Sleeping With the Enemy Read Online Free PDF

furiously whipped her plastic fork through her rice.  “I went to bed with a man I’d met an hour earlier.  I can’t even blame it on the booze, because I wasn’t that loaded!”
    “Uh huh.  Was the sex good?”
    “Phenomenal.  But the sex was great with Eddie, too, at the beginning.” Her mouth narrowed.  “Before he decided to bounce on every bed in town.”
    Lillian broke her egg roll in two and began scraping out the inside.  “Good-looking, was he? This guy?”
    “Gorgeous.  Hair the color of—oh, hell, never mind.  You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
    “And what does this paragon of virtue do for a living?”
    Rose gave up all pretense of eating.  “He teaches high school.  In this rinky-dink little town two miles past the end of the earth.  There’s nothing there.  Trees and cows.  One stop light, for Pete’s sake.  And what have I spent the last eight weeks doing?”
    “Besides bumping into walls, you mean?”
    “Wondering if I could survive living in a place like that.  Is that the stupidest thing you ever heard? It was just sex.  Nothing more.  I’m not even seeing him again.” She dropped her fork and covered her eyes with her hands.  “Oh, God, what have I done?”
    “Don’t be so tough on yourself.  Three years of celibacy is a long time.”
    “Three years,” she said morosely, “one month, and twenty-seven days.”
    “Cut yourself some slack, woman.  You were long overdue.”
    Rose snorted inelegantly.  “I have two college degrees, but I’m no better off than Keisha.  One good roll in the hay, and I’m walking into walls.  I know better! So why am I mooning over this guy I didn’t even know a few weeks ago?”
    Lillian dipped her egg roll into her duck sauce.  “Look, I know Eddie was a shit.  I know he soured you on marriage.  I know that working here, you haven’t exactly seen the male of the species in a warm and cozy light.  But I think that somewhere along the line, you lost your perspective.  You declared war on everything with a Y chromosome.  They’re not all like Eddie.  Some of them are the good guys.  You know? The ones with the white hats?”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Rose said resolutely.  I’m not seeing him again.  Case closed.”
    Lillian dabbed at the corner of her mouth with her napkin.  “Woman,” she said, “you are a lost cause.”
     
    ***
     
    On Saturday, she woke up sick, the kind of gut-wrenching affliction that felt like the walls of her stomach were caving in.  She had a few saltines and a glass of orange juice, then promptly vomited them back up.  Wondering if she’d contracted food poisoning from yesterday’s mu shu pork, she mustered the strength to call Lillian.  But her assistant was as chipper as ever. 
    “Whatever you do,” Lil said, “for God’s sake, don’t come near me.  I don’t want what you’ve got.  Stay in bed until you’re over it.”
    It wasn’t like she had a choice.  She was too sick to do anything but lie flat on her back and wait for death to come and take her.  Devon brought her a couple of paperbacks to read, and Luke checked in on her before he went to Kevin’s for band practice, but obviously they both shared Lil’s sentiments about the possibility of contagion.  So much for family support.
    On the other hand, it wasn’t so awful, suffering alone, drinking tepid ginger ale whose bubbles had long since dissipated.  As a matter of fact, she could get used to this; it was the first time in weeks that the house had been quiet.  Chauncey padded in, toenails clicking on the hardwood floor, and nudged her with a cool, damp nose.  “Hey, babe,” she croaked.  “I love you, too.” He lapped her hand, and with a mighty sigh, flopped down on the floor beside the bed, lay his head on his paws, and began to snore softly.
    In between bouts of nausea, she spent the morning engrossed in Michael Starbird’s latest book.  She’d discovered him a couple of years