My jaw clenches. “What?”
“They’ve got a photo,” she continues, the words speeding up now, control slipping. “Of us in the car. Kissing. Very PG. Very normal. But that doesn’t matter because context is optional if you’re a misogynist with a byline.”
I close my eyes.
“They followed me,” she says. “Actually followed me. From my flat. To your house. Camped outside like we are the new Brangelina. Then followed us back this morning. It’s unhinged.”
“That’s harassment,” I say flatly.
“Yes,” she snaps. “But apparently it’s also journalism now.”
She doesn’t pause anymore. It all comes out in one rush, sharp and furious and edged with something that sounds dangerously like hurt.
“They’re calling the feature about your restaurant bullshit. Saying I rewrote history because I fancied you. That I mistook ‘serious reporting’ for ‘steamy smut’. That the Gazette is some sort of cosy little corruption machine and I’m the idiot who exposed it by not keeping my legs crossed.”
My hand tightens around the phone.
“And my editor,” she goes on, voice cracking, “is under pressure from the owner. They want me to apologise. Publicly. Pull my column for a month. Have every futurepiece vetted. Chaperoned. Like I’m sixteen and can’t be trusted near cutlery.”
“That’s bollocks,” I mutter.
“And if I don’t,” she says quietly now, the anger giving way to something colder, “I’m out. Fired. That’s it.”
There’s a beat.
Then, bitterly, “So congratulations. You are officially the most expensive date I’ve ever had.”
“That’s not funny,” I say.
“I know,” she replies. “I’m spiralling.”
I lean against the wall, the busy dinner service suddenly very far away. “Chloe. You did nothing wrong.”
“I know that,” she says. “Intellectually. Emotionally I would like to crawl under my desk and set fire to the concept of hope.”
I picture her, jaw tight, eyes bright with unshed tears she will absolutely refuse to acknowledge.
She exhales hard down the line, the sound sharp.
“And before you say it,” she adds, voice brittle now, “yes, I know this isn’t your fault. Intellectually. But practically? You come out of this fine.”
I don’t interrupt.
“You get sympathy,” she goes on. “You probably get bookings. People will be patting you on the back for being the poor man caught in the crossfire. Trust me, I’ve read the article. He calls you afortunate beneficiary. And I get dragged like I’m some sort of cautionary tale about women who can’t keep it together.”
That one lands.
I feel it in my gut, a flinch I don’t quite manage to hide even though she can’t see me.
“You’re right,” I say slowly.
She laughs, sharp and ugly. “Oh, don’t. Don’t do the noble thing.”
“I’m not,” I reply. “I’m just… not going to pretend the system isn’t skewed.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then a quieter, more dangerous tone.
“You benefit,” she says. “Even if you didn’t ask for it. Even if you didn’t mean to. And I hate that I’m the one paying for something that we both chose.”
