Her phrasing made him scowl. “What do you mean, alone?”
“I mean I’m going to do it, but you shouldn’t. You never signed up for this.”
The way his gaze now seared into hers sent a jolt through her heart. She frowned at him. “I signed up to be your partner on this mission.”
“And I’m telling you to get on that flight tomorrow morning.”
“What are you going to do here without my help?”
She cast him a withering look. “I can work faster without you.”
He leaned toward her. “Would you have known that the so-called affair happening between Penelope and Connor Doherty is nothing more than an act?”
“It’s—what?” she said.
“I’ve witnessed enough secret relationships in my world to know a fake one when I see it.” Winter reached into his pocket and pulled out a bejeweled hairpin. Immediately, Sydney recognized it as the samehairpin that Penelope had worn at the Alexandra Palace. “I took this from her flat,” he said as he handed it over.
She gave him a skeptical glance. “You stole it?”
“I think I learned more from you than I should,” he answered dryly. “Based on what I heard at the after-party, Connor gifted this to her. I thought it might be a useful clue for us about their relationship.”
“Which you said was an act,” Sydney said, turning the pin carefully in her hands. The diamonds crusting it glittered.
He nodded. “They aren’t seeing each other. They’re only pretending. I don’t know why.”
Sydney’s fingers ran across the hairpin. They stopped as she touched something metal underneath the diamonds. She took a closer look.
“This is more than a hairpin,” she murmured, holding it up so Winter could see the port installed under it. “It’s a mini-drive. There’s data on this thing.”
They stared at each other for a moment before returning to the hairpin.
“There are things happening under the surface here that we don’t understand,” Winter finally said in a low voice. “And you are going to need someone to help you if you’re going to stay.”
She took a deep breath, her eyes still on the hairpin. “You don’t need to do this. You don’t have to put yourself in this kind of danger. This isn’t even your line of work.”
“Hey.” He held his hands up. “Where you go, I go. Right?”
She felt a tingle down her limbs at his words.Where you go, I go.
No one had ever promised her anything like that. Where she went, she went alone.
And yet, she could feel the earnestness in his voice. The nearness of him.
“I’m just not used to people staying,” she said.
It took her a moment to realize that she’d said something unguardedto him, that he was now staring at her with a questioning gaze. She let her guard down around people like Niall and Sauda—and even they saw a filtered version of her. But Winter wasn’t a secret agent. He was a superstar who somehow happened to be one of the most normal people she’d ever met, and something about that combination made her say things like this to him.
He was still studying her with slender dark eyes. “What now?” he said quietly. “We only have six hours.”
“All we have to do is buy ourselves some more time,” she said.
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“You want to help me? Then we’re about to take advantage of who you are.” She gave him a small, dark smile. “We’re about to cause an uproar.”
22
The Hunter, the Hunted
