Judith Regan once said her life was transformed when Bernard Kerik walked into her publishing office in 2001 and told her his story.
As it turned out, both their lives would never be the same.
And now, their notorious, short-lived, mutually beneficial affair could torpedo - or at least dog - Rudy Giuliani`s presidential hopes.
Regan gave the then-police commissioner a six-figure advance for his autobiography, "The Lost Son," which played up tawdry details about the life of Kerik`s prostitute mother.
The two embarked on a whirlwind celebrity romance that took them from Ground Zero to Hollywood before Kerik`s public and private indiscretions doomed it.
His fall from fame was complete when he was hit with federal corruption charges 10 days ago.
Regan, always one for promoting the most salacious parts of a story, went one better than the dry legalese of the shocking 29-page, 16-count indictment against Kerik, which begins with the charge of "conspiracy to deprive the City of New York and its citizens of honest services."
Last week, she filed a $100 million suit filled with stunning allegations, most notably that her former employers smeared her over her relationship with Kerik to protect Giuliani`s political ambitions.
That accusation - that Rupert Murdoch`s News Corp. tried to protect Giuliani - jumps out of the first page of the 70-page suit. No details to support the charge appear elsewhere in the document, but the damage was done.
Regan was a powerful publisher under her ReganBooks imprint until she was fired last December by HarperCollins - which is owned by News Corp. - after being accused of making anti-Semitic comments, which she denies.
She alleges that an executive in News Corp. encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her long-over affair with Kerik after he was nominated to become Homeland Security chief in 2004.
Kerik had finished his autobiography - his mother`s life of turning cheap tricks a prominent theme, on the advice of Regan - early on Sept. 11, 2001, he has said.
Regan persuaded him to quickly write a 40-page afterword about the attack, while he was busy protecting the city, and include pictures taken by NYPD photographers.
His nomination - which Giuliani recommended to the White House - fell apart and unleashed a slew of allegations, including reports that Kerik and Regan trysted at an apartment overlooking the smoldering ruins of Ground Zero. The apartment was meant for rescue and recovery workers.
Regan said in her suit that News Corp. used its outlets to discredit her reputation after her project to release "If I Did It," O.J. Simpson`s hypothetical book on the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, was dropped amid a firestorm of outrage.