Better Scandal

When a thirteen-second clip yanks speechwriter Elena Torres into the worst kind of fame—viral without context—City Hall wants optics, not truth. Enter Gabe Park, a rule-loving archivist whose natural habitat is quiet rooms and sharpened pencils. Their solution? A fake relationship that buys Elena time to work in the stacks—and puts the archive's rules on center stage. What begins as damage control becomes a document-driven mystery: a misfiled hydrology addendum, a routing-book dash, a whiteboard snapshot that says DUMP HYDROLOGY ADDENDUM, and a cassette where strategists swap risk for concern. With an FOI specialist, a retired clerk who "does minutes, not gossip," and a podcaster learning to love silence, Elena and Gabe build a public evidence site with redactions and receipts—choosing process over spectacle, pencils over podiums. As the river rises and a fixer threatens injunctions, their not-quite-pretend partnership turns careful and real. To save her integrity, Elena may have to resign. To keep public trust, Gabe must pick rules over comfort—then write new ones. Better Scandal is a smart, slow-burn contemporary romance where competence is sexy, transparency is heroic, and love files correctly. Perfect for readers who like fake dating with grown-up stakes, government-adjacent banter, and happy endings built on receipts.