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.”
She closed the door again and looked at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have said . . . most of what I just said. But . . .” She shook her head. “I’m just going to tell that reporter my standard ‘no comment,’ just FYI.”
He had to call Olivia right away. Before a reporter did. Or . . . oh shit, had a reporter already called her?
He picked up the phone.
She answered right away.
“Hey, I was just about to call you—I got a weird message from some reporter, and it’s been a few weeks since that happened, do you know what this is about?”
Shit, she sounded so relaxed and cheerful. How was he going to tell her this?
“Yeah, I know. Olivia . . .”
He should have told Kara. It didn’t have to be a big thing, he knew he could trust Kara not to tell anyone. He should have done everything in his power to protect Olivia.
“What is it? What happened?” He could hear the change in her voice.
He just had to let it out.
“There’s going to be a story coming out soon—Kara just got a call about it—about