I stop pacing and look at him.
He straightens his hoody, all clipped vowels and calm authority. “Chloe is being sacrificed because it’s easier than fighting back. Which is appalling. And predictable.”
“They want her to apologise,” I say. “Publicly.”
Rupert’s lip curls. “Over my dead body.”
Glen raises an eyebrow. “That escalated.”
“I am deadly serious,” Rupert continues. “This is the sort of thing that makes my mother write letters.”
The knot in my stomach I had been ignoring finally loosens.
“I want to call Chloe,” I say. “But I don’t want to make this worse. I don’t want to turn into another man deciding what’s best for her.”
Rupert nods. “Good instinct. Don’t bulldoze. Stand beside.”
I pick up my phone, then hesitate.
“She already feels like she’s alone,” I say quietly. “Like the world’s closing ranks.”
Rupert’s voice softens. “Then you make sure she knows it hasn’t.”
I look down at the paper again. At her name. Twisted. Reduced.
Something settles in me. Cold. Determined.
“I’m not letting this stand,” I say. “Even if all I can do is be loud and inconvenient.”
Rupert claps his hands excitedly. “Oh good. I do loud very well. I can help.”
I take a breath, steadying myself.
Because whatever happens next, she does not face this on her own.
Chapter 17
Chloe
Ihave not slept.
Not even a bit. Not even one of those half-naps where your body pretends it’s resting while your brain runs a full inquiry.
It is Wednesday morning and I am standing in my living room in yesterday’s clothes, drinking tea that has gone cold and arguing with a gecko.
“Well,” I tell Hadrian, who is clinging to his branch with the smug serenity of someone who has never had his professional credibility dismantled by a man with a tabloid column. “This is what happens when you allow yourself to be a full person.”
He blinks slowly.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap. “You have no idea what it’s like to be told you’ve mistaken journalism for steamy fiction. You eat cockroaches. Stay in your lane.”
Hadrian does not flinch. He is unbothered. Possibly judging me.
I pace. I rant. I spiral in controlled loops that I would describe as thinking if anyone asked.
“They followed me,” I say to the room at large. “They stalked me. And somehow I’m the problem. Not the bloke hiding in a hedge with a camera. Me.”
I run a hand through my hair, which has reached a level of chaos that suggests I have either been crying or repeatedly scrubbing my scalp since three in the morning. Both are true.
