She was mad at Max for not telling Kara about her arrest, but she was just as angry at herself. She should have done her best to control this whole situation, instead of trusting other people to do it well. What had that ever gotten her? How had she let Max convince her to go public in such a rush? That was so unlike her. She should have taken a lot more time about that decision. And she should have insisted that she talk to Kara first. If they hadn’t rushed to go public, if they’d talked to Kara and made sure she knew about the arrest, maybe they wouldn’t have gone public at all. And then she wouldn’t be dealing with any of this. Especially not on one of the biggest days in Monroe & Spencer’s short life.

“We could postpone the pitch, cancel it, whatever—either one would be fine,” Ellie said. “I’m worried about you.”

Olivia shrugged that off.

“I’m fine. And I’m not going to let our firm suffer because of me.” She sighed. “Though it has, already. I got a fucking message from fucking Jeremy Wright this morning—that asshole I hated at my old firm. He said he’d seen the news, and he hoped everything was going well with me. That was his way of telling me that everyone at my old firm knows about this, and they’re laughing at me.” She never wanted those people to know a damn thing about her, and now they knew far too much.

Ellie shook her head, then abruptly pulled into a grocery store parking lot. Once they were parked, she turned to Olivia.

“Who cares about any of those assholes? Who cares about this fucking pitch? I sure as hell don’t right now. What I care about is my friend! Liv, one of the reasons we both left Big Law in the first place was because we wanted to be treated like human beings, and not just cogs in a wheel, remember? Did you blink when I barely worked for a week in the spring when Sophia was so sick? No, of course you didn’t.”

Olivia shook her head.

“That was different, you had to be with her.”

Ellie grabbed her hand.

“It wasn’t different, though, that’s what I mean. We both have to be able to take breaks, and take care of what matters in our lives, before we fall apart.”

Olivia squeezed Ellie’s hand.

“Thank you.” She closed her eyes for a second. “I love you a lot, you know that?” she asked.

Ellie smiled.

“I love you a lot, too.”

Olivia let go of her hand.

“And I promise I can handle this pitch today. It’ll be good to get the first time I have to deal with strangers about all of this over with, if that makes sense.”