Party of Two (The Wedding Date #5) - Jasmine Guillory Page 0,2
Maybe he was in a commercial she’d seen or something.
She wasn’t going to ask him what he did; people like this were way too pleased to tell you they were An Actor.
Krystal set down a plate of cookies between the two of them.
“See, no biscotti.” She glanced at Olivia’s drink. “Another drink, either of you?”
They both shook their heads.
“I wish, but I have an early day tomorrow, and more work I should get done tonight,” Olivia said. “But I’ll have some coffee to go with the cookies.”
“Coffee for me, too, please, but decaf,” Max said.
When Krystal went to get their coffees, Max turned back to her.
“So what brought you to L.A. and is giving you a late night?” he asked her.
“Oh, I’m an accountant,” she said. “Busy time of year for us.”
As a rule, Olivia didn’t like to lie. But she was having a pleasant evening drinking gin and ranting about food with a stranger, and she didn’t want him to ruin the fun vibe they had going by cracking a stupid lawyer joke she’d heard a million times before. Accountant was a good, solid, boring job, and the best part of it was it was such a boring job no one ever asked her any follow-up questions.
“Oh, really?” he asked. “That’s so interesting. What do you think of the new tax laws? Have they made your job more difficult?”
This guy, of course, would be the exception.
She reached for a cookie and bit into it so she had more time to think of an answer. She would have never figured a pretty actor would ask for details about her nonexistent accountant job, especially not details about the tax code.
“It’s been a little more challenging,” she said, after thoroughly chewing her cookie. “And personally, I’m not a huge fan of the new laws. But the good part is business is up.”
He nodded.
“I’m not a huge fan of the new laws, either, but I’m glad that— ”
“Oh wow, you should try these.” Olivia held up the cookie. “Krystal was right, they’re actually good.”
She didn’t only say that because she wanted to end this digression about tax laws, but sure, that was part of it.
Just then, Krystal brought their coffees.
“See, what did I tell you?” she said.
Max bit into a cookie and nodded.
“Sure, these are good,” he said. “But just think of how much better they’d be if this was an ice-cream sandwich.”
Olivia gasped and dropped her cookie.
“Yes! This is exactly what I’m talking about—dessert menus should have ice-cream sandwiches with cookies like this, and cakes, and pies, instead of this pistachio tart nonsense.”
Max laughed.
“I’ll add that to my platform,” he said.
Olivia took the last sip of her drink and pushed the glass toward Krystal.
“You joke, but I think someone needs to start a movement here.”
That had been a close one. Max added cream to his coffee and mentally kicked himself for his stupid “platform” comment. This woman obviously didn’t know who he was; why would he say something to help her figure it out?
Granted, most people didn’t recognize him when he wasn’t in uniform as Maxwell Stewart Powell III, junior United States Senator from California, at least not immediately, and that’s the way he liked it. Sometimes it dawned on them after a while, though, especially if he’d been on TV recently, and he’d been on TV a lot these days.
But Olivia obviously had no idea who he was—that had been clear from her withering “even this guy agrees with me” comment when he’d joined her conversation. No one had talked down to him like that in years.
Why did he like it so much?
He had no idea, but he knew he didn’t want this woman to figure out who he was and laugh at all of his stupid jokes like everyone else did these days. She barely even smiled at him, and the one time she had, he felt like he’d won a prize. It was weirdly nice to have to fight for a smile for the first time in a long time.
“So, Olivia, where did you move from? To move to L.A., I mean.”
She pushed some of her curly hair back into her bun and gave him that half-suspicious look again.
“New York. But I’m a native Californian—I grew up in the Bay Area.”
He lifted his coffee cup to toast to her.
“Well, welcome home.”
She touched her cup to his.
“Thanks. It’s good to be back. Even though L.A. is a lot different from the Bay Area, it still feels like coming home. But