Olivia minimized her many tabs open to stories about senator Max Powell and clicked over to her email. Daphne had sent this forty-five minutes ago; she couldn’t believe she’d wasted all that time researching a man instead of responding to a potential client.

See, she didn’t have time for men. She was here in L.A. to concentrate on work, not to get “wooed” by anyone. Ellie knew that, what was she even talking about?

But she couldn’t just leave senator Max Powell hanging after he’d sent her a cake. He’d been perfectly friendly and not at all creepy; she would be rude to just ignore this gift. Plus, who knows, she might run into him again, and she didn’t want to seem like the asshole here.

She picked up her phone to text him.

Hi Senator—Thanks for the cake, it’s delicious. My schedule is pretty booked for the next few weeks, but

No, come on, that sounded laughable. He was a senator; his schedule was likely four times as packed as hers was.

Hi Senator—Thanks for the cake! But I’m not sure if

No, the exclamation point sent the wrong signal.

Hi Senator—The cake was very thoughtful, thank you. However

Should she call him Senator? Or Max? He’d signed the card Max, so it seemed overly formal to the point of rudeness to call him Senator after that.

Hi Max—Thanks for the cake, we all loved it. But I don’t know if

“Max” sounded too informal. He was a senator, after all, and she’d only really talked to him that one time. Better to not call him anything.

Hi, this is Olivia Monroe. Thanks for the cake, it was delicious. I hope all is well with you.

Well, that seemed perfectly appropriate and very cold. She didn’t feel that cold toward him.

She sighed. Fine. She’d call him.

Luckily, since it was just after six p.m., he was probably still in a meeting, or at a dinner, or with his staff or something—it would probably go to voice mail. If there was one thing that being a lawyer had taught her, it was how to leave a polite but firm voice mail. That was much easier than a text message.

She tapped out his number on her cell phone and waited for it to ring. She definitely wouldn’t have to talk to him; no senator would have his ringer on. And he definitely wouldn’t answer a number he didn’t know.

“Hello?”

Shit.

“Hello, Max?” Maybe it was a wrong number. It was probably a wrong number—she always did that when she actually had to type a number into her phone.

“Olivia?” His voice was warm, and slightly amused.

Nope. Not a wrong number.

“Um, yeah. Hi. How’d you know it was me?”

He laughed.

“Well, I only give this number out to a handful of people, and everyone else who has it is in my contacts. And you told me you were from Northern California, which made sense with your phone number—you never wanted a New York number?”

He only gave this number out to a handful of people?

“Oh, I thought about getting a New York number on and off, but I’m so glad I never got rid of my Oakland number,” she said. “After a while, it was a point of pride for me. Plus, I think there was some part of me that always knew I was going to come home, even in my most insufferable ‘New York is the greatest city in the world!’ phase. Thank goodness I had the sense to take the California bar right out of law school, or else this whole process would have been a lot harder.”

She didn’t know why she was babbling on about her phone number and taking the bar. Why was she even on the phone with a senator in the first place? Not just on the phone, but on his private number. What the hell was going on?

“I had that ‘New York is the greatest city in the world’ phase, too, in my midtwenties,” he said. “The phase ended, but I still love that city. I’m always grateful when I get to go there, though these days my trips there aren’t as . . . exciting, let’s say, as they used to be.”

She grinned.

“I know you think that’s a product of your job, and I’m sure it partly is, but I’m here to tell you it’s also a product of your age. My twenties were exciting in New York, too, but then I reached that age where I got horrified when someone invited me to something that didn’t even start until nine p.m.”

Did that make her sound uncool? Oh well, if it did, this man should know right off the bat that she wasn’t going to any midnight soirees with him.

“Okay, fine, you’ve got me there,” he said. “Tonight I managed to get my staff to let me get home at five and have dinner alone here in my own house, and I’m thrilled about it.”

Oh, so that’s why he’d answered the phone when she called. Well, at least she knew his staff wasn’t hanging around in the background.

“I understand that so clearly,” she said. “When I finally moved into my house here in L.A., that first night I got to have dinner in my own kitchen again, instead of on a hotel bed or in a hotel bar . . . it was ‘shower after a ten-hour plane ride’ good.”

He burst out laughing.

“Okay, now you’re speaking my language,” he said. “I know very well exactly how wonderful that shower is. But don’t you miss Krystal and her perfect martinis?”

Oh God. They’d been on the phone this long already and she hadn’t thanked him for the cake yet!

“I do, but speaking of Krystal, thank you for the cake. It’s delicious.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you knew that we do actually have good old-fashioned layer cakes in Los Angeles, even though most dessert menus don’t. That bakery is one of my favorites, and they have so many great cakes, I had a hard time deciding which one to send you.”

She’d been so distracted by the note she hadn’t even bothered to look to see where it had come from. She looked at the box and scribbled down the name of the bakery.

“What were you deciding between?” she asked.

And how had he found the time to do this? Hadn’t he had events all day?

“Well,” he said. “It was mostly between the chocolate one that I sent you, and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, though carrot cake was a real dark horse. But in the end, I decided to go with the first one you’d mentioned at the bar—I figured that was the one you were craving the most.”

She couldn’t believe he’d remembered the cakes she’d listed at the bar, and in what order.

Was this for real? Was he just making it up that he’d thought about what kind of cake she’d liked the best, when he’d really delegated “send cake to new conquest” to a staffer?

“By the way, I also know some great places for pie, if you’re interested in joining me for dinner at one of them.”

“Dinner” was just code for a one-night stand, she knew that, but that part she didn’t really mind. It was everything else about Max Powell that gave her pause.

Oh hell with it, Olivia—he sent you a cake, didn’t he? Who cares if he placed the call himself or if someone else did; his staffer wasn’t there with the two of you at the bar that night to take notes and remember your cake preferences. Plus, remember how hot he is?

But as nice as that was, she was still far too busy to go out with him, and she opened her mouth to tell him so.