After a while, Max’s staffer Andy came up and nodded to him. Olivia hadn’t even realized Andy was at the party. Max turned to wink at her, then walked over to Cary’s side.
“If you’ll all indulge me for a moment,” he said into a microphone that seemed to magically appear in his hand, “I’d like to thank you all for being here, and wish you all a happy Fourth of July!”
The whole party cheered, Olivia among them. Max kept talking—just your standard politician patriotic speech, but somehow, it sounded great coming from him. Olivia felt a swell of pride for Max and what a good man and politician and public servant he was, and that she was here with him. To be here, by his side, with his eyes on her, and that special smile just for her—that felt incredible. Suddenly the publicity and the reporters and the photographers and the constant smiling and the people who looked at her strangely and talked down to her didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was Max, who was both a senator and a man she loved very much. And he mattered more than anything else.
As soon as his speech was over, Andy was at her elbow.
“Ms. Monroe, the senator would like you to meet him at the front door as soon as you’re able to do so.”
She glanced at her watch. It had been exactly an hour since they’d arrived. Max hadn’t been kidding.
“Will do. Thanks, Andy.”
Granted, it took Max fifteen more minutes to actually get out of the event, but at least he’d made the effort.
“I’m impressed by that exit,” she said as they got in his car. “It’s getting dark—I assumed we’d stay for the fireworks.”
He turned to grin at her as he turned on the car.
“I have another plan for the fireworks.”
He drove them up into the hills, where they joined a bunch of other cars at a lookout point. Before they got out of the car, he pulled a hoodie over his button-down and put his old UCLA hat on. She took the sweatshirt he tossed her, and pulled it on over her dress. They sat on the trunk of his car, and he wrapped his arm around her.
“We made it just in time,” he said.
There were crackles in the sky, and they both looked up to see the first explosion of white stars over their heads. She laughed and clapped.
“I love fireworks so much,” she said.
He kissed her cheek.
“So do I.”
They watched the bursts and shooting stars light up the sky, her head on his shoulder, their fingers intertwined. After a while she looked up at him and saw the red and white lights of the fireworks dance across his face.
“I’m really happy,” she said.
He looked at her for a long moment.
“I am, too. It was really good to have you with me tonight, you know.” He brushed an invisible hair off her face. “We make a good team.”
She looked into his eyes and smiled.
“We sure do,” she said. “And speaking of that: I thought we were going to eat at that party, but all I had was two glasses of wine, and I’m starving. Can we get burgers on the way home?”
He laughed.
“Absolutely.”
Chapter Seventeen
Two weeks later, Max was in his office in DC, reading briefing materials for his afternoon committee meeting, when Kara walked into his office with barely a knock and shut the door.
“Excuse me, Senator? We have a situation.”
He dropped his papers on his desk. Whenever Kara used those words and that tone, it wasn’t good.
“What’s up?”
Her mouth was in a tight line.
“I just got a call from someone at Politico, wanting to know if we had a comment about the story they’re going to run about Olivia Monroe’s arrest as a teenager.”
He made a fist and then forced himself to flex his hand. Shit. This was bad. He had to call Olivia.
“What did you tell them?”
Kara narrowed her eyes at him.
“I told him I would get back to him in ten minutes. Before I can do that, I have two questions for you. The first is, did you know about this before I walked into your office just now?”
He put his hand flat on his desk.
“I can’t see how that’s any of your business.”
She walked closer to his desk.
“Oh, really? You can’t? Because you are my business, everything about you is. I can only be as good at my job as you allow me to be. Did you know about this?”
Oh shit, this was what Kara looked like when she was mad. He’d forgotten that. She was usually so calm and collected.
“Yeah, I knew. She told me early on.”
Kara nodded, opened her mouth, closed it, and nodded again.
“Okay. Good, that was smart of her, I’m glad to know she was watching out for you. Now I know which one of you to be mad at. Because, if you knew that, why the FUCK didn’t you tell me?” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “My apologies, sir. I didn’t mean to say that.”
He just looked at her.
“Yeah you did, don’t give me that ‘I’m sorry, sir’ bullshit. It happened when she was a teenager, and those records are sealed, so I thought it wasn’t relevant.”
Plus, he hadn’t wanted to make this whole thing even worse for her.
Kara sat down in the chair across from him.
“Sealing records means nothing if you have people who know and who will talk, which is I’m sure how this reporter got hold of this story. If only we’d known this, we could have prepared for it; I could have talked to Olivia in advance, we could have maybe even controlled the release, depending on what she’d said, but now . . . Do you know what people will say about your criminal justice bill now? Not to mention what will happen to her.” She let out a breath and stood up. “I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want to hear that, but I had to prepare you. At least the news cycle the rest of the summer will be so bananas that I think this might be a few days of stories and that’s all. But Ms. Monroe should know this is coming.”
He closed his eyes and nodded. Dread filled the pit of his stomach at the thought of telling Olivia this.
“I know. I’ll call her.”
Kara walked across the room and opened his door, but before she walked out, he raised a hand to stop her.
“Kara.”
She closed the door again and looked at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said . . . most of what I just said. But . . .” She shook her head. “I’m just going to tell that reporter my standard ‘no comment,’ just FYI.”
He had to call Olivia right away. Before a reporter did. Or . . . oh shit, had a reporter already called her?
He picked up the phone.
She answered right away.
“Hey, I was just about to call you—I got a weird message from some reporter, and it’s been a few weeks since that happened, do you know what this is about?”
Shit, she sounded so relaxed and cheerful. How was he going to tell her this?
“Yeah, I know. Olivia . . .”
He should have told Kara. It didn’t have to be a big thing, he knew he could trust Kara not to tell anyone. He should have done everything in his power to protect Olivia.
“What is it? What happened?” He could hear the change in her voice.
He just had to let it out.
“There’s going to be a story coming out soon—Kara just got a call about it—about your arrest as a teenager. We’re saying ‘No comment’, and you should do that, too, or just don’t say anything at all, but Olivia, I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry” seemed like such an inadequate word.
“I see. Okay. That’s . . .” She was quiet for a moment. “Okay. I thought the worst was over, that’s all. And this timing couldn’t be worse, our big pitch to Clementine is tomorrow.” She sighed. “Damn it. I wish you were here.”
She sounded so stunned. He’d never heard her like this before.
“I
wish I was there, too. This is all my fault. I hate that you’re going to have to deal with this because of me.”
He really should have thought of this. Why did he have to do it all so fast? This was what he had staff for, damn it.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “I should have assumed someone would be nosy and dig this up. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”
Fuck, he had to tell her this part, too.
“I have to apologize: I never told my staff about this, and I should have. They would have prepped you—us—for all of this.”
There was a long silence on the phone. So long he wasn’t sure if she was still there.
“Olivia?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” she said. “I’m just . . . kind of stunned. You didn’t tell them? I thought you talked to your staff before the Hollywood Bowl? Didn’t you think they should know this? My God, I would have told Kara if I knew you hadn’t!”
He had nothing to say. Well, nothing good to say, anyway.
“I hoped no one would have to know. I didn’t want you to have to deal with all of this. I did talk to my staff—well, Kara—but . . . obviously not enough.”
She laughed, but there was no amusement there.
“Yeah, obviously. Okay, well, I guess I’ll just see what this story is, and figure out how to deal with it.”
He hated that it was only Tuesday. He wouldn’t get to see her until Friday night. She was so mad at him, and there was nothing he could do, and he felt like if he was there and they could talk about it and maybe she could yell at him some, they could resolve this a lot faster.
“Can Kara call you? She’s as mad at me as you are, but she’ll be able to give you good advice on how to deal with everything.”
Olivia sighed.
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. Have her call me.”
He noticed she didn’t deny she was mad at him. She was right to be mad at him. He knew that. He just wished she wasn’t.
“Okay, I should probably call my family now,” she said. “Just so they know this is out there. And so my dad doesn’t yell at a reporter if they call him.”
Oh God, her family. He hadn’t even met her parents yet, and they were going to hate him.
“I love you. Talk to you tonight?”
There was silence for a moment.
“I love you, too, but maybe not tonight. I’m going to try to relax and get to bed early so I’m in good shape for the pitch.”
He wished there was something he could do about that defeated tone in her voice.
“Okay, tomorrow, then. And I hope you kick ass on the pitch.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“I love you,” he said again. But she’d already hung up.
Wednesday morning, Ellie picked Olivia up on the way to their pitch at Clementine.
“It’s not too late to cancel, you know,” Ellie said when Olivia got in the car.
“You know as well as I do that if we postpone this pitch, it would be the same thing as canceling it,” Olivia said to Ellie.
If only the pitch had been scheduled for next week. By then, hopefully everything would have died down some—that’s what Kara had told her, anyway, and she trusted Kara not to bullshit her. But apparently the universe had conspired against her.
She’d seen only a few of the stories about her arrest, and they all seemed predictably titillated by a teenager who broke into her high school twenty years ago. She’d anticipated that—people had always reacted that way, and she’d seen what the media did to other Black women, after all—but she hadn’t realized just how much it would all hurt her. And she hadn’t prepared herself—enough, anyway—for the stories referring to her high school “in the ghetto,” or the one suggesting she’d manipulated Max into a relationship with her. And all of this just because she happened to be a Black woman who fell in love with a famous, attractive white man.
She was mad at Max for not telling Kara about her arrest, but she was just as angry at herself. She should have done her best to control this whole situation, instead of trusting other people to do it well. What had that ever gotten her? How had she let Max convince her to go public in such a rush? That was so unlike her. She should have taken a lot more time about that decision. And she should have insisted that she talk to Kara first. If they hadn’t rushed to go public, if they’d talked to Kara and made sure she knew about the arrest, maybe they wouldn’t have gone public at all. And then she wouldn’t be dealing with any of this. Especially not on one of the biggest days in Monroe & Spencer’s short life.
“We could postpone the pitch, cancel it, whatever—either one would be fine,” Ellie said. “I’m worried about you.”
Olivia shrugged that off.
“I’m fine. And I’m not going to let our firm suffer because of me.” She sighed. “Though it has, already. I got a fucking message from fucking Jeremy Wright this morning—that asshole I hated at my old firm. He said he’d seen the news, and he hoped everything was going well with me. That was his way of telling me that everyone at my old firm knows about this, and they’re laughing at me.” She never wanted those people to know a damn thing about her, and now they knew far too much.
Ellie shook her head, then abruptly pulled into a grocery store parking lot. Once they were parked, she turned to Olivia.
“Who cares about any of those assholes? Who cares about this fucking pitch? I sure as hell don’t right now. What I care about is my friend! Liv, one of the reasons we both left Big Law in the first place was because we wanted to be treated like human beings, and not just cogs in a wheel, remember? Did you blink when I barely worked for a week in the spring when Sophia was so sick? No, of course you didn’t.”
Olivia shook her head.
“That was different, you had to be with her.”
Ellie grabbed her hand.
“It wasn’t different, though, that’s what I mean. We both have to be able to take breaks, and take care of what matters in our lives, before we fall apart.”
Olivia squeezed Ellie’s hand.
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I love you a lot, you know that?” she asked.
Ellie smiled.
“I love you a lot, too.”
Olivia let go of her hand.
“And I promise I can handle this pitch today. It’ll be good to get the first time I have to deal with strangers about all of this over with, if that makes sense.”
“That does make sense,” Ellie said. “But remember, whatever these people say doesn’t matter.”
Olivia wasn’t sure if she believed that, but damn if it wasn’t helpful to think it.
She grinned at her friend.
“Let’s do this.”
Ellie grinned back and started the car.
They walked into Clementine shoulder to shoulder.
“Gentlemen, I’m sure you’re busy, so we should get right to it,” Ellie said once everyone sat down. She started up their PowerPoint, and Olivia smiled at the men at the other side of the conference table.
“Thank you for meeting with us today. We’ve learned a lot about Clementine and what your needs are for this case, so now it’s time to tell you about Monroe and Spencer, and why we are the best choice for your business.”
Once they launched into their well-practiced routine, Olivia felt good, even great. This, she could do. Maybe she couldn’t deal with the press who kept calling her office, or the photographers outside her office building—who, luckily, couldn’t get into the garage, so hadn’t gotten a picture of her yet—but she knew how to do this. All three of the men at the other side of the table seemed like they were listening to what Olivia and Ellie were saying. When they occasionally jumped in to ask questions, they were thoughtful ones, and the men made eye contact with both of them, instead of just with one another.
Olivia flipped to a blank sheet of paper and nodded to them when Ellie finished up.
“Do you have any more questions for us?”
They got quest
ions about how new their firm was, how small it was, and their knowledge of the technology of the case, all of which they’d prepared for. The line of questioning worried her some, though—they seemed to want a bigger, more experienced firm, which made Olivia wonder why they’d even had Monroe & Spencer pitch in the first place. At least Olivia knew if they didn’t get this client, it had nothing to do with how hard they’d worked.
Despite her frustrations, Olivia gave them her best politician-style smile. She knew it was her best; she’d been practicing it for weeks now.
“Any other questions or concerns? As we said earlier, we’d be happy to pass on the contact information of some of our other clients if you want to consult them.”
The three of them looked at one another, and then the one in the middle—Brad, the one in charge—shook his head.
“No need for that.” Her heart fell. Damn it. This one had been a long shot, but they’d worked so hard on it, and she’d been so sure it had gone well. “Bruce Erickson is a friend of mine and he speaks very highly of you, so I don’t need to talk to anyone else. And I was impressed by how you’ve handled all of that nonsense in the press in the past few days—I thought you might cancel our meeting today, but on the contrary, you didn’t let any of that distract you. Says a lot for what you’d be like as our lawyer. Anyway, we like you. You’re hired.”
The three guys across the table all grinned at her and Ellie. Olivia was too stunned to grin back. Had that really just happened? She took a sip of water to help compose herself.
“Thank you, all,” Ellie said. Thank God for Ellie. “We look forward to working together.”
Olivia turned to look at Ellie, and their eyes danced at each other. They’d done it. They’d motherfucking done it.
“Plus, I have a little more faith in any lawyer who has had some personal dealings with the law. Who among us didn’t get into a little trouble in high school anyway? For some of us, it didn’t end in high school, right, guys?” He and the other two chuckled and elbowed one another, as Olivia tried not to let the astonishment show on her face.
Party of Two: The brilliant opposites-attract rom-com from the author of The Proposal! Page 22