In Pursuit of Happiness

by Freya Kennedy

  ‘And yet, here we are having a conversation that has a big, deep, sad undertone running through it,’ Jo said, with a watery smile. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry you felt you had to tell me.’

  ‘I didn’t have to tell you, Jo,’ he replied. ‘I wanted to. That’s the difference.’

  ‘I’m glad you did,’ she admitted. ‘And I understand. How hard it is. How awful it is.’ She felt her heart constrict so tightly she thought it might implode. She knew in that moment, on the day she was on the cusp of achieving her biggest dream, that she was about to share her biggest secret.

  Only a handful of people knew the real reason she had come home from Spain and exactly what had happened. Her mum, of course. Noah and Erin. She hadn’t even told Libby. But she sat, in her writing nook, and she told Lorcan just how and why she understood what he had been through. More than that, she told him that she knew, categorically, that it would get easier, but that it would never, ever go away. And that there would always be a piece of his heart reserved for his almost-child, just as there was for her.

  He had held her hand while she spoke, and that touch had meant the world. There was such tenderness to the way he stroked her hand with his thumb. There was such recognition of pain, it made her feel as if she was finally seen for the person she was – good and bad, broken and healed.

  He asked her did she ever want to stay in bed and for days on end. She told him she absolutely had felt that way, and that there had been times when the darkness had floored her so much that she did indeed stay in bed for days and days. But then she realised she had to start living again. She had to move on.

  ‘Coming here was the first step to moving on for me,’ Lorcan told her. ‘We actually split about three months ago. It was, on the surface, amicable, but, as time went on, it became less so. We’d bought a house together, and originally we decided just to live separately in that space until we were able to either sell up altogether or one of us was able to buy the other out.’

  Jo pulled a face. She could have told him how that was going to end.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, noticing her grimace. ‘That was ranked in the top five of all-time bad ideas. But initially I thought it would blow over. That if we continued to exist in the same space then maybe there was a chance we could come through it. I had all these fanciful notions that we’d be one of those smug couples who could boast about it bringing us closer together in the long run. I became the perfect housemate. I was more of a considerate housemate than I’d ever been a partner. You know the score, always making sure to put the toilet seat down after I’d used it, not leaving a mountain of used tea bags in the sink. The kind of things that used to drive Sophie mad.’

  ‘But it didn’t work,’ Jo said and again it wasn’t a question.

  ‘Nope. I think when I stopped giving her things to complain about it wasn’t the case that I suddenly transformed into her dream man in front of her eyes, it was more that she, well, she didn’t really have any reason to talk to me at all. And that’s when she needed to break free – she needed to have as little to do with me as possible. In the end, she moved out. I came home from work and she was gone. Note on the table, all that stuff that we think only happens in movies. That was a month ago and just before we finally got an offer on the house.’ He stopped and sighed.

  ‘So I’m here, while all my worldly belongings sit in storage and Sophie deals with the completion of the sale. It was my turn to need to have nothing more to do with her, to move on completely. I suppose to prove to myself that I could exist without her. And I can, I think. No, I know I can. Spending time with Paddy, and realising I probably miss Scraps more than Sophie now, has been a great healer.’ Lorcan smiled a sad sort of smile.

  Jo took his hand and squeezed it. ‘We’re still here and still breathing,’ she said.

  ‘And the sun still comes up each morning,’ he added. ‘And good things happen to good people. Things like agents sending emails…’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘How do you know that?’ she asked him and he laughed.

  ‘I’m new to this place and I seem to know more about it than you do,’ he said. ‘There are few things which remain secret on Ivy Lane. Especially not with Harry’s special powers to make people tell him all the gossip. It’s like a Jedi mind trick or something. Except for pensioners.’

  Jo laughed, and told him in quite a brief manner about what was going on. The truth was, even though she knew she could trust Lorcan implicitly now she didn’t want to tell him about Ewan. She didn’t want to risk some sort of weird ‘I told you so’ moment detracting anything from the time they had spent together.

  Plus, if she was honest with herself she was utterly, completely emotionally worn out.

  So, with their coffee cups now empty, and Jo not able to face another coffee hit, caffeinated or not, she told Lorcan that she should probably be going home.

  ‘Oh, okay,’ he said. ‘I thought you still might want to hear why I was strange about you going away with Ewan McLachlan. Because I really do want to be honest with you about that.’

  ‘God, don’t worry about it,’ she said, her stomach tightening.

  ‘We’ve been so open with each other today, I don’t want anything negative hanging over us. And I do think this is something you need to know,’ he said and his light and jokey manner was gone, replaced by something much more serious. ‘I’m only sorry I didn’t have the guts to tell you before you left.’

  31

  The Wolf of Wall Street

  ‘Remember when I said I worked in IT, but it was kind of a Chandler Bing thing? That people got really bored when I started to explain my job?’ Lorcan asked.

  Jo nodded.

  ‘Well, part of my job – a small part of my job – can be tracing digital histories of people. It could be people who are applying for a job. Sometimes it’s police work. Sometimes it’s private work. It’s not anything dodgy or illegal, just creating a picture of what someone’s online life looks like. As well as someone’s public profile, I can find different accounts coming from the same IP address, trace patterns of use, et cetera. It’s all very nerdy, but I enjoy it.’

  Jo wasn’t at all sure where this was going, but she didn’t think it would be anywhere good. She waited for Lorcan to continue.

  ‘So, Ewan McLachlan is fairly active online – on social media. And, to observers, he seems like a really nice chap. Kind, you know. Helping other writers – just how he helped you. But that’s not the full story. A couple of years ago, we were approached by a private investigator to try and find any online evidence that McLachlan wasn’t exactly Ronseal solid.’

  ‘Ronseal solid?’ Jo asked, the expression new to her.

  ‘Not as advertised,’ Lorcan said. ‘You know, like the ad on the TV for Ronseal. They seemed to believe he didn’t exactly offer what it said on the tin, if you get my meaning.’

  Jo thought she did, but, to be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure. ‘So what did you find out? Oh God, don’t tell me he’s some sort of predator?’

  ‘Oh God, no!’ Lorcan said. ‘Well, not in a sexual way. He does indeed seem to be a fairly likeable fellah. What he isn’t, however, is particularly original.’

  ‘What?’ Jo asked, now completely baffled. She wished Lorcan would just zoom straight past go and get to the punchline.

  Lorcan shifted in his seat. The bookshop was busy now with lunchtime browsers, and people looking to enjoy a coffee. ‘Actually,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea to talk about this here?’

  God, it must be something really serious. Jo was about to suggest they went for a walk, but when she looked out the window the bright morning had turned to a grey and very wet afternoon.

  ‘Hang on,’ she said, no longer eager to stall this conversation and go home. ‘I’ll ask Libby for the key to the flat and we can talk there.’

  Lorcan nodded and Jo stood up without speaking, walked to the counter and mumbled something fairly garbled at Libby, but which amounted to, ‘Let m
e have your key now because there is gossip.’

  Libby reached under the counter for her keys and handed them over with a wink. ‘Now, you two behave yourselves. I know kiss and make up is the usual way these things go, but try and limit the kissing maybe. Or at least be careful if it goes further than that!’

  Jo’s face glowed red. ‘No! No, God, no. It’s nothing like that,’ she stuttered. ‘He wants to tell me something about Ewan McLachlan.’

  A middle-aged man who stood waiting to pay for some books, sniffed. ‘Is this about his big fallout with his agent?’

  Both Jo and Libby looked directly at the man, who was scrolling through his phone.

  ‘What?’ Libby asked.

  ‘It’s been all over social media this morning. Do you not have Twitter?’ he asked them, aghast at the notion they weren’t plugged into social media like all other people of their age.

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ Libby mumbled, while Jo just stood there open-mouthed. The big meeting with Graham Westbury and his editor in London clearly hadn’t gone well.

  ‘You need to check it out,’ the man said, flashing his phone screen in their direction. ‘There’s all sorts of chat. All sorts of rumours.’

  Libby coloured. ‘Oh God, and he was just here… and Jo….’

  Jo looked to where Lorcan was standing by the door. He too was scrolling through his phone, and she watched as his eyes widened and he looked directly at her. She grabbed the key from Libby and bolted for the door. As she left the bookshop, she heard Libby swear, loudly.

  Upstairs, Jo sat on the sofa in Libby’s flat and tried to make sense of the Twitter storm that filled her timeline. The Westbury Agency had tweeted a press release to say that Ewan McLachlan would, with immediate effect, no longer be represented by them.

  The screen blurred in front of Jo’s eyes as she searched for his name, and found two trending hashtags #McLachlanCopiedMyHomework and #CheaterMcLachlan.

  A series of accounts, some anonymous and some from respected people within the industry, detailed allegations that Ewan McLachlan had plagiarised some of the McCreadie books. Not only that, he had ‘borrowed’ some of the plots he had become most famous for from other, unpublished, writers.

  Writers he had mentored.

  ‘I’m guessing all this relates to what you were going to tell me?’ Jo said, looking at Lorcan, her stomach churning.

  He nodded. ‘But I promise you, I have nothing to do with those tweets or any of this. I haven’t set him up or anything.’

  ‘I didn’t think you had,’ Jo said. ‘But you know stuff? Yes?’

  ‘It was a few years ago, maybe three or four, there seemed to be some sort of ruckus online. Some veiled suggestions that his latest book wasn’t entirely his own work. It was hard to wade through. It was nowhere near this level,’ he admitted, looking uncomfortable.

  ‘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.