Seduced By A Steele (Forged of Steele #12) - Brenda Jackson Page 0,31
do I get to take my car with me?”
“When you have a place to park it, one you can call your own, since my parents’ home has enough cars in their garage already,” he said.
She nodded. He was right about waiting to get her own place. “That’s fine.” She then looked at the salesman. “You will take care of my car until I get it, right?”
The man grinned, probably happy for a sale, Sloan thought. “Yes, Ms. Donahue. I’ll take care of it until you return.”
She smiled, feeling good about that. She then turned to Mercury. “How soon can we look for an apartment?” She figured the sooner she had a place of her own, the sooner she could get her car.
“Today is fine, but I suggest we go somewhere for lunch first.”
She nodded, thinking that was a good idea. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it had to be around noon now. “Do you know a place?” she asked him.
“Yes, I know the perfect spot, and it’s close by.”
Eleven
“This is a nice place,” Sloan said, taking a sip of her iced tea and looking around.
“Glad you like it. I come here often for lunch,” Mercury replied, trying hard not to stare at Sloan.
Why did she have to look so beautiful?
The waitress came to take their orders and he and Sloan discovered they liked the same kinds of foods. Since she’d never eaten there before, he introduced her to several of his favorite dishes. After they’d placed their orders and gotten refills on their iced teas, he asked her, “What are you looking for in an apartment?”
He liked the way the smile curved her lips when she said, “Definitely something I can afford. Already I’ll have two bills to pay. Your loan and a car payment,” she said, enthused.
He grinned. “You sound excited.”
“I am.” Leaning over the table, she said, “Do you know this is the first time I will have bills? Real bills? Bills that I will pay without anyone’s help. And I am ready to take ownership of them. It’s going to be fun learning to budget my money and knowing how much I can spend. So, to answer your question, all I need is a one-bedroom apartment. Of course, it has to have a bathroom, living room and a kitchen.”
“Can you cook?”
She grinned. “No, but I can learn. In fact, I think I’ll have fun learning.” She took a sip of her tea, then asked him, “Can you cook?”
He took a sip of his own tea and then said, “Yes, I can.”
“Who taught you?”
Watching her mouth move dredged up memories of the kiss they’d shared in Jaye’s office. Mercury wished he could look at her lips and not remember taking them in a way that even now aroused him. Why did she have to taste so damn good? And why was he recalling her taste?
“I taught myself like you intend to do. I did use cookbooks and, on occasion, some of my mother’s recipes. I even took a cooking class once.”
“A cooking class? Was it expensive?”
There was no need to tell her that cost hadn’t mattered because taking the cooking class had been his and his brother Jonas’s way to meet women. Not only had they met single women, but they’d garnered invitations for free home-cooked meals with no-strings-attached sex on the menu. “I didn’t think it was and thought it was worth every cent I paid. Maybe you should think about signing up for one.”
Shrugging her shoulders, she said, “I will have to see if I can fit the cost into my budget.”
She was serious about staying on a budget and he thought that was a smart move. Money wasn’t endless. Drew had taught his sons the fundamentals of managing money. It was a lesson none of them had forgotten. Their father hadn’t built his trucking business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise by accident. He’d always said, you can’t spend money you don’t have. Those same words still stuck with the six of them today.