The Betrayed Read Online Free Page A

next morning, the red light on her answerphone blinked a summons. Rosie, her eyelids still heavy from the night before, reached out and hit the playback button. Please, no more bad news , she said to herself, as the first message began to play.
    To her relief it was her acting agent, Annie: ‘Hi, hun!’ she chirped, ‘Can you give me a buzz as soon as you get this. It’s a bit last minute, but there’s something come up. As soon as you get this, okay? ’Bye.’
    The answerphone announced ‘ Message 2 ’. Rosie recognised the voice immediately. ‘Hey Rosie, it’s me, Stevie. I’ll be in London next week. Can you and Ruby-two-shoes meet me at Mum’s? I’ll treat you both to lunch. I’ve got some great news. Gotta run, sweetie. As they say in the USA, have a nice day!’
    Rosie tapped the button, turning the machine off. The sound of Stevie’s voice had stopped her in her tracks, washed over her in a wave of nostalgia, making Rosie feel sort of happy and sad and the same time. God, she missed Stevie… ‘Stephanie’ to everyone else, but always ‘Stevie’ to her.
    Stevie was more like a sister to Rosie than a cousin. They had been brought up together by Auntie Madge after Rosie’s mother and father had been killed in a car accident. The two girls had slept in the same bed in a cramped bedroom in the grimy high-rise block of flats, and that sense of closeness had never disappeared.
    Like Rosie, Stevie had survived an abusive relationship. Her ex-husband had a real darkness in him, and he had knocked poor Stevie from pillar to post. After a long, frank discussion with Rosie, Stevie had left him and moved back in with Auntie Madge… but, as it turned out, she didn’t stay for long. One night she borrowed Rosie’s most sexy dress and went to an exclusive night club in Soho. There she got talking to Joe, a well-heeled American professor who had worked at Harvard University. Joe was rich, handsome; he had it all. It was love at first sight and within two months Stevie had packed up and moved to Sarasota-Bradenton, on the west coast of Florida. It must have been love, Rosie thought at the time, as there’s no other reason Stevie would have left behind her beloved Shih-Tzu dog, Dibble, for Aunt Madge to look after. Even though that dog was the psycho dog from hell, it was a living, yapping reminder of her friend in Florida – so Rosie was always pleased to see it. Aunt Madge idolised that animal, and wouldn’t have a bad word said against it, no matter how it behaved.
    Within seven months of moving to the States, Stevie had a whopping great diamond engagement ring sparkling on her finger; and within a year she was an all-American bride… with breast implants, hair extensions, the works.
    Of course, Rosie was happy for her friend but when Stevie had left for America it broke her heart. And Ruby was distraught, too, missing her godmother deeply. Sure, they kept in touch by email and the odd phone call, but it wasn’t the same as having her round the corner. So, the prospect of seeing her in just a week put a huge smile on Rosie’s face.
    She grabbed her mobile and sent Stevie a quick text: ‘yes please!!!xxx’. After pressing ‘send’, Rosie looked up to see the light on the answerphone light still flashing. She pressed ‘play’ again, and the smile on her face was instantly replaced by a look of sheer terror.
    ‘Hello, Rosie.’
    The blood in her veins was suddenly turned to ice. The gruff, menacing, and familiar voice on the machine stung at her ears like a trapped wasp.
    ‘So you think that’s it, do you? That you can just walk away like that? Nobody leaves Johnny Mullins… nobody . You understand?’ She could hear Johnny take a deep, rasping gulp of air, before he continued. ‘A friend of mine – a big fella he is – will be out on home leave soon. I told him about you, what you’ve done to me. And you know what? He wasn’t too happy. Oh, no. He said he might come round and say hello. Not