Seduced By A Steele (Forged of Steele #12) - Brenda Jackson Page 0,29
expected her response to be, but it hadn’t been her throwing her head back and laughing. It was the first time he’d heard her laugh, and the sound did something to him. Emotions within him seemed to come to life. Her laughter was so infectious that he heard himself laughing, as well. How could he laugh about her thinking that one of his antique cars, his prized possessions, was a POS? It didn’t make sense. Nor did it make sense that he’d opened a bank account in her name and deposited his money or that he’d kissed her twice now or that he’d taken time away from his job to take care of her needs.
“I’m truly sorry about that, Mercury.”
“About what?”
“About my reaction to finding out the car I’d purchased was stolen. That just goes to show how much I don’t know about cars. About anything. I’m embarrassed to even say that opening that bank account was new for me. When I turned sixteen, I was given one for my birthday and Dad automatically deposited money into it monthly.”
She paused and then added, “I never questioned how much he was putting into it or why. I never realized my parents were binding me to them in a way they figured meant I’d never want to break free. It was all about the money.”
Mercury didn’t say anything because he knew that was true for some people. Money meant everything. The more they had the more they wanted. Although his mother had been born to wealth, his father had not. Drew Steele was a self-made man and made sure his sons followed in his footsteps, and they all had. Nobody had given them anything, which was why Drew wouldn’t agree to let their maternal grandfather set up trust funds for his boys unless he specified the age of thirty-two. By that age Drew figured they would have learned to sink or swim on their own. Luckily, all six of them had been successful, and the five-billion-dollar trust fund had been icing on the cake.
“Well, at least you had the sense to break free when you realized what they were doing. Some people wouldn’t have minded being dependent on others and not thinking for themselves.”
His thoughts shifted to the one-and-only woman he had thought he’d loved. Cherae Blackshear. They had met in college. He’d been in his freshman year and attending college on a football scholarship. Galen, Eli, Tyson and Jonas had warned him about those girls who hooked up with football players they thought were going places. He’d gotten injured in his sophomore year and some thought that would be the end of his football career. Cherae’s family, who’d been all gung ho on their relationship, then decided she needed to switch ships since his future no longer looked bright.
Mercury would never forget the day she’d visited him during one of his physical-therapy sessions to break up with him because her parents said she had to. They wanted her to hook up with someone who would be able to take care of her and give her the things they felt she deserved. Namely money.
Cherae cutting him loose like that had messed with his mind and left him not giving a damn about his future or anything else. It had taken his brothers arriving on his college campus ready to beat some sense into him. They’d told him that his biggest mistake had been to fall in love in the first place. Bad News Steeles didn’t give their hearts to women. Second, they bashed into his brain that to get even he needed to get his ass back in gear and play football again.
Taking his brothers’ advice, he had worked hard, endured all kinds of physical pain during his therapy sessions. But he had gotten back in shape. By his junior year, he was in the college team’s starting lineup. In his senior year, sports agents had come out of the woodwork to sign him on with the NFL.
That was when Cherae had tried making a comeback. He’d told her in a not-so-nice way that she would be the last woman he’d ever get serious about again. In fact, thanks to her, he’d happily reinstated his player card and the only thing she could get from him now was laid.