Chapter 15
Chloe
The office hums around me in that familiar open-plan blur of keyboards, low conversations and people convincing themselves they’re concentrating.
I am doing a convincing job of looking like one of them.
My screen is full. My fingers move. My posture says capable and mildly overworked. Nothing about me suggests that something inside me has quietly shifted and not yet settled again.
I keep my head down deliberately.
If Ava looks over, she’ll ask how I am in that way that sounds casual but absolutely isn’t. And I would blurt out what happened and she will want to know what’s next. And I don’t have the answer to that.
If AJ notices, he’ll joke. Not cruelly. Not even carelessly. Just… lightly. And that would be worse. Because this doesn’t feel light. And I don’t want to hear it turned into something throwaway before I’ve even worked out what it is myself.
So I don’t look up.
I type. I answer emails. I reread the same paragraph twice because my attention keeps drifting.
It’s absurd.
I am a forty-five year old woman. I have had relationships. I have been disappointed… plenty of them. I know how this usually goes. That’s why I made the decision that I don’t want more of this.
I should not be sitting at my desk feeling like something has lodged itself under my ribs and refused to leave.
And yet.
There’s a warmth there that won’t shift. Not giddy. Not dramatic. Something steadier. Something that feels less like falling and more like standing still and realising the ground under you might actually hold.
That’s the frightening part.
This isn’t a crush. This isn’t chemistry for the sake of it. This feels quieter than that. More serious. Like something that would deserve to be handled with care if it were ever allowed out into the open.
I tell myself to stop.
I remind myself that this is real life, not optimism with better lighting.
And still my thoughts keep circling back to one small, dangerous idea.
What if we could be the real thing?
I keep typing, as if productivity might drown it out.
It doesn’t.
It feels like something I might, carefully, allow myself to hope for.
Even if I don’t say that out loud yet.
The phone on my desk lights up.
“Chloe. Can you come to my office please.”
Marie-Louise’s voice is calm. Too calm. The sort of calm that suggests someone else has already lost theirs on her behalf.
My stomach drops.
I save the document I’m pretending to work on and stand, smoothing my jumper like that might somehow help. The walk down the corridor feels longer than usual, my head already filling in worst-case scenarios with unhelpful enthusiasm.
Her door is shut.
That never bodes well.
“Sit,” Marie-Louise says, gesturing to the chair opposite her desk when I enter.
I do.
She doesn’t sit down. She stays standing, arms folded, jaw tight.
“The Cumbria Times have been in touch,” she says. “They’re running a piece tomorrow.”
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 like kiss and smut doing 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
By Sean Miller
Is this serious journalism, or has the Carlisle Gazette confused reporting with romantic fantasy?
Readers may have raised an eyebrow at a recent, breathless feature praising restaurateur Tom Philips, a piece so heavy on longing glances, inherited passion and sensual description that it read less like a review and more like something lifted from a paperback romance.
Now the reason for the tone is becoming uncomfortably clear.
This newspaper can reveal that Chloe Ingram, the Gazette’s food writer, was photographed sharing an intimate kiss with Mr Philips after spending the night at his home. A development that casts her recent “journalism” in a very different light.
Only weeks earlier, Mr Philips’ restaurant received a notably cool review. Then, suddenly, came a glowing feature dripping with warmth, nostalgia, and what some readers might generously describe as emotional engagement.
Others might call it wish fulfilment.
Witnesses confirm that Chloe was seen leaving her flat with Mr Philips before staying overnight at his property, returning once again to her flat together the following morning. Hardly the behaviour of a reporter maintaining professional distance.
Mr Philips himself appears the fortunate beneficiary of this arrangement. A businessman whose restaurant was elevated by coverage. The ethical burden, inevitably, falls on the writer.
Journalism is not meant to be immersive. It is not meant to be sensual. And it certainly is not meant to blur into the kind of prose more commonly found in smutty fiction.
Yet the Gazette’s feature read less like an objective assessment and more like a woman indulging in narrative fantasy, mistaking personal chemistry for public interest.
This raises serious questions, not only about Chloe’s judgement, but about the editorial oversight at the Carlisle Gazette. Were editors unaware of this apparent conflict? Or did they simply choose not to ask too many questions while copy was flowing?
No one is suggesting journalists should not have private lives. But when those private lives begin to shape public reporting, readers deserve transparency.
Especially when the reporting itself begins to feel less like journalism and more like a love letter.
The Gazette has built its reputation on trust. That trust is now under scrutiny.
Because when journalists start confusing facts with feelings, and reporting with some cheap smutty romance story, the truth is not just compromised.
It is quietly replaced.
I stare at the page for too long.
Long enough for the words to stop meaning anything and start feeling like fingerprints.
Smudged, invasive, everywhere they have no right to be.
The misogyny isn’t subtle. It’s gleeful.
It’s doing that thing where it pretends to be concerned about standards while very clearly enjoying the spectacle of pulling a woman apart.
I feel sick.
Not because of Tom. Not even because of the kiss. But because they’ve taken something careful and sincere and twisted it into a story about appetite and weakness and a woman who apparently can’t tell the difference between journalism and her own hormones.
I swallow and look up at Marie-Louise.
She’s sitting now. Hands flat on the desk. Jaw tight. She looks tired. Disappointed in a way that hurts more than anger would.
“They’re going to run it,” she says. “They’ve told the owner. He’s furious.”
I open my mouth. “This is bullshit.”
“I know.”
“They followed me,” I say, heat rising. “They stalked me. This is harassment.”
“I know,” she repeats. “But that’s not how it’s being framed.”
I lean forward, words tumbling out now. “I didn’t lie.
I didn’t fabricate anything. The feature was fair.
It was accurate. It was written after the review, not instead of it.
I didn’t sleep with him to get copy. We are not even together.
” I am angry with myself about even mentioning our relationship status because it shouldn’t matter.
Marie-Louise closes her eyes briefly, like she’s bracing herself.
“The owner doesn’t care,” she says. “He cares about perception. He cares about advertisers. He cares about the Gazette being dragged into a Daily Mail style circus where nuance goes to die.”
“So what,” I say. “He thinks I should fall on my sword.”
“He thinks,” she says carefully, “that you’ve made us vulnerable.”
The word lands heavily.
“He thinks I should fire you.”
The room goes very quiet.
I laugh, once, sharp and incredulous. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” she says. “And before you say it, I’ve argued. I’ve pushed back. I’ve explained timelines, editorial decisions, oversight. None of that matters once the narrative’s out there.”
“This is misogyny,” I say. “Blatant, lazy misogyny.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “And it works.”
I start to speak again, already forming the defence, the righteous fury, the list of reasons why this is unfair and wrong and not how journalism should operate.
Then something inside me just… stops.
Because underneath the anger, there’s something else.
Anger at myself.
Not because I did anything unethical. Not because I regret Tom. But because I knew, on some level, how this world works. I knew how quickly a woman’s credibility can be questioned. I knew how easily a private moment could be turned into a public indictment.
And I let myself hope anyway.
I lean back in the chair, suddenly exhausted.
Marie-Louise watches me closely. “Chloe.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I know how it looks.”
Her shoulders drop a fraction. “Do you?"
"I didn’t do anything wrong,” I protest again. “But I should have known that in this world we live in, everyone has an opinion. And they express it before knowing the facts. And that’s on me.”
The silence stretches.
Marie-Louise exhales slowly, like she’s been holding this in for a while.
“You have one option,” she says. “One.”
I look up.
“You write a public apology. Carefully worded. No admissions of wrongdoing, but enough contrition to make it palatable. We’ll pull your column for a month and hope the grass grows over it.”
My stomach tightens.
“And then,” she continues, “if any restaurants are willing to work with you again, we reintroduce you slowly. With oversight.”
“Oversight how.”
“The owner wants to review every column,” she says. “And for the foreseeable future, you won’t visit restaurants alone. You’ll have a second person with you. Every time.”
The words land one by one, heavy and humiliating.
“So, I’m supervised,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Chaperoned.”
She doesn’t correct me.
“And if that doesn’t happen,” I ask quietly. “If restaurants don’t want me. Or if I don’t write the apology.”
Marie-Louise meets my eyes.
“Then we let you go.”
There it is.
I go very still.
She watches me carefully. “I need your answer by five tomorrow. The Gazette will run its own apology in Wednesday’s edition after the article drops in the Times. If yours isn’t there with it, that’s the end.”
My throat burns. I blink hard, once, twice, refusing to let anything spill over.
“I can’t believe you’re not backing me,” I say, and I hate how thin my voice sounds despite my best efforts. “You know this is bullshit.”
She nods. “I do.”
“And you’re still asking me to apologise.”
“I’m asking you to help me keep the paper alive,” she says quietly. “Because that’s my job. And right now, that has to come first.”
I laugh, short and broken. “So I get to choose between my integrity and my livelihood.”
She doesn’t flinch. “You get to choose between a controlled fall and a clean break.”
The room feels smaller than it did when I walked in.
“I didn’t sleep with him for a story,” I say. “I didn’t manipulate anything. I didn’t lie.”
“I know,” she says again. “But knowing isn’t the same as winning.”
I stand, legs unsteady.
“Five tomorrow,” I repeat.
“Yes.” Marie-Louise looks determined.
I nod once, because if I don’t do something deliberate I might fall apart right here.
As I open the door, Marie-Louise speaks again.
“For what it’s worth,” she says. “I hate this.”
I pause, hand on the handle.
“So do I,” I say.
And then I walk back into the open-plan office, carrying a decision that feels far heavier than any apology ever could.