“Those were both last August in very slow news weeks, but the news has been more of an onslaught these days; I don’t think we have to worry about all of that.”

Kara folded her hands together.

“Can I convince you to let me make sure there’s a friendly photographer around? There will be a ton of people there—someone is likely to take a picture of you, and it’ll get out, I promise. Think about this from her point of view—you may not care if the pictures are unflattering, but she likely will.”

This was yet another reason why he was glad he had Kara.

“Good idea, please do that.”

Kara stopped, right before she opened his office door.

“And, may I ask—what’s her name?”

He smiled.

“Olivia Monroe.”

Kara smiled back at him.

“Congratulations again, sir. And good luck this weekend.”

Chapter Fourteen

Olivia took longer to get ready for her date with Max that Saturday night than she had for any other date in her life. She’d been a little taken aback when Max told her his chief of staff had arranged for a friendly photographer to take photos of them on their way into the Hollywood Bowl. That seemed so … intentional. But she agreed that she’d rather have good photos out there of her than bad ones, so “friendly” photographer it was. Friendly photographer or not, though, she had to look perfect. She’d searched Instagram for pictures of people at the Hollywood Bowl to see what they wore to concerts there; she’d washed, moisturized, and twisted her hair the night before so it would be perfect and bouncy today; and she’d spent an entire hour doing her makeup, when she usually spent no more than five minutes.

She was a little surprised she hadn’t had to talk to Max’s staff before this, but she was relieved, too. That probably would have stressed her out even more. She still didn’t quite know why she was doing this, but that was the story of her entire relationship with Max. Why had she talked to him at the bar? Why had she gone out with him in the first place? Why had she started dating him? Why had she told him she loved him, no matter how true it was? There was just something about Max—the way he smiled at her, the way he looked at her, the way he loved her—that made her feel as if he saw her, all of her, and loved every single thing about her. And against all odds, she felt the same about him.