Treacherous
SHORT-LENGTH NOVELLA exclusive on EBOOK only. Secrets, lies and betrayal collide in the gripping new novella from the incomparable Barbara Taylor Bradford.What would you do if you discovered that your best friend could be your worst enemy?Hayley Martin and Fiona Chambers have been best friends since they were ten. From the moment that beautiful Fiona stood up to the school bullies for Hayley, the misfit, the two have been inseparable. Twenty years on, they still share everything, and even run their own business together.Until a dark secret threatens to test their loyalty to breaking point…Is anyone really who they appear to be?
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TREACHEROUS
Barbara Taylor Bradford
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Copyright © Barbara Taylor Bradford 2014
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Barbara Taylor Bradford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007503414
Version: 2017-10-25
‘How easy it is, treachery. You just slide into it.’
Margaret Atwood
The Year of the Flood
Table of Contents
It was in the fifth grade, when they were ten, that Fiona Chambers crossed the soccer field to stand with, and up for, the new girl. Skinny, awkward, out of place at the posh prep school in New York, Hayley Martin had become a target for the establishment’s well-heeled bullies.
She was taunted about everything: her clothes, an unruly tangle of auburn curls, her status as a scholarship student, and the street slang that popped out of her mouth at inopportune times.
After an essay Hayley wrote about her time living in a homeless shelter was deemed best in the English class, and published in the school paper, the torment became almost intolerable.
Then one day Fiona walked over to the embattled girl, put an arm around her, and asked if they could sit together at lunch. That act of compassion changed everything for Hayley.
Fiona Chambers was a superstar. It wasn’t simply her classic blonde beauty, or her sense of humour, or the fact that she was very smart that drew people to her. Fiona had an inborn shimmer that could not be counterfeited. It was called charisma.
From that day forward, if anyone wanted to hang out with Fiona, they had to put up with this ‘rescue’ girl of hers. And just like that, Hayley was part of the in-crowd. In exchange, Fiona garnered the lifelong devotion of her new friend.
Well, lifelong is perhaps an overstatement. There would come a time when Hayley Martin’s raison d’être would be the complete and utter destruction of her former friend.
The transformation from acolyte to enemy was complicated. And perhaps it was inevitable.
‘I just don’t see how we can do it, Hayley,’ Fiona said. ‘We have the Met Costume Gala that Saturday, Cancer the following week, and the Whitney wedding two days later.’
‘For Luke Thompson, we’ll find a way. And could you say Cancer Benefit, please.’ Hayley wrinkled her nose. ‘Cancer next week doesn’t sound that festive. Just the opposite.’
Fiona laughed. ‘Point well taken.’
‘Listen, I’d set my hair on fire if Luke asked me to. He wants us to do this party, so we do it. And that’s that.’
Still shy as a fawn in public, Hayley was a different person when she and Fiona were alone. Smart, accomplished and irreverent. The two girls had become inseparable at Miss Porter’s School, and beyond. They were roommates in college, had backpacked around Europe after graduation, and eventually landed in a tiny apartment in St Mark’s Place on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
It was an ancient railroad flat, which meant that in 1910 three rooms were lined up in a row, like train carriages, and the bathtub was in the kitchen. It was a quirky little place but the girls loved it. The combination of Fiona’s creative ideas, and Hayley’s uncanny ability to transform dreams into reality, had changed an eyesore into a charming little gem. That rare blend of skills was to prove invaluable, when later they launched their joint venture from the fifth-floor walkup. They started an event planning company which they called
