14. Traitors Always Stay Close

By the time Winter arrived with Gavi and Sydney at their hotel's after-party, the dancing was in full swing. From the rooftop, past the lush foliage spilling over from the ledge, Winter could see the entire expanse of Singapore, a glittering sheet of skyscrapers lit up by advertisements and blinking lights.

Gavi clung tightly to his arm and smiled at the bevy of reporters and cameramen that swarmed around them as they entered the space. As she struck a pose for one news agency, Winter glanced to his side and glimpsed Sydney standing a short distance from them, her eyes searching the deck for suspicious activity, an uneasy scowl on her face.

Sydney hadn't said a single word since she met him backstage after his show. No smiles, either. Her eyes had looked as cold and brooding as ever as she'd fallen into step right behind him and followed him out of the venue without a word. The only giveaway that something was wrong was the tension in her shoulders, a stiffness he recognized immediately as her indication that she was on high alert.

Something had happened during his concert, though he didn't know what it was.

The instant they arrived, two bodyguards showed up to usher them to a private booth. As they walked, Gavi leaned up to Winter's ear.

"Those ministers over there?" she murmured, nodding toward a group of people wearing Singapore flag pins on their lapels. "They were in the box with me and couldn't seem to care less about you—and look at them now, coming to the after-party in the hopes of bumping into you."

"Maybe they're here for you," Winter replied, giving the group a nod and smile as they passed by.

Gavi flipped her hair over her shoulder and giggled, her nose brushing against Winter's cheek. "Too bad for them," she said. "I charge a fee for photos."

Winter glanced over his shoulder again at Sydney. Her eyes were turned toward the ministers, too, so intently that he could have sworn she was purposely avoiding his gaze.

They reached the private booth on the other side of a long firepit set in a stone table. Dameon was already here, seated across from them with a few others that Winter recognized as some of the local crew that had worked on their set. Winter slid into the seat opposite them with a sigh, while Gavi settled in beside him.

Sydney remained standing at the end of the booth, still inspecting the crowds around her. He tried to meet her gaze, but again, she seemed to avoid him. Winter could feel her presence at his back every time he looked away, and the weight of it made him uncomfortable. He shifted a few times before he finally glanced up at her.

"Hey," he called up. She looked down at him as he gestured at the booth. "Do you want to sit down?"

"I'm guarding you," she said stiffly. She seemed pale.

"You can rest your legs at the same time," he said.

She just shook her head and went back to surveying the space. "Later," she replied quietly.

It was all she needed to say to tell him that something had gone wrong tonight. He looked around, trying to guess what she knew that he didn't. Tems was nowhere to be seen on the dance floor—in fact, it didn't look like he'd made an appearance here at all.

Dameon's voice made him turn away from Sydney and look across the firepit to his friends. "Wasn't I right?" he said with a serene smile. "Making you include ‘Eyes on the Prize' in our set list tonight? Did you hear the crowd?"

"You're always right," Winter replied as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

Dameon took an egg roll off of a tray that a waiter offered to them. "‘Meditation' was a surprise, though." He looked archly at Winter. "Did you have that in your catalog? I don't remember it."

"I found it several days ago," he said. "Thought it made a good interlude."

"It was nice," Dameon agreed.

Beside him, Gavi leaned against Winter's shoulder and tapped her glass against his. "To a good concert," she said.

Winter toasted her back and took a sip of his drink. "Glad you enjoyed it."

"I always enjoy your concerts. You just don't invite me to enough of them."

"Well, it gets a little awkward when we haven't spoken in over a year."

"Does that mean things have changed now?" She smiled curiously. "Or are we going back to silence when we return to the States?"

Winter shook his head and looked at the fire. In his head, "You Are My Meditation" was still playing, and he could still feel Sydney's quiet presence nearby. "I don't know," he admitted. "I don't think it's a good idea."

"Fine." She shrugged. "Then I'll have to catch the rest of your concerts on the screen, like everyone else."

"They're all going to be the same, anyway. Besides," he added, looking at her, "you hate repeating a concert."

"It's true." Gavi laughed idly and brought her drink back up to her lips. "As much as you hate cigar smoke."

Winter glanced at her with a blank look. "Cigar smoke?" he said.

Gavi looked at him, then gave him a quick smile. "What?"

But Winter had known her long enough by now to recognize the hesitation in her voice, the first hints of a secret hidden in her words. She had let something slip by accident. "How do you know that?" he asked.

"It was always pretty obvious, Winter."

He angled his body toward her. "No, it couldn't have been, because we've never been anywhere together with cigar smoke. I know I've never mentioned it before. So how do you know I hate cigar smoke?"

"I can just tell, all right?" She tossed her hair. "Don't get so worked up about it."

A memory was already resurfacing in his mind, though—the cloud of cigar smoke that would surround his father when he sat in the kitchen, the way Winter would avoid coming to dinner whenever he smelled it downstairs, the way the smoke clung to his father's coat.

He looked at Gavi's face. She was lying to him. But he had caught her by surprise this time—perhaps she'd misremembered where she'd learned it. Perhaps she thought Winter had been the one who'd told her.

"Did my mother tell you?" he asked.

Gavi looked at him, and he could see the answer in her eyes. No. His heart twisted with dread. There was only one other person who could have told her.

"Did you find out from my father?" he asked.

Another beat of silence. She sighed. "Oh, Winter."

"What aren't you telling me, Gavi?" he said quietly.

She hesitated at the look on his face. "It was just for the week, all right?" she murmured, keeping her voice low. "And I didn't give him anything."

Him.Something in her tone brought on a lurch of nausea. "Give who?" he asked. "My father?"

One look at the expression that flashed across her face told him everything he needed to know. He started shaking his head. "My dad reached out to you? When? How? When he heard that I'd invited you along to this?" he said.

Gavi's stare went to the rest of the party, then back to him. Across the fire, Dameon glanced over at them, his smile wavering at the stricken look on Winter's face.

"No," she whispered. Another pause. "In Honolulu."

So that was the real reason why Gavi had showed up at his hotel that night. Why she had left her date at the movie premiere. Hadn't Dameon warned him about this? After all this time, he should have known that Gavi always had a good reason for her actions—a selfish reason—and yet, each time, he still found himself in this position. Caught off guard.

"This is for the book, isn't it?" he asked tightly.

Gavi's eyes were downcast now. Even she, it seemed, could feel shame. "He just asked me to pass along anything interesting that happened," she said, "that he could insert into the book. He also wanted me to soften you up to the idea of the publication, maybe pull back your lawyers a bit."

The nausea was making him light-headed. Winter looked around, the party's sounds suddenly dull and menacing, the fire crackling nearby suddenly too overwhelmingly hot.

Gavi put a hand on his arm. He barely felt it. "I didn't tell him anything too bad," she said.

"What did you tell him?"

She swallowed. "Just where you were staying, what your schedule was."

"That's not all, is it? What else?"

She hesitated. "Okay, a couple of stories from when we were together. I told him about the time you were stabbed. How you kept it a secret."

The time when he'd been stabbed outside a party, how he'd fallen across Claire's lap, bleeding, and how he'd insisted they not go to a hospital because of the stories that would follow. Gavi had figured it out on her own because he'd had to cancel a date with her that week, and because she'd found the scar when he'd slept over at her place a month later. And now she'd told his father, and his father had put it in his book. No wonder it'd been one of the headlines on the tabloids when they'd left for Singapore.

"What else?" he pressed quietly.

"I told him you like your bodyguard."

Sydney.

"You're feeding him straight rumors, then," Winter snapped, fear rising in his throat.

Her eyes flashed. "I just tell him what I see. It's not my responsibility to confirm or deny things."

He threw his hands up. "No. It's just common decency. Why, Gavi? Why would you do this? How much did he pay you? Did he promise you a piece of the book's profits?"

She didn't say anything, confirming his guess. He winced and looked at the fire. Even a small fraction of those profits could be worth millions.

"So that's it, then?" he snapped. "Just sold me out for the money?"

"Your father scares me, Winter," she whispered. Her eyes were wide, her brows furrowed. "He told me that if I helped him, he'd make sure not to put anything scandalous in the book about me."

He narrowed his eyes. "I thought you didn't care what others thought of you as long as you got the attention."

She scowled back at him, and in that, he saw at last that she did care. That maybe she really was afraid of what his father might have published about her.

Winter stood up, the nausea even more powerful standing. Sydney looked at him, eyes searching his, but he just shook his head. "I'm going to head back early," he said, nodding to Dameon across the firepit.

Dameon turned away from his date to give Winter—then Gavi—a questioning look. "Already?" he said.

"Headache," Winter said. "I'll catch up with you guys at breakfast tomorrow."

"Winter, wait," Gavi called after him.

But she didn't make a move to follow him, as if she knew her words were futile, and he didn't make an effort to say anything in return. He just stepped away from the booth and, without bothering to see if Sydney was following him, turned from the rest of the festivities and back toward the elevators.