to be up there—stargazing, or just checking out the roof of a building you're interested in buying or leasing—”
“In the middle of the night?”
“You had a busy day, and it was the only time available.” When he stared at her with lifted brows, she laughed and said, “Most men think that a woman in love will believe anything, so I'm sure you can make it sound convincing. Or tell him I wasn't convinced, that I suspected another woman or something, and thank him very much for knocking me out before I could see you in your Quinn costume.”
“That's not bad,” he noted. “Especially since I plan to get him on the defensive immediately.”
Morgan considered that for a moment. “Because he shouldn't have been on that fire escape?”
“Right. And with chloroform, no less. There I was, perched on that roof and studying the museum while I planned a way in for him, and he came cat-footing along to either check up on me or else do something a bit more permanent. I'd say he demonstrated a distressing lack of trust in his partner, to say the very least. I'm going to be quite indignant about that, I think. So indignant, in fact, that I'm not at all sure I want to share with him the rather vital bit of information I got from you, sweet.”
“Ah, I wondered if we were going to get back to that.” She eyed him thoughtfully. “If you expect