She straightened her dress; it was a blue-striped sundress—very patriotic. Her hair was in a big knot on the top of her head. She looked professional, well put together, and also beautiful. He squeezed her hand.

“It’ll be great. And the fundraiser tonight will be … well, we won’t have to stay long, at least.”

She laughed. They were going to a Fourth of July fundraiser that night at the home of one of the big party donors. He’d been to dozens, maybe hundreds of events like this by now, but he was really looking forward to going to this one with Olivia by his side.

“Good thing I have a different dress for that one,” she said. “Just in case I spill barbecue sauce on this one.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Oh God, that’ll be the picture every tabloid runs with. ‘Max Powell’s new girlfriend, the slob!’ ”

They both laughed. He was glad she could make jokes about all this. From what Kara said, after these pictures came out, there would be another small flurry of local news stories, and then everything would calm down. He hoped so, for Olivia’s sake. And he was pretty sure she was right; July would be such a busy news month that no one would have much time for gossip about the relationship of a senator who wasn’t even up for reelection this year.

Andy pulled into a parking spot outside the community center, and Andy and Brittany both jumped out of the car. Max and Olivia stayed put.

“Remember, I’ll come around the car to you, and …”

Olivia took off her seat belt and nodded to him.

“I know, then we’ll walk in together, I remember!”

Their doors opened simultaneously, and he smiled over his shoulder to her.

“Just wanted to make sure you knew I’d be right there by your side.”

He squeezed her hand one more time before they got out of the car.

Olivia smoothed her dress down again, then swung both of her legs together out of the car. She’d been practicing how to do that all week. She was barely on her feet when Max came around the car and took her hand. Oh, okay—she hadn’t realized they were going to do the hand-holding thing again. At least this would give her something to do with her hands as they walked into the building, with what felt like a hundred cameras around them. Fine, there were only four cameras. It was just that they all kept making that clicking sound, making it feel like more.