#Chapter 67: The Scandal

Amelia It broke just after dawn. The footage wasn’t new. It was grainy and clipped at the beginning and end, pulled from a hallway security camera weeks ago. In it, Richard and I stood a little too close. My hand was on his arm. His head tipped down as if he were about to say something just for me. We didn’t touch beyond that. We didn’t kiss. We didn’t even speak. But David’s team didn’t need audio. They had the angle, the lighting, the suggestion, and that was enough to ignite the story they had likely been waiting to tell for weeks. The first headline read: Alpha King Entangled in Scandalous Hallway Encounter with Political Intern. The rest came like floodwaters. Seduction or Strategy? The Rise of the Orphan Queen. She Has No Wolf, But She Has the King. Every major Pack-affiliated outlet picked it up. The images ran on the hour. Analysts filled panels, pointing at the way my hand touched his sleeve, the tilt of his body, the tension of silence. Social media erupte