Party of Two: The brilliant opposites-attract rom-com from the author of The Proposal!

by Jasmine Guillory

  “Senator.” Andy was by his side again. “Apologies for the interruption, but we’re already running late to the event with Congresswoman Watson.”

  He held in a sigh. Andy was going to swoop him off to the next event, and he absolutely wouldn’t get another second to talk to Olivia Monroe without at least three people surrounding them. Oh great, now there were four. Honestly, it was a miracle they’d gotten about sixty seconds alone; he had to be grateful for that.

  “Yes, of course. Ms. Monroe, it was a pleasure to meet you today.”

  Her bland professional smile matched his.

  “Likewise, Senator.”

  They shook hands. He wished he could hold on to her hand longer, but he forced himself to let go.

  He turned to leave, just as Bruce raced over with someone else to introduce him to. Yes, he was very thankful he’d had that brief time alone with Olivia Monroe. Especially because now he knew not only her name but where she worked.

  Olivia turned back to her table to grab her purse with a smile still on her face. When she’d seen that senator Max Powell was going to be the keynote speaker for this luncheon, she wondered if he would remember her; that was, if he even noticed her in the crowd. And then, in the middle of his speech, he’d looked straight at her, and she could tell from his very unpolitician-like grin that he’d recognized her.

  If he were a normal person, and not a senator, she would have thought he was flirting with her when he smiled at her like that, and also when he talked to her just now. But politicians were charmers in that way—everyone must think Max Powell flirted with them. That was probably how he’d managed to win the Senate seat in the first place.

  She tried to put Max Powell out of her mind and made her slow way out of the ballroom. She hated that she couldn’t accept Bruce’s invitation to be on the board; it was exactly the kind of thing she’d love to do, and would be a great way to get to know her new city. But nonprofit board seats meant hefty donations, and she had to be careful with money right now. She wasn’t in a position to give any more than a nominal amount until she and Ellie truly got this firm off the ground. However, luncheons like this were prime networking opportunities—before she left the ballroom, she’d given out over twenty business cards to other lawyers and made coffee dates with three people she hadn’t seen in years. You never knew which connections could bring some sorely needed business to Monroe & Spencer.

  She got back to the office to find Ellie in the middle of hanging up artwork on the walls. Olivia looked around at the frames on the floor, the tools on the bookshelf, and the glee on Ellie’s face as she banged hooks into the wall with a hammer.

  “Having fun?”

  Ellie paused, hammer in the air.

  “Absolutely.” She brushed her immaculate hair back. “I love a chance to use a hammer in the middle of the workday. I’m going to have to keep this and a piece of wood and a pile of nails in my office, just to work off my rage for those times opposing counsel tries to talk down to me.”

  Olivia laughed.

  “ ‘Tries’ is the operative word there, Ellie. I don’t think anyone has actually gotten away with that in years.”

  Ellie lifted a painting and hung it carefully.

  “Oh, I know, but I still have to be diplomatic and all honey voiced as I hand their asses to them. Sometimes I just wish I could tell them to go fuck themselves—when those impulses come over me, I’ll just look at this hammer and feel better.”

  Ellie looked like the gentle, blond, polite, perfectly coiffed Southern girl that she was. Which is why it was all the more fun when people underestimated her.

  She and Olivia made an excellent team.

  Olivia sat down at her desk and spent the next few hours jumping back and forth between emails and phone calls with potential and existing clients, tinkering with their brand-new internal filing system, updating their website, and jumping on a quick call with their accountant. Back when she was a big-firm lawyer, she’d have only done the client work and nothing else; all of her administrative work was done for her like magic by her secretary and the firm. But she and Ellie had decided not to have any support staff, at least at the beginning, so they were learning how to do all of this themselves . . . some of it better than others.

  Just before five, Ellie knocked at her open office door with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Delivery for you, and it looks fun.”

  Olivia looked away from her computer screen for the first time in over an hour and blinked.

  “Ooh, is it the pens I ordered?” It made her feel very boring to be so excited, but she really had been looking forward to those pens.

  Ellie shook her head.

  “Nope.” She held up a big white handled bag. “Looks like something from a bakery.”

  Olivia stood up from her desk and frowned.

  “I didn’t order anything from a bakery. It must be some mistake.”

  Ellie held up the delivery slip.

  “It says Olivia Monroe, Monroe and Spencer, and our address, right here.”

  Olivia took the bag from her and set it on her desk.

  “That’s weird. Maybe my sister sent me something?”

  Ellie’s phone rang, and she rushed to pick it up.

  “I’m coming back to see what that is!” she shouted on her way into her office.

  Olivia took the bakery box out of the bag. There was an envelope taped to the top, and she pulled it open with a smile on her face. What a nice thing for Alexa to do.

  To Olivia Monroe—just in case you’re still in search of some excellent cake. Good seeing you today. Maybe we can do it on purpose next time?

  Max

  213-555-4857

  No.

  This could not be.

  This was her sister playing a trick on her, right?

  She flipped open the box. Inside was a big layer cake, covered in chocolate frosting, with “Welcome to California” written on it in blue.

  She looked from the cake, to the note in her hand, back to the cake.

  This must be her sister. Except her sister didn’t know she’d seen Max today. No one did, as a matter of fact, except for the people who’d seen them talking for about forty-five seconds in the ballroom after the luncheon. And none of those people knew they’d met before. Or what they’d talked about.

  Olivia walked back around her desk and sat down, still staring at the note clutched in her hand.

  Had United States senator Max Powell really sent her a cake?

  And, in his note along with the cake . . .

  He couldn’t be asking her out, right?

  Yes, when she’d walked out of that elevator, she sort of thought that the hot white dude in the baseball cap she’d been flirting with for the past hour or so had been about to ask her out, sure. But that’s when she didn’t know the hot white dude in the baseball cap was Max Powell, hotshot junior senator from California.

  Was he really asking her out? From anyone else, this note would mean an unequivocal yes, but he was a senator!

  Was he some sort of scumbag who went around doing this all the time? It had only been—she looked at her watch—four hours from when she’d seen him at the luncheon and when the cake had arrived at her office. Only someone who was really practiced in this kind of thing would work that fast.

  Okay, maybe, but he’d obviously remembered their conversation at the bar three weeks ago—did scumbags do that? And if he was a scumbag, why hadn’t he pounced on her at the bar, anyway? She’d had enough experience with men to usually identify the creepy ones right off the bat—she wouldn’t have spent that long talking to him at the bar, gin or no gin, if he’d given her bad vibes.

  And yes, fine, she had spent more than a few moments in the last few weeks fantasizing about what could have happened if he’d invited her up to his room. And she had to admit he’d been pretty hot in his very-well-tailored suit and tie. Apparently she found both senator Max Powell and Max in the baseball cap equally attractive. A fling w
ith him could definitely be fun . . . Wait. Was she actually considering this?

  Who was this guy even? All she knew about him was from the times she’d seen him on MSNBC, where he’d been appropriately respectful to Rachel Maddow and dodged questions about his presidential aspirations, but she needed to find out more. About both his politics and his personal life.

  But before she did any of that, she needed to eat a piece of this cake.

  Olivia found a knife and cut a fat slice of the cake. Three layers. Had she mentioned to Max that she loved a three-layer cake the best? She couldn’t remember.

  She took a bite, and closed her eyes in a silent celebration. This was exactly what she’d been craving that night—rich, tender, chocolaty cake, between layers of dark chocolate frosting. It was perfect.

  Now, to see if the man measured up to the cake.

  Unlikely.

  She turned to her computer.

  Senator Max Powell girlfriend was her first Google search. There she discovered that he’d had a serious girlfriend when he was DA here in L.A., but they’d broken up before he started his bid for the Senate, so almost three years ago. She couldn’t find any evidence of his dating someone since then. Okay, so—if he was indeed asking her out—he obviously just wanted something casual. Which was fine with her.

  Hmmm, what about Senator Max Powell scandal?

  There were a bunch of hits for that, and she was seconds from knocking the cake on the floor, until she realized they were all about his comments about a sexual harassment scandal in the Senate last year.

  I firmly and vigorously denounce the behavior of my colleague, and I insist that this chamber put into place a better procedure for reporting sexual harassment for employees.

  Okay. Well, that was an excellent statement. She’d read a lot of statements like this over the past few years, ones by a guy getting asked questions about another guy they worked with, and she wasn’t sure if she’d seen a better one. The cake was safe, thank God.

  Now to see how she felt about his policies.

  She knew instead of googling this she could just pick up the phone and call her sister, who had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of every California politician, and Alexa would tell her everything she needed to know. But she wasn’t quite ready to tell Alexa about the cake from Senator Powell, and especially not the note along with the cake. She’d told her about the night at the bar, because it was funny, and she knew Alexa would appreciate it more than anyone else in her life. But that she was considering going out with him? Not yet. At a minimum, not until she’d at least made up her mind about that.

  However . . . she needed to find out how this man felt about a few key issues.

  “Oh my God, who sent you that cake?”

  Olivia looked up from her Senator Max Powell Black Lives Matter search to see Ellie standing at her office door.

  “Do you want some? It’s really good. We need to remember the name of this bakery.”

  Ellie had already picked up the knife and sliced herself a perfect wedge of cake.

  “Did it say ‘Welcome to California’? How sweet—was this your sister?” She tipped the slice onto a napkin and dropped into the seat across from Olivia.

  Olivia shook her head.

  “No, that’s what I initially thought, too, but . . .” She shook her head and then looked at Ellie with a grin on her face. “Okay, I have a story for you. A few weeks ago, before I’d moved into my place, I went to grab dinner at my hotel bar after work. And, well . . .”

  Ellie’s eyes got bigger and bigger as Olivia went on. When she finally got to the cake, Ellie snatched the note right out of her hand.

  “Max Powell sent you this cake? People call him the hot senator.”

  Olivia grinned.

  “Yes, my Google searches have taught me that. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him at the bar.”

  Ellie popped the last bite of cake into her mouth.

  “I can’t believe the hot senator sent you this cake!” She waved the note in the air. “With this note on it!”

  She propped the note up against the cake box.

  “What did he say when you called him? When are you going to see him again? Where does a senator take a woman out on a date, anyway?”

  Olivia pursed her lips.

  “I haven’t . . . exactly . . . called him yet. I’m still deciding if I’m going to do that.”

  Ellie frowned at her. Olivia almost laughed—when Ellie, the woman with a perpetual smile on her face, tried to frown, she looked like a little kid playing with facial expressions.

  “When you say, ‘I’m still deciding if I’m going to do that,’ do you mean you’re deciding if you’re going to call him versus text him, or do you mean you’re still deciding if you’re going to get in touch with him at all?”

  Olivia cut herself another piece of cake.

  “The latter. I don’t have time for men right now, Ellie! Especially not . . . complicated men.”

  Ellie dropped her napkin onto the desk.

  “Oh, come on. Call the man! Or text him, whatever. This is a really good cake!”

  Olivia laughed at that. It was just like Ellie to have her priorities straight.

  “It is a really good cake, but what if he sends cakes like this to every woman he has the slightest interest in? I don’t want to be just one of Max Powell’s conquests.”

  Ellie picked her cake up again.

  “That’s an excellent point, and all the more reason to find out. Call him, see if he’s trying to woo just some random woman he met at a bar, or if he’s trying to woo you, specifically.”

  Ellie stood up and went to the door.

  “But before you do any of that, respond to that email Daphne sent us, would you? She likes you better than me.”

  Olivia minimized her many tabs open to stories about senator Max Powell and clicked over to her email. Daphne had sent this forty-five minutes ago; she couldn’t believe she’d wasted all that time researching a man instead of responding to a potential client.

  See, she didn’t have time for men. She was here in L.A. to concentrate on work, not to get “wooed” by anyone. Ellie knew that, what was she even talking about?

  But she couldn’t just leave senator Max Powell hanging after he’d sent her a cake. He’d been perfectly friendly and not at all creepy; she would be rude to just ignore this gift. Plus, who knows, she might run into him again, and she didn’t want to seem like the asshole here.

  She picked up her phone to text him.

  Hi Senator—Thanks for the cake, it’s delicious. My schedule is pretty booked for the next few weeks, but

  No, come on, that sounded laughable. He was a senator; his schedule was likely four times as packed as hers was.

  Hi Senator—Thanks for the cake! But I’m not sure if

  No, the exclamation point sent the wrong signal.

  Hi Senator—The cake was very thoughtful, thank you. However

  Should she call him Senator? Or Max? He’d signed the card Max, so it seemed overly formal to the point of rudeness to call him Senator after that.

  Hi Max—Thanks for the cake, we all loved it. But I don’t know if

  “Max” sounded too informal. He was a senator, after all, and she’d only really talked to him that one time. Better to not call him anything.

  Hi, this is Olivia Monroe. Thanks for the cake, it was delicious. I hope all is well with you.

  Well, that seemed perfectly appropriate and very cold. She didn’t feel that cold toward him.

  She sighed. Fine. She’d call him.

  Luckily, since it was just after six p.m., he was probably still in a meeting, or at a dinner, or with his staff or something—it would probably go to voice mail. If there was one thing that being a lawyer had taught her, it was how to leave a polite but firm voice mail. That was much easier than a text message.

  She tapped out his number on her cell phone and waited for it to ring. She definitely wouldn’t have to talk to him; no
senator would have his ringer on. And he definitely wouldn’t answer a number he didn’t know.

  “Hello?”

  Shit.

  “Hello, Max?” Maybe it was a wrong number. It was probably a wrong number—she always did that when she actually had to type a number into her phone.

  “Olivia?” His voice was warm, and slightly amused.

  Nope. Not a wrong number.

  “Um, yeah. Hi. How’d you know it was me?”

  He laughed.

  “Well, I only give this number out to a handful of people, and everyone else who has it is in my contacts. And you told me you were from Northern California, which made sense with your phone number—you never wanted a New York number?”

  He only gave this number out to a handful of people?

  “Oh, I thought about getting a New York number on and off, but I’m so glad I never got rid of my Oakland number,” she said. “After a while, it was a point of pride for me. Plus, I think there was some part of me that always knew I was going to come home, even in my most insufferable ‘New York is the greatest city in the world!’ phase. Thank goodness I had the sense to take the California bar right out of law school, or else this whole process would have been a lot harder.”

  She didn’t know why she was babbling on about her phone number and taking the bar. Why was she even on the phone with a senator in the first place? Not just on the phone, but on his private number. What the hell was going on?

  “I had that ‘New York is the greatest city in the world’ phase, too, in my midtwenties,” he said. “The phase ended, but I still love that city. I’m always grateful when I get to go there, though these days my trips there aren’t as . . . exciting, let’s say, as they used to be.”

  She grinned.

  “I know you think that’s a product of your job, and I’m sure it partly is, but I’m here to tell you it’s also a product of your age. My twenties were exciting in New York, too, but then I reached that age where I got horrified when someone invited me to something that didn’t even start until nine p.m.”

  Did that make her sound uncool? Oh well, if it did, this man should know right off the bat that she wasn’t going to any midnight soirees with him.