‘But…’ Jo said, her heart now firmly in her boots.
‘But… I was able to find enough to convince me that he had “borrowed” the idea for the book, and large chunks of it as it happened, from a self-published writer. A woman, I can’t remember her name now. I could find it out. There was a lot of noise about it, and then it all seemed to go very quiet. The rumour on the writing board I’d found him referenced on was that the self-published author, who took her own book down from selling sites, had been paid a tidy sum to keep quiet.’
Jo sat back on the sofa, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Bestselling author Ewan McLachlan was a fraud. Worse than that, he was a thief.
‘That isn’t all,’ Lorcan said, and he cleared his throat.
‘It isn’t?’ Jo asked. ‘I’m not sure I want to hear any more.’
‘Okay,’ Lorcan said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You’re not the person who is upsetting me,’ Jo replied.
Lorcan looked down to the floor and remained silent.
‘Lorcan, just so we’re clear, when I said I don’t want to hear any more, I didn’t mean it. I mean, I don’t want to hear it, but I think I probably should.’
He exhaled. ‘It wasn’t the first time. Now, I couldn’t find another name, and you know what rumours are like, but there was talk that his first McCreadie book was not his own work. He’d pinched the idea at least from an ex. It could never be verified, of course. Not by me anyway, but by all accounts his ex came into a considerable amount of money around the time he signed that big six-figure deal that was in all the papers. She’s not worked since.’
Jo lowered her head to her hands to try and stop it swimming.
‘Lorcan,’ she said, ‘Graham Westbury, who has just dumped McLachlan, is the agent who offered to represent me. I emailed him last night telling him how I’d been working with Ewan this weekend and, God, what if he thinks I’m involved in this plagiarism thing. He won’t want to represent me either.’ Her heart sank. Was this to be another time in her life when she got close to happiness only to have it snatched from her?
‘Jo,’ Lorcan said, his voice soft, ‘I think you need to talk to this Graham Westbury as soon as you can. I also think you need to consider the possibility that Ewan was trying to take advantage of you and your talent.’
‘No!’ Jo said, but his change of attitude the day before – how he had turned against her once she’d told him about the email from Graham – it was all making her feel very, very uneasy about the whole situation.
She was sick to her stomach, betrayed and most of all hugely disappointed that Ewan, who had made her heart sing with his kiss, may have been using her all along. That he may just have seen her as little more than a means to an end for him. He must’ve thought all his ships had come in when her book had landed in his email inbox. Even more so when he met her and saw how naive and hopeful she was. Green around the ears and only too willing to disappear off into the sunset with him for a couple of days to help him get it very clear in his head just how much of her story he would be pinching.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all this before you went,’ Lorcan said.
‘I wouldn’t have listened,’ she said, honestly. She had been too swept away in the notion of it all. ‘What do I do?’ she asked.
Lorcan shrugged. ‘Contact his agent. Ask to chat to him ASAP. I’m sure this will work out.’
‘I hope so,’ she said, ‘I really do.’ But in that moment, the euphoria of the last twenty-four hours gone, Jo didn’t see how it could.
She wanted to call Ewan and demand answers from him. She wanted to shout and scream and tell him he was an awful, horrible person and she was sorry she’d ever trusted him, let alone kissed him. And she’d confided in him about Clara, about her family. Her hopes and dreams. She had let him in and he had taken advantage of her.
She felt a hand on her knee and she allowed herself to lean into Lorcan.
‘We’ll fix this,’ he said and the use of the word ‘we’ made her feel safe.
‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘After how I spoke to you, you would’ve been well within your rights to never speak to me again. Thank you.’
He shrugged. ‘No need to thank me,’ he said. ‘That’s what friends are for.’
Friends. The word wasn’t lost on her. But she did feel conflicted. Friends was good, she realised. But maybe, she realised, more than friends would have been better. If only she hadn’t messed that particular opportunity up by revealing her warts and all personality. A man with as much emotional baggage as Lorcan Gallagher would be unlikely to be interested in a woman with a matching set of luggage.
‘Right,’ Jo said and opened the email app on her phone. First of all, she would contact Graham Westbury and ask to speak with him at his earliest convenience.
Then she opened WhatsApp and tapped out a message to Ewan.
I don’t know what is going on, but I hope there’s no truth in the Twitter rumours. I trusted you, Ewan. I believed you were a good person. Even when you treated me like rubbish yesterday morning. If you have any decency at all, let me know what the hell is going on.
As she pressed the send button, she felt tears spring to her eyes.
‘It will all come out in the wash, as Grandad would say,’ Lorcan offered.
‘I hope he’s right,’ Jo stuttered.
‘Jo, you should know by now. My Grandad is always right.’
32
The Imitation Game
‘I’ll track him down and kick him square in the arse!’ Noah, enraged by what he had heard, said. The anger in his voice made Paddy jump to attention and start barking protectively. It wasn’t often that Noah raised his voice.
‘Well, I’m still waiting to hear from Graham and from him. So there might not be any need for arse-kicking. And really, I’d prefer if there was no actual arse-kicking and it was all just some sort of massive overreaction on my part,’ Jo said, but she knew she was being naive. The Twitter storm had grown to Gale Force Ten as the day had progressed. What had started off with one or two accusations of plagiarism had escalated into double figures at last count.
Jo reached across and ruffled the fur on the back of Paddy’s neck and he lay his head on her lap as if trying to offer her some comfort. She was still in Libby’s flat, with Lorcan and now also Libby and Noah who had appeared just after lunch – both of them with faces like thunder ready to put a hit out on Ewan McLachlan.
‘If he has a reputation for this kind of thing, how can he get away with it time and again?’ Noah asked.
‘He has deep pockets, I suppose,’ Lorcan shrugged. ‘That’s all I can think of.’
‘I can’t believe this. This is my fault. I sent him your work when I could’ve just minded my own stupid business. And I had him in the shop.’ Libby looked bereft.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Jo said. ‘God, how could we have known? Let’s wait for answers. We just have to be patient.’