‘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.