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.”