If only that were the case.
“I’m glad I give off that impression, anyway,” Olivia said. “Truthfully, I can handle a lot, but I sort of feel like I’m in uncharted waters right now. Max is very chill about the whole thing, but then Max is always either very chill about things or very fired up; there’s no in between with him.”
Olivia poured herself some more wine and piled more cheese on her plate. She’d been talking so much she’d barely eaten any.
“So. That’s the story. Stay tuned for updates.”
Jamila turned and looked in the direction of the kitchen.
“Not to be greedy, and I know you said there are more snacks, but . . . is there more of that cake you mentioned?”
Olivia waved her toward the kitchen.
“On the counter, in the pink box. Cut me a slice, too, now that you brought it up.” Dessert in the middle of a meal was exactly what she needed tonight.
While Jamila was in the kitchen getting the cake, Olivia reached into the pocket of her yoga pants for her phone. She’d been so intent on talking to Jamila that she hadn’t thought about checking her phone for at least an hour.
Nor, apparently, had she felt it vibrate.
The photographer was as advertised; you look fantastic
And then there was a link to some website she’d never heard of:
Max Powell steps out with a mystery woman!
Here we go.
“I’m a mystery woman!” She waved her phone in the air as Jamila walked back into the room, plates of cake in her hand.
“Oh shit, the pictures are out?” Jamila put the cake down on the coffee table. “How are they?”
Olivia tried not to let her hands shake as she scrolled down the page.
“Okay, I guess? I tried to smile the whole time we were walking around, so I look kind of weird, but mostly fine?” She handed her phone to Jamila. “What do you think?”
Jamila scanned the pictures and nodded.
“I think you look great. I mean, I see what you’re saying about the smile, but it’s fine, don’t worry about it. And your outfit is great.” She held up the phone to Olivia. “And that one? It’s perfect. The way Max is looking at you? Every woman in America will be jealous of you.”
Olivia took the phone back to see what Jamila was talking about. She’d concentrated on how she looked in all of the photos; she hadn’t stopped to look at Max. But Jamila was right—in the third picture, she was smiling that weird smile and looking straight ahead, while Max was looking straight at her and just . . . beaming.
That look on his face made her fall in love with him all over again.
“Wow,” she said. “This might have all been worth it, just for that picture.”
Jamila handed her the cake.
“I wonder how long it’ll take the press to find out who you are.”
Olivia clicked on the picture to save it to her phone.
“Hopefully weeks. Maybe months.”
Chapter Fifteen
It took until 10:25 Monday morning. Olivia was at her desk at work, her gossip with Ellie over, her third coffee in her hand, when she got the first call.
“Is this Olivia Monroe?” the caller asked.
“Speaking,” she said. “How can I help you?”
Olivia hoped it was about that potential pitch to Clementine, a huge local biotech company. Bruce had introduced her to someone in their legal department, and she’d had coffee with him the week before in the hopes that she and Ellie could get some of their vast amount of legal work. If Monroe & Spencer could get some Clementine business, maybe she could finally take a deep breath.
“Can you answer some questions for me about your relationship with senator Max Powell?”
She froze. She’d expected some warning before this happened. From Max, or his office, or something. She didn’t even know what she was supposed to say.
“Um, no comment,” she said finally, and hung up the phone. Then she texted Max.
I just got a call from a reporter—is there something I’m supposed to do?
“Ellie!” Ellie came running into her office.
“Was that a good call?”
Olivia made a face.
“The opposite. It was from a reporter. I texted Max, but during the day he’s usually so busy I don’t hear back from him for hours. I don’t . . .” She picked up her coffee, then put it down. “What am I supposed to do? They didn’t prepare me for this.”
Ellie sat down.
“What did you say?”
Olivia stared at her phone, willing Max to respond.
“ ‘No comment,’ which made me feel like I was on TV or something. Is that what people actually say?”
Ellie got up.
“Yes, that’s what people actually say. Just keep saying that until you hear back.” She came around Olivia’s desk and leaned in for a hug. “You knew this was going to happen, right? This will be fine.”
Olivia nodded slowly.
“I mean, I guess I knew it would happen eventually, but this was all so fast. I guess I just wasn’t ready.”
The phone rang again, and she and Ellie looked at each other. Olivia took a deep breath and picked it up.
“Olivia Monroe.” She paused for a second, and locked eyes with Ellie. “No comment.”
“I guess that’s what today is going to be like,” she said when she put the phone down.
“Olivia Monroe,” she said yet again, thirty minutes and ten phone calls later. She’d started answering the phone like that, instead of “Monroe and Spencer” like she had before, just to make these interactions move along faster.
“Ms. Monroe, this is Kara Ruiz from Senator Powell’s office.” Oh thank God. “I owe you an apology—I started getting calls from reporters about you about an hour ago, but I was outside of the office at a meeting where I couldn’t have my phone. I assume you’ve gotten some calls to this number?”
Olivia had assumed she’d like Kara, just from the way Max talked about her. But the competent, brisk, warm tone to her voice immediately made her feel better.
“Kara, it’s good to talk to you, I’ve heard a lot about you. And yes, there have been many calls to this number over the past hour or so. I’ve just said ‘no comment’ to all of them—was that right?”
This was definitely one of those rare times where she couldn’t wait for someone else to tell her what to do.
“Yes, that was right, just keep saying that. I’ll ask them not to call you again, and many of them will respond to that, but not all, I’m sorry to say. It’ll probably be best if you have your secretary answer this line, at least for the next few days. You’re pretty easy to find; this is the number on your website.”
Easy to find: great for business, bad for when you were trying to dodge the press.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a secretary; it’s just me and my business partner. If it gets bad, she might step in, though.”
Ellie had offered to take over and blow off all the reporters for her, but she’d felt like at least one of them should be able to get work done today.
“That might be a good idea, at least for a little while. It’s a rare slow news day, which must be why everyone’s running with this. And again, I’m so sorry we haven’t spoken before. I should have insisted on speaking to you last week, but this all moved so fast. That’s no excuse, though.”
Olivia brushed that off.
“Please don’t apologize. I should have expected this to happen this morning; I was naive not to. Can you tell me . . .” She didn’t even know how to phrase this. “How bad will it get?”
She didn’t know why she was asking this of Kara, a woman she’d never met, or even talked to before, and not Max, her boyfriend. But then, maybe it was because she already got the sense that Kara might know the truth more than Max would.
Kara’s voice softened.
“I don’t think it’ll be that bad—probably a flurry of phone calls over the next day or so, and then th
ere will be another big story of the day, and people will lose interest. There might be some racial elements to some of the stories, though—I just want to prepare you for that.”
Yeah, she’d expected that.
“I figured there would be. I just didn’t know if the calls and stuff would go on for, like, days, or weeks or months.”
If it went on for months . . .
“Don’t worry, it shouldn’t last that long. Though . . .” Kara paused. “There might be a rush to get more pictures of the two of you together. You can do it whatever way you want; it could be easier to just get that over with early on, but I understand if you may not want to do that.”
Olivia tried to imagine that. Her and Max, out to dinner, and then walking out of the restaurant to an army of paparazzi. That sounded like a nightmare.
“I’ll . . . I’ll think about that.” The phone rang again, and she heard Ellie pick it up in her office. “I should go; I think that was another reporter calling for me. Not that I want to talk to them, but . . .”
Kara laughed.
“I understand. And hopefully the calls will quiet down soon. I’ll make a number of calls as soon as I hang up. Also, Ms. Monroe— ”
Olivia broke in.
“Olivia, please.”
Kara laughed.
“As the senator will tell you, I tend to stick with formality. But I’m going to make sure the senator gives you my contact information; I’m often more reachable than he is, so please feel free to contact me at any time if there’s an issue, okay?”
Did that mean Kara expected there to be an issue? No, don’t think that way, Olivia. She was probably just planning for all contingencies; she seemed like that kind of person.
“Okay, will do. And thank you. Thanks very much.”
Seconds after she hung up the phone, Ellie ran into her office, a broad grin on her face.
“Oh no,” Olivia said. “What did you say to those reporters?”
Ellie laughed.
“Nothing, nothing, I just told them all you were unavailable in my most Southern accent. They almost purred at me. Men are so easy that way. No, it’s something else: that was Clementine calling—they want us to pitch them for some of their IP work!”
Olivia jumped up from her desk, and she and Ellie threw their arms around each other.
“When?” Olivia asked, when they finished jumping up and down.
“Not for a few weeks, their general counsel is going on vacation, so we have some time. They’re emailing us the details now.”
Olivia sat down at her desk and rubbed her hands together. This was the big chance they’d been waiting for. Who cared about a handful of phone calls from reporters now?
But . . .
“Ellie, I know we talked about this when I was deciding whether to go public with Max, but . . . what if this whole thing affects our firm? What if people think I’m not serious about my job, or that my focus is on my relationship, not my career, and don’t want to hire us?” She put her head in her hands. “I made that decision too fast; I shouldn’t have done it.”
Ellie dropped into the chair across from her.
“Liv, honey. Part of the reason we started this firm in the first place was that we were tired of caring what a bunch of assholes think about us, remember? The assholes will think what they think, but we don’t want to work for assholes anyway—better to have something like this to show us who they are. And plus . . .” Ellie winked at her. “Did you ever think this might be excellent publicity for us?”
She hadn’t thought of that, as a matter of fact.
“But, El—it feels gross, somehow, for us to get publicity and business because of who my boyfriend is.”
She’d always done everything, gotten everything, because of her own hard work and on her own merits. It had never occurred to her to try to use her relationship with Max for her own gain.
“Do you think two guys who started their own law firm wouldn’t use their rich daddy’s name and connections to get ahead?” Ellie asked. “No, of course not. We all have to use anything that’s to our advantage in this life. Of course you didn’t go public with Max to get us business, you and I both know that. But if some news stories about your new boyfriend give us the opportunity to make sure people know that we’re damn good lawyers, it’s just our way of making lemonade out of the lemons that are the dozens of phone calls we’ve already gotten this morning.” She grinned. “At least one of the stories already out about you calls you an accomplished Harvard-educated lawyer—just the kind of branding we like to see.”
Ellie, as usual, had an excellent point.
“Make sure you answer the phone ‘Monroe and Spencer!’ ” Olivia said.
Ellie grinned.
“Oh, I have been.”
Wes looked up from his phone as Max walked into their apartment.
“If it isn’t ‘now-taken Max Powell’ as I live and breathe!”
Max dropped his briefcase on the floor.
“Shut the fuck up, will you?” He really wasn’t in the mood to joke about this.
Wes laughed at him.
“These headlines are cracking me up. ‘Max Powell, off the market!’ ‘Has the bachelor senator given out a rose?’ ‘Just who is the woman who won Max Powell’s heart?’ ” Wes laughed again. “Wait, here’s another one— ”
Max stopped him before he could go on.
“I don’t want to hear it, okay? I’ve heard enough of them already today.”
Even though Kara had told him she thought people would be interested, he didn’t expect this level of interest in his dating life at all. He’d expected maybe one or two articles about it, but nothing like the volume that there’d been only that day. All of it had been mostly positive, which his staff was happy about, but that didn’t really matter to him—what mattered was that Olivia didn’t seem happy about it at all.
Wes turned to look at him as he went into the kitchen.
“What’s wrong? You knew this was going to happen, right?”
Max got a beer out of the fridge and shook his head.
“I knew something would happen, I just didn’t realize people would care this much.” He dropped down on the couch next to Wes. “I don’t care about the headlines about me, whatever. But when they talk about Olivia like that, it makes me so angry. Especially since I told her it wouldn’t really be a big deal, and . . . now I feel like a jackass.”
Wes’s eyes widened.
“You told her it wouldn’t . . . Okay, well, in the grand scheme of things, you’re right. This should all blow over in a few days. Maybe even tomorrow, depending on what else happens in politics tonight. Did you tell her that?”
Max shook his head.
“I haven’t even talked to her—she talked to Kara earlier, but we’ve been playing phone tag all day—I called her as soon as I could, but it went to voice mail, then when she called back, I was in the middle of a TV hit. I just tried her again, and nothing.”
He’d texted her an apology as soon as Kara had told him what was going on, and Olivia had said it was okay, she was dealing with it. But he hated that he’d given her something to deal with.
Wes picked up the remote.
“Don’t stress. You’ll make it up to her this weekend.”
Max shrugged.
“I hope so.”
He could tell Wes felt bad for him, though, because he turned the TV from MSNBC to baseball. He even clicked past soccer to land on it.
After thirty minutes of watching soccer with his phone in his hand, Olivia finally called. He jumped up and went into his bedroom before answering.
“Hey. I hate this, I’m so sorry,” he said when he picked up.
“Well, saying ‘no comment’ that many times isn’t how I thought I’d spend my Monday, but I’ll survive,” she said. He could tell she was trying to joke about this, but she sounded off. She had a tense, wary tone to her voice. Like she was steeling herself up for what was to come.
“I reall
y thought no one would actually care about this, but I was wrong,” he said. “But Kara thinks it should all blow over soon—Wes thinks so, too. So it’s not just me this time.”
She sort of laughed at that.
“Thanks, Kara told me that, too. And I hope she’s right. By the end of the day, Ellie and I both became experts at figuring out who was press within a second or so on the phone, so at least that’s something. Oh!” Her voice changed. The life came back to it. “Here’s some actual good news—we’re going to get to pitch Clementine in a few weeks! I’ve been dying to get an in there. I ran into Bruce Erickson last week at the community center, and when he asked me how the firm was going, I mentioned that our expertise would be a perfect fit for Clementine, and he connected me with a friend of his there. Keep your fingers crossed for us—this could be the big break Monroe and Spencer has been looking for.”
He hoped that excited tone in her voice was there to stay.
“Fingers and toes crossed,” he said. “It’s fantastic that Bruce hooked you up like that.”
She laughed.
“Well, let’s hope it bears fruit. Speaking of, I have to run—I told Jamila I’d help her out with a bulk produce pickup tonight.”
He was glad she was going to be with Jamila tonight, but God did he wish he could be with her.
“Okay, talk to you later. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” she said.
As soon as he hung up, he picked up the phone again. Carrot cake this time, maybe? Or coconut?
Chapter Sixteen
On Thursday of the following week, Max called Olivia a few seconds after Kara left his office.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Olivia said when she answered the phone.
He smiled just at the sound of her voice. Thank God it didn’t have that tight, anxious pitch it had last week. He’d hated that sound in her voice, and he’d hated even more that he’d done that to her. And it had killed him to be so far away from her in those first few days when it was all so stressful. Just remembering that made him hesitate. Maybe his great idea wasn’t so great after all.
Party of Two: The brilliant opposites-attract rom-com from the author of The Proposal! Page 20
