Seduced By A Steele (Forged of Steele #12) - Brenda Jackson Page 0,65

few things from an online office-supply store and figured the delivery was being made.

Going to the door, she looked out the peephole and her breath caught. She felt like someone had kicked her in the gut. It was her father. What was he doing here? It didn’t matter because he was here.

For the first time in her life she would not let him intimidate her. Thanks to Mercury, she was more self-assured than ever and wouldn’t let her father treat her like less than the adult she was.

Opening the door, she faced the man she loved but who for years never knew how to show or return that love. “Dad, come in.”

He didn’t say hello. He just walked past her like the thought of even being here agitated him. When she closed the door and turned, she saw him glancing around her apartment with disdain.

“Dad, what are you doing here?” There was no reason to ask how he’d found her. He kept one of the best detective agencies in Ohio on retainer.

His scornful gaze switched to her. “I am here to take you home, Sloan Elizabeth. I expected Harold to be man enough to handle you, but it seems you’re being difficult.”

At any other time, his harsh reprimand would have brought her back in check, would definitely have made her lower her head in shame, but not this time. Carter H. Donahue was going to discover that his child who had been a disappointment was more like him in some ways than a son could ever be. The one thing she had inherited from him was his stubbornness.

“News flash, Dad. I am not going anywhere with you. Did you not listen to what I told you when I left Cincinnati? What I’m sure Harold told you I said when he returned to report back to you? Harold and I aren’t getting married.”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course the two of you can’t get married in June now. That’s not enough time to plan for the huge wedding the two of you deserve,” he said irritably. “You’ll be happy to know that the Cunninghams, your mother and I have decided that an August wedding for you and Harold will work.”

She would be happy to know...? Sloan just stood there and stared at her father. His assumption that he had her unwavering obedience was her fault. In the past he’d given her a mandate and she’d marched to whatever beat he played.

She’d changed.

“Dad, read my lips. I am not marrying Harold. I love my life here and I am not leaving.”

There was no way she would tell him about her job with the Miss Universe pageant or else he would ruin that, too. That was why she’d made sure all her employment information was listed under S. E. Donahue.

“So you’d rather be a kept woman than the wife of an honorable man?”

She frowned at her father. “What are you talking about?”

He eased down on her sofa without her having issued an invitation for him to do so. “You think I haven’t checked out Mercury Steele and his family?”

Sloan’s heart began pounding again and she tried hard to remember what Mercury had always said. Her father couldn’t touch his family. “So, you’ve checked them out. Then you know they don’t scare easily.”

“Yes, and under any other circumstances I wouldn’t mind doing business with them, but for your future I’m betting my money on the Cunninghams.”

Doing business? She wasn’t surprised that he saw any marriage for her as a business deal. “You’re not the only one who can have people checked out. I know all about my trust fund and the reason you want me and Harold to marry. You think you can get your hands on it.”

“Of course I can. I’m your father and will look out for your best interest.”

“No, Dad, you are looking out for your own interest. There’s no way I’ll let you or the Cunninghams touch what Granddad left for me.”

His facial features contorted in anger. “So is this how you claim the independence you want so much, by being Mercury Steele’s kept