Seconds after she hung up the phone, Ellie ran into her office, a broad grin on her face.

“Oh no,” Olivia said. “What did you say to those reporters?”

Ellie laughed.

“Nothing, nothing, I just told them all you were unavailable in my most Southern accent. They almost purred at me. Men are so easy that way. No, it’s something else: that was Clementine calling—they want us to pitch them for some of their IP work!”

Olivia jumped up from her desk, and she and Ellie threw their arms around each other.

“When?” Olivia asked, when they finished jumping up and down.

“Not for a few weeks, their general counsel is going on vacation, so we have some time. They’re emailing us the details now.”

Olivia sat down at her desk and rubbed her hands together. This was the big chance they’d been waiting for. Who cared about a handful of phone calls from reporters now?

But …

“Ellie, I know we talked about this when I was deciding whether to go public with Max, but … what if this whole thing affects our firm? What if people think I’m not serious about my job, or that my focus is on my relationship, not my career, and don’t want to hire us?” She put her head in her hands. “I made that decision too fast; I shouldn’t have done it.”

Ellie dropped into the chair across from her.

“Liv, honey. Part of the reason we started this firm in the first place was that we were tired of caring what a bunch of assholes think about us, remember? The assholes will think what they think, but we don’t want to work for assholes anyway—better to have something like this to show us who they are. And plus …” Ellie winked at her. “Did you ever think this might be excellent publicity for us?”

She hadn’t thought of that, as a matter of fact.

“But, El—it feels gross, somehow, for us to get publicity and business because of who my boyfriend is.”

She’d always done everything, gotten everything, because of her own hard work and on her own merits. It had never occurred to her to try to use her relationship with Max for her own gain.