His gaze seared through her now. “Is that why you do your secret breathing exercises?” he asked. “To cope? Or do you have bad lungs?”
Now it was his turn to surprise her. She blinked at him. “What do you mean?”
She could tell from his face that he knew he’d hit on something. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, as if he wanted to make sure no one heard them. “Your breathing exercises. I noticed it from our first meeting—how you take a measured breath through your nose and then exhale twice as slowly through your mouth.” He nodded, looking sidelong at her. “I was taught the same exercise to strengthen my lungs for my performances. But why doyouneed breathing therapy?”
Well. Sydney reminded herself yet again that Winter wasn’t stupid. He had turned the interrogation back around on her, had snapped back at her just as she was pitying him. For a second, she just stared at him.
The memories rushed through her—
—the sound of her mother’s labored breathing at the hospital—
—Sydney’s persistent chest pains that began in adolescence, worsening whenever she was under extreme stress—
—her diagnosis coming back as her mother’s same chronic condition—
—the way she’d struggled for air when her father had once threatened her with a kitchen knife—
The memory disappeared, leaving only an old fear sitting in her chest.
Winter tightened his lips. “Panacea doesn’t know, do they?”
Three years, she’d hidden this successfully from everyone at an intelligence agency. How didhefigure it out? How could he have noticed so quickly?
“Are you suggesting I’m a liar?” she said, her voice low, a thread of anger in it.
He stared straight at her. “I’m suggesting that two can play at your game.”
“Creative of you,” she replied tersely. “But my lungs are doing just fine.”
He studied her. “I won’t tell them, you know,” he said quietly.
The boy standing before her had the power to end her career right now. To dissolve everything that mattered to her.
Her training kicked in. Her eyes narrowed. Instead of answering, Sydney tossed the knife back at him. “There’s nothing to tell,” she said.
Winter caught the knife smoothly in one hand and twirled it, as if this was just another dance move he’d been practicing all his life. Then he tossed the knife back. She caught it.
“You learn fast,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, his gaze still locked on her. “As fast as you can spin a story.”
He was poking holes in her shield, hunting for clues about her past as ruthlessly as she had for him. She could feel her heart racing, suddenly that trapped girl again, desperate to escape.
She didn’t know if he noticed discomfort in her expression—she doubted it, as she had trained well to keep her emotions off her face. But his words rang in her head as she continued their lesson. She had no idea if he would keep her secret, or if he would run straight to Sauda and Niall after this—and she couldn’t bear the idea of asking him to keep it to himself. Admitting it was true.
But whatever the reason, he backed off, then picked up the knife and turned it around in his hand.
“Glad we’re in sync,” he said.
She understood what he meant.If I can trust you, you can trust me.
“Let’s keep it that way,” she answered.
He smiled a little at her. And when they moved on to the next exercise, he sounded like he always had around her, with no indication that he knew anything about her secret.
She had to be better about keeping her distance. She had to be more careful around this boy.
9
