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.

No doubt this will be posted and misconstrued a dozen different ways in the coming hours on social media, but the last thing I need to do is throw Hendrix into the fire the first night.

What an ass I was thinking this would be right.

“Jase? I thought we were going to dinner here.”

“We were,” I say as I pull out of the circular driveway and back onto the road.

“Was that considered a PR stunt?” she asks, concern woven into each word.

“The kiss?” I ask as I look over my shoulder before changing lanes.

“Well, I know that was. I meant—”

“No.” I stop at the light and lean over and kiss her softly again, shocking the hell out of me and twisting up my insides even more than they already are. “That was because I wanted to. It’s been a long fucking day and the thought of kissing you has been front and center in my mind.”

“Oh.”