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.
“And the apology,” I continue, voice rising. “An apology for what? For being human? For not being a robot? For daring to like someone without submitting a formal declaration first?”
Hadrian shifts his weight.
“Don’t,” I warn him. “If you start agreeing with the Times, I’m putting you on probation.”
I stop pacing, the rage giving way to something sharper. Cleaner.
Because this isn’t just about me. It’s about the rules. The ones nobody writes down but everyone enforces. Men get context. Women get consequences. Men get to be complex. Women get to be lessons.
I pick up my phone, put it down again.
There’s a draft apology sitting in my inbox. Carefully worded. Bloodless. Designed to make me smaller without ever saying so out loud.
I stare at it like it might blink first.
“Absolutely not,” I tell Hadrian. “I am not apologising for something I didn’t do.”
He tilts his head.
“I know,” I add, softer now. “I know it means losing everything.”
The rage comes back, hot and relentless.
“They want me to disappear quietly,” I say. “They want me grateful. Ashamed. Manageable.”
I straighten, spine stiffening.
“Well,” I say. “That’s unfortunate for them.”
Hadrian flicks his tongue.
I point at him. “Exactly.”
Outside, Carlisle goes on as if nothing has happened. People buy coffee. Buses arrive. Life remains irritatingly intact.
Inside my flat, something settles.
The decision doesn’t feel brave. It feels necessary.
My finger hovers over the mouse, poised above Send. Because sometimes doing the right thing is great but doesn’t pay for your roof over your head. And sometimes being forty-five means doing something you absolutely don’t want to do because you have a gecko with a serious cockroach addiction.
I don’t want to fight big battles anymore. When does life get easier?
I keep my eyes forward as I walk through the office.
I don’t need to look to know what’s happening. I can feel it. The looks that catch and slide away. The sudden fascination with keyboards and mugs and screens. The way my name has already started travelling faster than I am.
I don’t slow down.
I go straight to Marie-Louise’s office and close the door behind me before anyone can decide to be show me pity.
She looks up immediately.
“You’re cutting it very fine,” she says. “Do you have the apology?”
I don’t sit.
I stand there for a beat, feel my feet on the carpet, then reach into my bag and pull out a single sheet of paper.
“I have something better,” I say.
Her eyes flick to the paper. Then back to me. She doesn’t move. She tries to stare me down, tries to remind me who has the power here, what’s at stake.
I don’t look away.
Eventually, she exhales, reaches out, and takes the page.
She starts to read.
On Professional Distance
There is an allegation circulating that my feature on La Cucina di Rosa, owned by Tom Philips, was compromised by personal involvement.
Here are the facts.
On my first visit to La Cucina di Rosa, I published a short restaurant review that was critical of a specific dish. That review ran as written. It was not amended, softened, or withdrawn. The criticism was clear. The sauce was watery.
What the article didn’t say was that I’d reviewed three other restaurants that day and rushed the piece. I didn’t even realise until it was pointed out that I’d only tried one dish. One dish is not a meal, and it certainly doesn’t define a restaurant.
It was agreed that I should write a feature on the restaurant. That piece did not contradict the original review. It widened the frame. It explored process, history, and context, and it acknowledged that my original visit had been rushed.
Both pieces went through standard editorial commissioning, editing, and approval. Neither the original review nor the feature article was written or published privately. Neither bypassed oversight.
No factual errors have been identified in either article. No quotes have been disputed. No claims have been shown to be false.
Instead, attention has shifted away from the work and towards my private life.
In pursuit of a story, a journalist from the Cumbria Times followed me from my home, waited outside another private address overnight, and photographed a private moment the following morning. These actions were then presented as evidence of professional misconduct.
This is not scrutiny. It is surveillance.
I am not a public official. I am not a celebrity. I am a local journalist writing about a local restaurant. Treating an ordinary citizen as paparazzi material does not strengthen an argument. It weakens it.
It is also notable how accountability has been assigned.
The reporting itself has not been interrogated. The restaurant’s conduct has not been questioned, because there is nothing to question. No allegation of wrongdoing has been made against La Cucina di Rosa or Tom Philips, and none would be warranted. The accuracy of his work has not been challenged.
Instead, the focus has been placed solely on the character, judgement, and emotional restraint of the woman who wrote it.
Readers may draw their own conclusions from that choice.
It is also worth asking why, if the concern is genuinely about food standards, the response was not to visit the restaurant, test the cooking, and assess the claims independently. That would have been journalism. Following a writer home instead is a different editorial decision entirely.
I have been asked to issue a public apology.
I have declined to do so, because I do not believe apologising for accurate reporting, conducted through proper editorial process, serves readers, the profession, or the many women whose work is too often reduced to temperament when it makes others uncomfortable.
The allegation being made is not that the work is inaccurate, but that emotion itself is evidence of bias. That is a misunderstanding of the form.
The feature on La Cucina di Rosa was warm because the kitchen is careful. It was reflective because the story behind it is. That is not indulgence. It is description.
I stand by the review of La Cucina di Rosa. I stand by the subsequent feature on Tom Philips and his restaurant. Both accurately reflect my assessment at the time they were written.
What I have no interest in doing is turning my food column into a playground for those who wish to dismiss women’s work as unreliable whenever it contains warmth, judgement, or perspective, and then attribute that work to emotion when they disagree with it.
Readers deserve reporting, not insinuation. Criticism, not character assassination.
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about explaining my relationship with Mr Philips, spelling out what it is and what it very much isn’t.
But I shouldn’t have to. It has nothing to do with the article, and explaining myself would only help prop up the lazy idea that women are incapable of being professional once emotions are involved.
Instead, I am content to let my work and Mr Philips’ cooking speak for itself.
Marie-Louise places the paper on the desk in front of her. She just sits there, eyes fixed on the last paragraph like she’s checking for traps.
The silence stretches.
Finally, she exhales. Slow. Careful.
“That,” she says, “is not an apology.”
“No,” I reply. “It isn’t.”
She glances up at me then. Really looks. “You’re aware that this isn’t what the owner asked for.”
“I am,” I say. “But I can’t apologise for something I haven’t done. And I won’t pretend I understand why I should.”
Marie-Louise hums quietly, the sound she makes when she’s thinking and not enjoying it.
“This will escalate things,” she says.
“Maybe.”
She looks back down at the page, taps it once with her finger, then sets it on the desk with deliberate care.
Another beat.
Then she reaches for the phone receiver.