She shook her head and laughed.

“Damn it, you’re giving me those puppy dog eyes again. Fine, she liked you.”

He waited, but she didn’t say anything else.

“ ‘She liked you’? That’s all I get? No, absolutely not, I know there was more to it.” Olivia glanced toward her phone, and he reached for it.

“Come on, there was a lot more. Just for that ‘she liked you,’ you have to show me the texts!”

Olivia laughed and unlocked her phone.

“There was just one text, right after she met you, and fine, you can see it.”

Just met you know who! You probably figured out that I was a little skeptical of him, but I was impressed; good speech, not an asshole behind the scenes like most people like him would be, was polite to me even before he realized I was your sister (and then gave me a big smile once he did realize). As hot as he is on TV, too.

Oh, but I know what you meant about his shoes.

Saw him again on the way out! Can’t wait to meet him again, this time with you there too!

“What about my shoes?”

Olivia snatched the phone back from him.

“Shit, there was only one text the last time I looked! I was working and I didn’t see the other two come in!”

He frowned at her.

“I believe you, but what does she mean, she knows what you meant about my shoes? What’s wrong with my shoes?”

Olivia sighed and pointed at his shoes.

“Those brown suede shoes of yours. They’re terrible, Max. I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but I keep wanting to sneak into your closet and throw them away. How is it that you have such great suits and such terrible shoes?”

He turned to look at the shoes in question and then back to Olivia.

“My, um . . . mom helped me buy my suits. She didn’t pay for them,” he said over Olivia’s giggles, “but once I became DA she told me I had to start dressing the part, so she found me a guy at a store she knows and I went in and he measured me and had me try on a bunch of stuff and then I gave him my credit card number and then he sent four suits, ten ties, and twenty shirts to my house, with firm instructions on what went with what. Once a year I go back for him to measure me again and he sends over more clothes. But whenever I go there, I go in sneakers and use his shoes to try on the clothes; no one ever told me what to do about shoes, so I just kept wearing what I’d been wearing.”

Olivia stared at him, an expression he couldn’t decipher on her face.

“What is it?” he asked. “I can get new shoes, just tell me what to buy.”

She took his hand.

“I love you.” She looked down at their hands, then back up at him. “And it still feels early, but I can’t ignore it anymore. I love you.”

He hadn’t felt this explosion of joy since the night he’d won his Senate race, a year and a half before. He wanted to jump off the bed and throw his arms in the air; he wanted to run around the hotel shouting. But instead, he took her face in his hands.

“I love you, too.”

She leaned forward and kissed him softly.

“And you don’t have to buy new shoes, I’ll love you anyway. But . . . please do.”

He tackled her onto the bed, and she laughed and laughed.

Chapter Thirteen

When Olivia got home from work the next Friday, Max was already there. She’d had a late afternoon meeting on the Westside, and by the time she’d battled traffic to get back home, Max had landed at LAX, so she’d told him to just let himself into her place. She’d given him her extra key a few weeks back so he could easily meet her at her house after an event. But he hadn’t given her back her key, and she hadn’t asked for it.

She couldn’t believe she’d told him she loved him. And she’d meant it then and meant it more with every day that went by. Yes, it hadn’t even been five months since they’d met, but by this time in her life, she was a pretty good judge of character. And she knew she loved Max, even though she never would have expected it. It made her so happy to let herself into her house and know he was there.

When she walked in, she heard banging coming from the direction of the kitchen.

“Max?” It must be him; that was his car she’d driven by on the way here. He tended to park a block or two away, and in a slightly different place every time so no one would notice his car in front of her house.

“I’m in the kitchen!”

Was he . . . cooking? Max had many strengths, but she’d never seen him do anything in the kitchen other than move takeout from boxes to plates.

She walked down the hallway and saw him leaning over the counter, a lump of dough in front of him and a rolling pin in his hands.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

He looked up at her and made a face.

“Well, I was trying to make you a pie. Strawberry rhubarb, your favorite. But . . . I’ve run into some difficulties.”

She moved closer to the counter.

“I can see that.”

He stuck out his tongue at her.

“I didn’t do a . . . great job of reading the recipe before I started—I thought I’d be able to surprise you with a pie when you got home, but I didn’t realize the dough had to rest in the fridge for an hour after I made it. And now I’m trying to roll it out, and it’s rock hard!” He banged the rolling pin in the middle of the dough again and tried to move it from side to side. It didn’t budge.