Forbidden

Author's Notes: Pato & Ashley

First let's begin with Pato. As much as many readers may not like him simply because they want Olivia to be with Max, Pato is not a villain in the story or a bad person. He's simply a flawed human, although the very same can also be said about Max himself and Olivia.

Max loves Olivia purely but he has a bad temper that gets the better of him and is very jealous of Olivia's relationships with other people even though she cannot help them. He can also be slightly immature, sometimes not taking Olivia's worries seriously or sometimes lacking during a deep conversation. That's partly the reason why Olivia ends up being so close to Lewis, he brings her that attention and deep understanding that sometimes Max doesn't because of his lack of maturity. These flaws don't make him a bad character though, or bad for Olivia, he's simply human. 

Olivia is also irresponsible (more than Max), she can be careless and has obvious abandonment issues she masks by leaving. Probably caused by growing up away from her family. So whenever something bad happens she feels the need to run away, to be the one who abandons before someone abandons her. Although in the course of the book she is trying to grow and be better (just like Max and Pato too), she's still flawed like anybody else. 

This leads us to Pato. Olivia and himself once upon a time thought they would get married one day. Pato still believes this although Olivia doesn't. Simply because Pato made a couple of mistakes that cost him his relationship. Although the same could be said about Max by the end of the book. Pato is simply trying to recover what he had for years and he lost. Also growing up with Liv he understands her differently than Max: Max needs Olivia to grow and change so they can have the stable relationship he never had and get that sense of family he's never had growing up. Meanwhile Pato fell in love with Olivia throughout all her chaos and carelessness, and knows that through all of that they are still family. 

That's why it's mentioned he was used to Olivia's geographic instability, because he knew her and knew she would always come back, he would simply wait for her and it would be okay. Now he's kind of doing the same thing, thinking Olivia being with Max is simply Liv finding herself or leaving for a while due to his mistakes but thinking she will come back eventually, like he says at the end of the book. He's going to be waiting for her even if it takes her a few years, because he trusts his relationship that much. And honestly why wouldn't he? He was with her for years while Max has been with her for a few months, of course he doesn't take them seriously, as much as he still tries to respect the relationship and not interfere, because he cares about Olivia's happiness that much.

During summer break, when they were at the beach house he could've had an honest shot at getting back together with Olivia if it hand't been for Max. It's also there when he mentions that for the right reason he would leave Indycar and that is because since then he already had the plans of being a reserve driver for McLaren in Formula 1, since he wanted to be closer to Liv and show her he would move for her, he just wanted it to be a surprise. But by the time she finds out he's a reserve driver Pato thinks there's something wrong because she left him on read when Max deleted his texts, and her relationship with Max is more cemented. At the end they do part ways but I do believe Olivia will remain like the one that got away for him. 

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Now there's Ashley. This is the only character in the book that is meant to be purely a villain. That's why the character is not based on a real person. Most importantly though, Ashley is the anti-thesis of Olivia. Which at the end of the day is probably one of the reasons Max fell so hard for Olivia so soon, although they did have a true connection, her personality completely different from Ashley ends up being something refreshing and fascinating for him. 

There's a few parallelisms throughout the book to show some of their differences but I will list some for you.

The first ones being merely physical, like the fact that Ashley is tall and blonde with blue eyes. She's also described looking like a doll. Meanwhile Olivia is shorter (although not super short since we mention she rests her head on Max's shoulder and Max is tall) dark hair and eyes so dark they're almost black, tanned skin and wavy hair that gets messier when she's at the beach.  

Then there's the personality, Ashley fakes to be nice and friendly to get the things she wants or even to use people, meanwhile Olivia does not stand fake people and develops a slight temper, ready to smack someone who deserves it and not caring of the consequences. Olivia is also a terrible liar and she's being told that over and over, everybody can tell when she lies. Meanwhile everything Ashley does is lying and she's so good at it and at manipulating people that she gets away with it. 

Olivia is more careless and a joker meanwhile Ashley is calculated and likes to be in control of everything. Ashley is also more materialistic, when she first meets Olivia in the elevator she has a bell boy carrying a cart full of shopping bags, because she was out shopping while she should've been at the garage watching qualifying for Max. Throughout the book we see that Olivia doesn't care much about having anything at all, she buys out of necessity whenever she doesn't have clothes for a certain weather with her, but that is pretty much it, she prefers traveling and experiences rather than what's material. 

Now in reference to Ashley's craziness, she wants to be in control, she wants to get everything she wants, which is Max. Mostly because of his status and money. So coming from her powerful family she has the experience and means to always get what she wants. However it seems like Olivia is never given what she wants. She didn't want to go into Formula 1, that was a punishment, she wanted to trust Pato, she couldn't and she spent the night in jail; she wanted Max, she couldn't have him either; and then life just keeps on throwing her punches one after the other but she isn't even faced by them as much, she jokes about it, she keeps on living. She's used to not getting what she wants and she learnt to live like that. These are the reasons why Ashley keeps on attacking her (it's what she knows) while Olivia keeps getting back up (it's also what she knows).