Passion (3 page)

And how would it affect his writing? His books were successful, in part, because he put ordinary people in ordinary situations,
then let extraordinary things happen to them.
After all the interviews, all the adoration, all the praise, would he still be able to relate to those ordinary people? Or
would he lose touch with them, lose touch with the strength that had brought him such fame?

She waited for the obvious question:
If coming out will change the way you write, then why are you doing it? Why are you tampering with what’s proven enormously
successful for eleven years?
She assumed she knew the answer already—the man had an enormous ego; he had enjoyed the fortune for eleven years, and now
he wanted to bask in the fame—but she would be interested in hearing his answer anyway.

But Tiffany merely continued the interview, harmless questions, harmless answers. It didn’t get any better than that one reply,
which he’d written years ago and had come close to memorizing word for word. The rest of the questions were simple or silly,
his answers stilted and uninspired.

But he would get better. Sheila would work with him, and as he got more comfortable with the interview process, as he graduated
to more accomplished interviewers, he would get better.

When it was over, she turned to John. She wasn’t sure exactly why—to ask his opinion, to try once again to see if he wore
a wedding ring, or just to get another look at him—but he was gone. Somehow, while her attention had been on Tremont, the
best-looking guy she’d seen in a long while had slipped away without her even noticing.

That was the kind of luck she had, she thought with a wistful sigh. And D.J. thought two nights in New Orleans and her wicked
little survival kit could change all that. Her friend was too optimistic by a mile.

Turning back, she saw Simon approaching her. He didn’t look nervous, as she would have, or glad to have the ordeal over with.
Instead, there was a hint of annoyance deep in his expression that made her wish, for one uncharitable moment, that she had
disappeared along with John.

“What did you think?”

She smiled a bit. “It was fine. You were fine.”

“It should have been better.”

She was about to reassure him—
Simon, it was your first interview; you’ll learn
—when he continued.

“I was all in favor of doing the interview here because of the connection with the New Orleans books, but I should have insisted
on a more capable interviewer. They can’t expect brilliance when I have to work with talent like that.”

Teryl’s smile froze in place. His arrogance was another part of her disappointment in him, part of the unpleasant surprise
of the man as opposed to the ideal she had admired so long. In reading and rereading his novels, she had never suspected an
arrogant Simon Tremont. She had known that he had to be aware of the tremendous talent he possessed, but she had never sensed
this.

“Oh, well…” He brushed it off with an impatient gesture. “What do you have planned for the rest of the evening?”

“I thought I’d go sight-seeing—head down to the French Quarter.”

“Sounds like fun. How about if I join you—”

Rescue came in the form of Sheila Callan. “Not so fast, Simon.” Holding a videotape in one hand, she slipped her free arm
through his. “A tape of the show. We can use it to prepare for the next interview. We want you to be perfect next time out.”
The woman spared only the briefest of dismissive glances for Teryl. “We won’t need you tonight, Teryl. Enjoy playing tourist.”

She was about to make her escape when Simon stopped her. He didn’t touch her, but merely raised his hand as if he were going
to. It was enough to keep her in place against the wall. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

Another forced smile. “Of course.” She was taking an evening flight home, while both Simon and Sheila were scheduled to leave
at 9:00
A.M
., but she would spare a few minutes to bid them farewell in the hotel lobby.

“Breakfast?” he suggested. “In the courtyard? At seven?”

Inwardly wincing, she agreed, then immediately felt guilty, because that steely gaze of his could see her reluctance. She
was convinced of it. Besides, it wasn’t as if he were a thoroughly unlikable person. He just had some rough edges that needed
smoothing. He’d lived alone up there in
his mountains for so very long that he’d forgotten how to relate to people. Maybe he’d never been very good at it; maybe that
was partly why he had locked himself in such solitude in the first place.

Compensating, she offered a warmer acceptance. “I’d love to have breakfast with you. I’ll meet you there.”

After another moment’s scrutiny, he nodded, broke the contact, and walked away, Sheila at his side, and Teryl gave a soft
sigh of relief. The interview had gone as expected, it was a warm day, and she had the rest of the evening free. She was going
down to the French Quarter, and she was going to have some fun. She was going to make the most of her last night in the city.

She hadn’t gone more than twenty feet when someone called her name. Turning, she saw John once again. This time they were
in the well-lit hallway, and she could see that he definitely was not wearing a wedding band—and, if his tan was anything
to judge by, he never had worn one. At least, not in a very long time.

“Where are you headed?”

“The French Quarter.”

“Alone?”

She nodded.

“Want some company?”

She hesitated only a moment. She was a bright woman. She knew better than to go off with a strange man, but it was early June
in New Orleans and the Quarter was crowded with tourists. They would never be alone, would never be away from a crowd. What
could it possibly hurt?

She accepted his offer, and they left the studio together. It was a six-block walk along Chartres Street to Jackson Square,
a walk that he didn’t seem much interested in filling with conversation. She asked him questions, but his answers were vague
and insubstantial. He’d lived in New Orleans a while, he admitted, and had come there from somewhere else. He had moved around
a lot. She supposed in the TV business, that was often necessary.

“Are you married?” she asked as they crossed yet another narrow and crowded street.

He looked at her and, for the first time, smiled. It was slow and sweet—and, yes, his mouth was very definitely made for smiling.
“No, never have been. Are you?”

She shook her head.

“Too busy with your career?”

That made her laugh. “It’s a job, sweetheart, not a career. I’m a glorified receptionist and gofer.”

“But it brought you to New Orleans. Not a bad job.”

“No, it isn’t.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of her shorts. She had opted for comfort this afternoon—knee-length
shorts in cream, a white silk blouse, and a vest woven in cream, crimson, and green. She was glad now that she had. The clothing
was flattering and cool, and John’s looks were, sometimes when she caught them, hot.

“So why aren’t you married?”

They reached Jackson Square, and for a moment she simply stood motionless on the sidewalk. She could live down here, she decided,
in one of those apartments that overlooked the square. She could have breakfast every morning at the Café du Monde, could
sit on a bench every day and listen to the music, admire the artists, and watch the tourists. She could be totally lazy. Decadent.
Dissolute.

At least for a day or two, before her very small savings account ran dry.

“I met a man,” she said at last as they began moving again. “He was handsome and charming, and he swept me off my feet. We
worked together, cooked together, and played together. We slept together and, for a while, on a part-time basis, we even lived
together. And then he asked me to marry him. I said yes.” She gave John a 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 it
was 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 of guilt he’d been carrying for
the last seventeen years had finally become more than his mind could bear, and he had just gone all-out nuts.

Pushing away the headache those thoughts brought, he forced his attention back to Teryl. With her sleek brown hair, brown
eyes, and easy smile, she was pretty in a wholesome, innocent way. She was too trusting—her affair with the married
man proved that—and too naïve. Coming down here with
him
proved that.

And she was, in ways totally at odds with her naïveté and wholesomeness, sexy as hell.

On his one night in Denver last week, he had picked up a pretty blonde—high-priced, charming, dressed to thrill—but she hadn’t
aroused even the faintest desire in him. Maybe it had been because she was a pro, because he’d known it would be greed, not
desire, that brought her to his bed, because he’d known it would be a performance, her movements practiced, her responses
rehearsed.

There would be nothing practiced, nothing rehearsed, about sex with Teryl.

And there was nothing realistic in thinking about it, either, he admitted grimly. Her brazen bluff about men aside—
I just use them for sex
—the only way he was going to get into Teryl Weaver’s bed tonight was to seduce her, and he had been alone so long that he
wasn’t sure he remembered how.

She was window-shopping, ignoring the crowds, often looking back to make sure he was behind her. He stayed close, patiently
following her inside one shop after another.

“So you’re not a fan of Simon Tremont’s,” she remarked when they turned off onto Governor Nicholls and the crowd thinned enough
that he could walk beside her.

“He’s written some good stuff.”

“Good stuff?” She tilted her head to one side and studied him as they walked. “I’ve been reading him since I was in college.
He’s written some of the best ‘stuff’ out there.”

“How about—” John swallowed hard. He couldn’t say the title, couldn’t bring himself to speak it aloud. “How about the new
one?”

“
Resurrection
?” She stepped onto a green-painted stoop, then down again. “You can see for yourself in August. Morgan-Wilkes is really pushing
to get it out as quickly as possible. It’s scheduled to hit the shelves in about eight weeks.”