Seduced By A Steele (Forged of Steele #12) - Brenda Jackson Page 0,38

move into my apartment.”

“Apartment? You have an apartment?” Tyson asked.

“Yes. I signed a lease as well today, thanks to Mercury.”

“Yes, that Mercury is such a nice guy,” Galen said, giving his brother a look Sloan couldn’t decipher.

“Of course I am. Just like you said, Mom raised us well. Respect and rescue, right?” Mercury said, giving his brother a huge smile.

“I’ll be glad to help you move into your apartment,” Gannon offered, taking a sip of his before-dinner drink.

“No need—I’m taking care of Sloan.”

She wasn’t sure she liked the implications of that, but knew Mercury hadn’t meant it the way it sounded and she figured his brothers probably knew that, as well.

“We’ll see you guys in the dining room in a minute. Like I said, I have something to discuss with Sloan,” Mercury said before presenting his arm to her.

She took it and he escorted her toward his mother’s office. The same one where they’d shared a kiss last night. He didn’t say anything until he’d closed the door behind him.

“What’s going on, Mercury?” she asked him.

After that kiss they’d shared last night and the two they’d shared today, she was somewhat nervous about being alone with him. He had a tendency to make her body feel things.

“I need to give you this,” he said, reaching into his jeans pocket and pulling out a phone. “It’s a burner. We didn’t have time to pick one up today, so I made a stop by the store on my way here.”

Getting one had been on her list of things to do. “Thanks. I appreciate you doing that for me. Please be sure to add the cost to the amount I owe you already. It seems I’m getting further and further into your debt, Mercury,” she said, sliding the phone into the pocket of her skirt.

“No, you’re not. And here’s the number to it,” he said, handing that to her, as well. “And there’s something else you need to know.”

She lifted a brow. “What?”

“Your ex-fiancé is in town.”

Of all the things she had expected him to say, that hadn’t been it. Harold had told her he was coming to Phoenix, but she hadn’t believed him. “How do you know?”

“I have a friend connected to Homeland Security. As a favor, I asked her to let me know the moment his plane landed.”

Sloan tried ignoring the fact this particular friend of his was a female. “How did you know he’d planned to come here?”

“I overheard that part of your phone conversation with your mother. I figured that meant he knew where you were.”

“Only because my father told him.” Anger tore into Sloan. Did Harold have no shame? “I’ve told him countless times that I won’t marry him, so coming here was a waste of his time.”

“That might be the case, but he may need to hear it again.”

“It won’t do any good—trust me. He has it in his head that he can do whatever the hell he wants to do where I’m concerned because he has my parents’ blessing.”

“Sounds like you have a problem, Sloan. In that case, I’m going to give you the same advice my father always gave his sons while growing up and even after we became men.”

“Which is?”

“When there’s a problem, first up is to find a solution.”

She didn’t say anything as she tried to digest his words. Good advice for anyone other than herself. She’d never had to come up with a solution to anything because her parents had always fixed her problems. Instead of helping her, she now saw they’d only been hindering her.

“But what if the solution I come up with is not well-thought-out? And ends up causing more harm than good?” she asked, seriously needing to know. She knew what he’d said was true. Her parents were her problem and she needed to take ownership of how to deal with them.

“It’s fine if that happens, Sloan. We’re human. We make mistakes. On the other hand, we can go back to the