Read Online Knight and Sleigh: An Erotic Lucien Knight Christmas Novella by Kitty French - Free Book Online Page A

sleigh bed for comfort, reaching for her bag in search of her phone. She was ninety-nine percent certain there would be no signal, but if there was then maybe she could send a Christmas message to Kara, her best friend back in England. But her phone, when she found it, was uncommunicative, and she dropped it on the bed in frustration. Instead, she pulled out the padded envelope of mail collected by her parents, to occupy her time instead.  
    As expected, an uninspiring collection of circulars and brown envelopes tipped out onto the covers when she upended the packet, but then, a pale grey envelope bearing her name and old address made her start. She turned it in her hands, looked twice to be certain. She’d know that handwriting anywhere. And she ought to, it was the same small, sharp scrawl as that on the wedding certificate that had hung on her hallway wall for over half a decade before she met Lucien.  
    Dan.  
    She dropped the envelope as if it had burned her fingers. God, if she’d thought the man outside talking to Lucien felt like an intrusion, having something that had been in Dan’s hands in this place felt as if a housebreaker had just hurled a brick through the window.  
    What did Dan want with her? Their marriage had finally concluded in a grimly disjointed back and forth between their solicitors to untangle their lives, because they didn’t want to see each other and discuss it civilly.    
    Tempted as she was to just shove the card back in her bag unopened, she found her fingers ripping it open in a daze of morbid curiosity. Perhaps it was to prove to herself that he couldn’t touch her heart these days. She never thought of him fondly, nor did she ever wonder if he was happy. She didn’t miss his little ways, his laugh, or his touch; in truth he’d spent more of the latter part of their marriage with his mistress anyway, so she’d grown accustomed to being without him long before their final separation had actually happened.  
    She’d worked hard not to hate him; for herself though, not for him. She wasn’t prepared to spend her days consumed by it, and she’d done a pretty good job of getting him out of her system. Or actually, Lucien had. He’d come into her life when she’d needed him most of all, and he detested Dan enough for the both of them.  
    Sophie pulled the Christmas card free of its envelope, hoping her ex wasn’t at death’s door and in need of her kidney or anything so bizarre or drastic, because if he was she wasn’t entirely sure she’d be charitable enough to help him. Hmm. Maybe she did hate him just a little bit, after all.  
    It was a fairly ordinary sort of card, the kind you might find in a supermarket variety pack. She was glad. Any hint of hearts or flowers and she’d have ripped it up before reading it.  
    Opening it up, she looked down and read his words.  
     
    Hey Soph,  
    Hope you’re well and happy. I’m doing okay, still miss you every day though. Give me a call if you’re ever in town and we can, I don’t know, grab a drink or something.  
    Dan x  
     
    Sophie threw the card down in disgust.  
    What in God’s name was he thinking, writing to her now? Last she’d heard he’d settled and had a child. Her heart sank in unexpected sympathy for the woman with whom Dan had wrecked her marriage; poor cow. She’d made her adulterous bed with him and now she was lying in it with a leopard who would never change his cheating spots, along with a battery of sleepless nights and dirty nappies.  
    This unpalatable train of thought was stopped in its tracks as Sophie was brought back abruptly to the present moment. She jumped as the front door slammed, shoving the card and the rest of the mail hurriedly under the covers to tidy up later as Lucien called out her name and swung open the bedroom door.  
    ‘Sophie, I think you have some explaining to do,’ he said, raising his eyebrows at her.  
    He wasn’t alone. In his arms he held the most adorable