"I hope I didn't create too much of a scandal," Katla said casually as she and Jaclyn rode in the car back to the estate. It had been a fairly easy decision to keep on a friend's with benefits basis with Brea after that last round.
"It may start rumors that the two of you are courting, particularly if you continue to see one another but for it to be a scandal would require you to be more committed and less open." Jaclyn explained, "The only ones who would try to make anything of it would be the tabloids and they're currently focused on Princess Valle and the rumors that she's dating a Colonial officer."
"Why would they think that?" Katla asked.
"Because she's dating a Colonial officer and has been making no efforts to hide the fact. They think it's more fun to pretend like she's doing it in secret. If they were focusing on the possible conflicts of interest as part of her diplomatic duties on New Washington it might be a story but as usual, they're going for low-hanging fruit." Jaclyn said with a roll of her eyes, "Fortunately nobody relies on them for the truth, they're just rags that people read for entertainment. Though there was a troublesome one that had a headline of 'Queen hires Viking Raider to Command Fleet' a week before your appointment was announced. They're still trying to ride that as a testament of their credibility."
"If you throw enough at the wall eventually something will stick." Katla said with a shrug. "Oh by the way your leave request is approved."
"Thank you, Commodore, I simply needed to get some affairs in order. I will not let it affect our upcoming deployment." Katla didn't doubt that there was genuinely some family business going on there but it hadn't been hard to look at the logs and see that Ravenna had also just been approved right before Jaclyn had put her own request in.
"Don't worry about it. I've got to do some stuff that's probably best done on my own anyway."
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