My mouth goes dry. “About what?”
“About you,” she replies. “And Tom Philips.”
I let out a short, incredulous laugh before I can stop myself. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I agree,” she says. “Unfortunately, that’s not the point.”
She turns her screen towards me briefly. A headline mock-up. Words likekissandsmutdoing the sort of damage they are designed to do.
“They’re claiming your feature was compromised,” Marie-Louise continues. “That you were already in a relationship with him when you wrote it. Therefore, the article is bullshit.”
“That’s absolute nonsense. Tom and I are not in a relationship,” I say, heat flooding my face. “How would they even know that?”
Marie-Louise exhales sharply. “Apparently by coincidence.”
I stare at her. “Of course it was.”
She taps a finger against the desk. “Their journalist says he saw you leaving your block of flats together.”
My head snaps up. “Who?”
“Sean Miller.”
That fucking twat!
My jaw tightens. “He has had it in for me for years.”
“I know,” Marie-Louise says. “Successful food blog. Permanent chip on his shoulder. Petty as hell.”
“And relentless,” I add.
“He followed you,” Marie-Louise continues. “From your flat. To Tom’s house. Camped outside. Waited.”
I feel slightly sick now.
“He knows you stayed overnight,” she says. “And this morning he followed you back.”
She opens a folder and pulls out a printed sheet.
Then she drops it onto the desk between us.
The photo isn’t even that incriminating. Two people in a car. A kiss that could have been goodbye, hello, anything. Ordinary. Intimate. Private.
But it’s enough.
Marie-Louise doesn’t soften it. She doesn’t editorialise. She just slides the page closer to me.
“This is what they’re planning to run.”
I look down.
And it’s worse than I imagined.
Not because it’s clever. Or well argued. Or even particularly factual.
It’s worse because it’s mean.
GAZETTE GIRL’S COSY KISS: WHEN ‘FOOD JOURNALISM’ STARTS TO READ LIKE SMUT
