Page 80 of Sweet Surrender

“We’re almost to the restaurant.”

“Jase?” I look out the window for the first time and see we’re in the Wilshire Boulevard area and cringe.

“The hottest new couple has to be seen now, don’t they? Or at least that’s what I’m being told.”

“Jase.” The first time I said his name it was a question. This time was a warning. “You couldn’t have given me a little heads-up?” I grumble, yanking down the visor mirror to assess the damage. Flour dusts the front of my shirt, a smudge of buttercream clings to my wrist, and my hair is still twisted in a messy knot, ponytail, something or other from working.

Jase smirks from the driver’s seat. “Where’s the fun in that?”

I shoot him a glare. “You could’ve at least let me change. I look like . . . I just wrestled a sack of flour.”

He shrugs, totally unbothered. “You’re with me. Who cares?”

And totally like a person used to being adored even when a picture is taken that paints him in the ugliest of angles.

He looks ridiculously good in his black tee and leather jacket, like he just casually rolled off the cover of Rolling Stone.

I groan, slumping in my seat. “They’re gonna think you picked me up off the street.” I look exactly like the mess the mean girls said I am. I’m feeling blindsided . . . again. And desperately trying not to care.

And failing at it.

“Well, that might put a dent in the whole make Jase look wholesome thing we’re aiming for if I’m picking up prostitutes for dinner.”

“Whoa. I mean homeless. Not a prostitute,” I joke and slap at his leg. “Thanks a lot.”

He grabs my hand so I can’t hit his leg anymore and glances at me, his lips twitching. “Nah, they’re gonna wonder how the hell I landed the hottest woman in this restaurant.”

My stomach flips. It’s ridiculous that it does because I live in reality and know exactly how I look—like a hot mess—while he’s trying to boost my ego. And yet, I find myself biting my lip, fighting back a smile.

Right up until we pull in line for the valet in front of The Vine. It’s an upscale restaurant that screams we take reservations three months in advance with paparazzi permanently camped out across the street with their cameras.

It’s the place to go and be seen, and Jase is doing just that—being seen. Showing off his new wife for the world to see her.

Fuck.

Just fuck.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Gizmo

The flashes are blinding the minute the valet opens my door. I hold a hand up in a wave and move around the hood of the car, slower than normal.

“I’ve got it,” I tell the valet who’s about to open Hendrix’s door. I’m there in seconds and when I do open the door, Hendrix is sitting there, eyes wide, and the only way to describe her expression is shell-shocked.

She stares at me, eyes blinking and body frozen in place. It’s a look of terror mixed with exhaustion, and I do the only fathomable thing to do to wipe that look off her face, and the one thing I’ve thought about doing way too many times today—I lean in, cup her face, and brush my lips ever so gently against hers.

It takes a second for it to register to her, but I feel the minute it does. Her body startles and her lips react. The noise outside grows louder and the flashes grow brighter.

I can’t do this to her. Not on her first full day as a spectacle. Not after a hard day’s work. And most definitely not when she isn’t feeling the best about herself.

Screw Abigail and her requirements to be seen—the sooner the better. Hendrix deserves better than this.

“Stay there,” I say when I lean back, her eyes searching mine.

“I don’t—”

But I cut her words off when I shut the door, keeping her inside. The valet looks at me oddly. “Change of plans,” I say as the cameras go off a million times more before I climb back behind the wheel.