Free Knight 01 Knight And Play by Kitty French Page A

head perfectly.
    Sophie, his wife and best friend.
    Maria, his twice a week lover.
    It had been the ideal set up, until now.
    Until this week.
    Maria had been making noises about getting away together for months but he’d managed to dodge it. She knew his situation. He was a married man. But then events had conspired against him, and he’d found himself unable to get out of it this time. Maria hadn’t exactly said that she’d tell Sophie about their affair, but she’d intimated as much, and the threat alone was enough to have him packing his suitcase and telling his biggest lie yet.
    Maria had met him at the airport, and from there on in, he’d known with utter conviction that it was wrong. He didn’t want to browse duty free with her, because buying Sophie a new bottle of scent was part of their usual holiday ritual. Being with Maria twenty-four seven had highlighted all of the differences between the two women in his life that he’d never taken the time to think about. Sure, Maria might not grumble about bins or dirty washing as yet, but the minutiae of temporarily living with her had exposed their incompatibilities more than their strengths. Or maybe he was being unfair. It probably shouldn’t matter that Maria slept on the wrong side of the bed, or that she preferred tea to coffee in the morning. It really shouldn’t faze him that she was the sightseeing type rather than a bake on the beach girl, or that she had no clue how to play poker on the balcony late at night.
    But the fact was, all these things did bother him, because they rammed home the fact that she just wasn’t Sophie. She wasn’t the woman he loved, the woman who knew him inside out.
    Did Sophie know about Maria? How could she not?
    Christ, he hoped not.
    He dropped his head in his hands, feeling trapped. He wanted to go home.
     

CHAPTER NINE
     
    Sophie opened her eyes. Warm, subdued lamps lit the room, and she was incredibly comfortable. Fragment by fragment, the memory of the past few hours clicked back into place as she woke, and a glance under the covers confirmed her fears. She was naked. She hadn’t dreamt it. She really had let Lucien do those things to her.
    Where was he? She sat up in bed, the sheet clutched against her nude body. He must have heard her movements, because a second later he appeared in the doorway.
    “I’ll take it as a compliment that you slept so well.” He leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. Sophie frowned, wrong-footed by the fact that he’d changed his clothes. She hadn’t seen him in anything other than business dress, but right now, in soft, battered jeans and a faded black t-shirt that clung to his well-defined body, he was a brand new kind of gorgeous.
    “What time is it?” she asked, disorientated by the darkness and Lucien’s nearness.
    “Almost midnight.”
    Sophie squinted at him. She’d been asleep for more than three hours. Oh God . She was in a sex club. Heaven only knew what was happening beneath her.
    “Lucien. This is wrong. I shouldn’t be here.” Her voice came out hoarser than she’d expected.
    He shook his head and disappeared for a few seconds, then returned with a tray. He placed it down on the bed next to her, then sat down alongside it.
    “Eat. You must be hungry.”
    Sophie glanced down at the array of food. Delicate sandwiches. Bowls of fruit. Chocolate truffles.
    She looked up at Lucien again, wondering how he could expect her to sit there naked and snack. She was his PA. He was her boss.
    “Is this how you welcome all new staff, Lucien? A trip to a sex club, a quick fumble, and a sandwich? It’s not very classy.”
    She’d aimed to offend, but he just laughed off her rudeness.
    “That wasn’t a fumble, Sophie. It was a prelude.”
    She’d been half-considering eating a sandwich, but the idea lost its appeal at his words. “A prelude?”
    He nodded and helped himself to a cherry from the bowl.
    “A prelude.” He sank his teeth into the