Kiss Me While I sleep Read Online Free PDF Page A

wasn’t immune to that facet of his personality, even though she knew enough about him to make her cold with disgust. He wasn’t innocent of the majority of Salvatore’s sins, though he was innocent of the murders that had moved her to vengeance; by chance, Rodrigo had been in South America at the time.
    She struggled to the bed and sat on it, clinging to one of the posts at the foot for support. She swallowed and said, “You saved my life.” Her voice was thin and weak. She was thin and weak, in no shape to protect herself.
    He shrugged. “As it happens, no. Vincenzo-Dr. Giordano-says there was nothing he could do to help. You recovered on your own, though not without some damage. A heart valve, I believe he said.”
    She already knew that, because Dr. Giordano had told her the same thing that very morning. She had known the possibilities when she took the risk.
    “Your liver, though, will recover. Already your color is much better.”
    “No one has told me what was wrong. How did you know I was sick? Did Salvatore become ill, too?”
    “Yes,” he said. “He didn’t recover.”
    Some reaction other than, “Oh, good,” was expected of her, so Lily deliberately thought of Averill and Tina, of Zia with her adolescent gangliness, her bright, cheerful face and nonstop chatter. Oh, God, she missed Zia so much; it was an ache in the center of her chest. Tears filled her eyes, and she let them drip down her cheeks.
    “It was poison,” Rodrigo said, both his expression and tone as calm as if he’d commented on the weather. She wasn’t deceived; he had to be in a rage. “In the bottle of wine he drank. It appears to be a synthetic, designer poison, very potent; by the time the symptoms occur, it’s already too late. Monsieur Durand from the restaurant said you tasted the wine.”
    “Yes, one sip.” She wiped the tears from her face. “I dislike wine, but Salvatore was insistent, and he was becoming angry because I didn’t want to taste it, so I did… just one very small sip, to please him. It was nasty.”
    “You are lucky. According to Vincenzo, the poison is so potent that had you drunk any more than that, if the sip hadn’t been very small, you would be dead.”
    She shuddered, remembering the pain and vomiting; she had been that sick without actually swallowing any of the wine, just letting it touch her lips. “Who did this? Anyone could have drunk that wine; was it some terrorist who didn’t care who he killed?”
    “I think my father was the target; his love of wine was well-known. The eighty-two Chateau Maximilien is very rare, yet a bottle mysteriously became available to Monsieur Durand the day before my father’s reservation at his restaurant.”
    “But he might have offered the wine to anyone.”
    “And taken the risk that my father would hear about it and take umbrage that this rare wine wasn’t offered to him? I think not. This tells me the poisoner is very familiar with Monsieur Durand and his restaurant, and the clientele.”
    “How was it done? The bottle was uncorked in front of us. How was the wine poisoned?”
    “I imagine a very thin hypodermic needle was used to inject the poison through the cork. It wouldn’t have been noticeable. Or the bottle could have been uncorked, then resealed if the proper equipment was available. To Monsieur Durand’s extreme relief, I don’t believe either he or the waiter who served you are culpable.”
    Lily had been out of bed so long that she was trembling with weakness. Rodrigo noticed the tremors that shook her entire body. “You may stay here until you are fully recovered,” he said politely, rising to his feet. “If you need anything, you have only to ask.”
    “Thank you,” she said, then uttered the biggest lie of her life: “Rodrigo, I’m so sorry about Salvatore. He was… he was—” He was a murdering asshole son of a bitch, but now he was a dead murdering asshole son of a bitch. She managed to produce one more tear, thinking