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sidelong look. “But his wife said no.”
    “And so you’re never going to trust a man again.”
    That had been exactly her attitude in the beginning. All men were pigs, all men deserved to suffer, all men were unworthy
     of her trust. In fact, she
hadn’t
trusted a man since Gregory, not fully. “I just use them for sex.”
    “That must make you real popular back home,” he said drily.
    “Of course,” she replied with an airy smile, although itwas far from the truth. She hadn’t been involved with a man in longer than she cared to recall. The last time she’d been lucky
     in either her sex life or her social life was ancient history, and that, she decided, was too depressing a subject to linger
     on now. It was a warm summer evening, she was in the exotic French Quarter, and she was with a handsome man.
    Maybe, she thought with another long look at John, just maybe her luck was about to change.
    She was lying.
    John wasn’t a great judge of people—it wasn’t easy when he was never around anyone—but he knew Teryl Weaver was lying. She
     wasn’t the kind to indulge in casual sex, no matter what she said. It was in her eyes, in her quick but unsteady smile, in
     her manner. He wished she was, wished he could say, “Let’s go to your hotel and fuck our brains out,” and know that she would
     go—damned if
he
wouldn’t—but she wasn’t the type.
    Besides, he wasn’t here to get laid. This was business.
    But who said business ruled out a little pleasure?
    He wondered what she knew about the man passing himself off as Simon Tremont. He wondered just how involved a glorified receptionist
     and gofer was in the business of the Robertson Agency. At the very least, she would have access to the files. She would be
     able to tell him where the new Simon lived. She would know where his royalties—where
John’s
royalties—were being sent.
    That man… John hadn’t known what to expect when he had bribed his way into the studio—an apology, perhaps, accompanied by
     an admission from Morgan-Wilkes that it had all been a hoax. He
hadn’t
expected that man—that completely normal-looking man who had sat there with the pretty hostess talking as if he were Simon
     Tremont, acting as if he believed it himself.
    Maybe he did. If he was crazy enough to come up with such a plan and crazy enough to put it into action, maybe he was crazy
     enough to believe his own lies.
    He’d looked so unimportant, as unremarkable and everyday-average as John himself. He didn’t look brilliant or crazy or tremendously
     talented. He didn’t look dangerous. He didn’t look like the kind of person who would even read a book like
Resurrection,
much less be able to write it.
    But, according to Candace Baker at Morgan-Wilkes, he
had
written it.
    And, according to Candace, it was the best book Simon Tremont had ever done.
    He had taken John’s book—his story, his idea—his
life,
damn it—and had done it better.
Better?
Hell, John hadn’t even been able to finish
his
.
    He had looked so normal, so
sane
. Who would believe that he’d moved into John’s life? That he had destroyed John’s home? Who would believe that he was capable
     of even formulating such a plan: choose a reclusive writer, learn his books, master his style, locate him, acquire his outline
     for his next book, write the book, and steal his life? Who would believe that he had—so far—been successful in carrying it
     out?
    John knew he’d done all those things—
knew
it—and even he couldn’t believe it.
How?
How had the guy come up with such an outrageous idea? How had he located John when other people had tried and failed? How
     had he gotten his hands on the outline for
Resurrection?
How had he learned to write like John?
    How?
    Maybe
he
was the crazy one, John grimly acknowledged. Maybe he had finally snapped. Maybe he had never been Simon Tremont. Maybe it
     had all been an elaborate fantasy—Simon, the books, the house, the checks. Maybe the burden