else? Well, she’d survived an illegal eviction after her mother’s sudden death, gotten her high school equivalency degree, and convinced a judge that she could support her sisters on her minimum wage, hourly income. That last claim had been an absolute lie, but so far, she’d kept her family together and her two younger sisters were…well, if not thriving, they were together. A family.
As far as Sloane was concerned, anything this Starke guy might throw at her, she could just figure it out, just as she’d done with every other miserable trial life had thrown at her over the past year.
Okay, so she’d have to get the job first.
If this even was a legitimate job. Watching the other women, Sloane was starting to doubt it.
Another woman was called back, the deep voice that called her name was rather intimidating. Sloane shifted in her chair, keeping her skirt demurely over her knees even as the others around her were perfecting their “come-hither” vibe.
Every time that deep voice called another woman back, it seemed as if his bellow was angrier than the last. Impatient bastard, she thought with increasing resentment and fear.
Even worse, she’d been told that her interview time was at two o’clock! She’d switched shifts with another person at the restaurant so that she could be here at two o’clock, thinking that this job was a real opportunity. It was now almost four o’clock! She had to be at work in thirty minutes and she didn’t think that her boss would appreciate the excuse that she was interviewing for another job as a good enough reason to be late!
The last beauty sauntered out from behind the wall and the mysterious, deep voice snapped, “Sloane Abbot!”
Sloane stood up, hitching her plastic-wannabe-leather purse higher onto her shoulder. The other candidates had carried leather briefcases, most of them holding an elaborate day planner in their arms. They’d all looked professional and amazing! Sloane felt and looked like a candidate for…nothing. She looked horrible compared to the other beauties this man had interviewed today, but she lifted her chin and stepped behind the wall.
“Sit down!” the tall, terrifyingly large man snapped, rubbing the bridge of his nose and sipped coffee out of a ceramic mug.
Sloane sat on the metal folding chair, perching on the edge as if she knew that she’d be tossed out in a moment. When that happened, she wanted to be ready, although she’d love to come up with some perfectly succinct comment about the tardiness of this interview and how rude he was. He might look like a Greek god, with a sharp jawline that should be in a razor commercial, a head of thick, dark hair and broad, impossibly huge shoulders that pulled at the white material of his dress shirt.
That was about all she could see of the man since he was looking at the papers on the cheap, metal desk. Except for that hand. He had nice hands, she thought. His fingers continued to rub his forehead, not looking up at her. Almost as if he knew she was a fake.
“How fast can you type?” the man demanded.
She once again noticed his broad shoulders and the exhaustion in his voice. The jet back hair was tousled as he tapped his pen against the paper that, she assumed, was her resume. A resume that looked pathetic. It filled only half the page.
“About sixty words a minute.”
The man opened his mouth to ask the next question, but he froze and actually lifted his head to look at her. “Sixty?”
Sloane wasn’t sure if that startled reaction was good or bad. Sixty words a minute seemed pretty fast but…maybe it wasn’t? Maybe he needed more.
“And do you take dictation?”
Dictation? What was that? Wasn’t that…didn’t secretaries from the nineteen forties take dictation? She suspected that was a joke. “No, sir.”
His gaze sharpened as he looked her over and she noticed that his eyes were a clear, astonishing green surrounded by thick, almost black lashes. Green eyes? The man seemed too harsh for such pretty eyes. Every part of him screamed “predator” and yet, his eyes with the long, dark lashes, were…there was no other word for it. His eyes were pretty. Beautiful, actually. Set against the taut, tanned skin of his harsh features, the eyes were startling.
Slowly, the man shifted in his chair, the metal squeaking as his long, muscular body unfurled. Like a python, she thought. He leaned his forearms against the ancient desk, those green eyes peering at her through