Seduced By A Steele (Forged of Steele #12) - Brenda Jackson Page 0,9

involved, but he didn’t like the rude way the woman was talking to Sloan.

She turned to him and he could see the anger in her features. “Priscilla is my roommate from college. She invited me out here but left the day after I arrived. Her boyfriend proposed and sent her a one-way ticket to join him in Spain. Luckily, it was a furnished apartment, and other than dishes and silverware, she packed up her stuff that she didn’t want to take with her and put it in storage. She said I could stay here until the end of the month because the rent was paid up.”

“Not with a bad check it wasn’t,” the woman intervened to say. “Now get your things and go.”

Sloan turned to the woman. “And I told you that I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Not my problem,” the woman snapped.

Mercury bit down on his lip. Hadn’t he thought the same when told she didn’t have a car? However, hearing someone else tell her that didn’t sit well with him.

“Thank you for bringing me here, Mercury. I’ll be okay.”

Did she honestly expect him to leave after hearing her tell the woman that she didn’t have any place to go? He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. “You will only be okay when you stop trusting people so easily,” he said, frowning. First, she’d bought a stolen car from a “nice” man, and now she’d been let down by a friend.

Refusing to let the woman listen to their conversation, he said, “Excuse us.” He then took Sloan’s hand and led her a few feet away from the older woman’s ears. “Listen, I can’t leave until I truly know you are okay.”

“Thanks for your concern, but I have to figure things out on my own.”

He nodded. “And how will you do that and where? Were you telling the truth when you said you didn’t have anyplace else to go?”

He watched her nibble on her bottom lip. She then stared into his eyes. “Yes. I was telling the truth. I’ve been in town just a week and don’t know a soul.”

He started to say she knew him and Galen. And she also knew Sherman and the overly friendly detective. The detective had even invited her to call him if she ever needed anything. It might be a good time to suggest she take the man up on his offer.

But Mercury knew he couldn’t do that. He and his brothers might have notorious reputations, but who was to say Sherman and that detective were better? Besides, Galen was right. Mercury and his brothers might be known for their whorish ways, but thanks to Eden Steele, they knew how far to take them when it came to a woman in need.

“Do you have the funds to move elsewhere?” he asked. He had a feeling she didn’t, no matter what Galen had pointed out about her being high-class. He refused to make any assumptions about her.

“No,” she said despondently. “Getting to Phoenix took most of my money. Priscilla had offered me a place to stay until I got a job and was on my feet. I had a job interview this morning at a bank.”

He had a feeling it had taken a lot for her to admit all of that. Now he wondered if she would answer his next question. “Are you running away from someone?” A jealous boyfriend perhaps, he thought.

She hesitated a minute and then nodded. “Yes.”

Since she’d given him that much information, he decided to delve deeper. “Who?”

She paused and then said, “Controlling parents. They were pushing me to marry a man they approved of, Harold. That was fine until he told me marrying me meant he got to keep his girlfriend and that she would be a part of our marriage.”

“Excuse me.” Mercury was certain he’d heard wrong. He decided to make sure. “You didn’t just say the man you were engaged to marry told you he intended to make his girlfriend his mistress, did you?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

Mercury was convinced that now he’d heard everything. “Why didn’t you tell