Olivia took the bakery box out of the bag. There was an envelope taped to the top, and she pulled it open with a smile on her face. What a nice thing for Alexa to do.

To Olivia Monroe—just in case you’re still in search of some excellent cake. Good seeing you today. Maybe we can do it on purpose next time?

Max

213-555-4857

No.

This could not be.

This was her sister playing a trick on her, right?

She flipped open the box. Inside was a big layer cake, covered in chocolate frosting, with “Welcome to California” written on it in blue.

She looked from the cake, to the note in her hand, back to the cake.

This must be her sister. Except her sister didn’t know she’d seen Max today. No one did, as a matter of fact, except for the people who’d seen them talking for about forty-five seconds in the ballroom after the luncheon. And none of those people knew they’d met before. Or what they’d talked about.

Olivia walked back around her desk and sat down, still staring at the note clutched in her hand.

Had United States senator Max Powell really sent her a cake?

And, in his note along with the cake …

He couldn’t be asking her out, right?

Yes, when she’d walked out of that elevator, she sort of thought that the hot white dude in the baseball cap she’d been flirting with for the past hour or so had been about to ask her out, sure. But that’s when she didn’t know the hot white dude in the baseball cap was Max Powell, hotshot junior senator from California.

Was he really asking her out? From anyone else, this note would mean an unequivocal yes, but he was a senator!

Was he some sort of scumbag who went around doing this all the time? It had only been—she looked at her watch—four hours from when she’d seen him at the luncheon and when the cake had arrived at her office. Only someone who was really practiced in this kind of thing would work that fast.

Okay, maybe, but he’d obviously remembered their conversation at the bar three weeks ago—did scumbags do that? And if he was a scumbag, why hadn’t he pounced on her at the bar, anyway? She’d had enough experience with men to usually identify the creepy ones right off the bat—she wouldn’t have spent that long talking to him at the bar, gin or no gin, if he’d given her bad vibes.