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 those lashes and Sloane felt a wave of something alarming hit her.
But she wouldn’t back down! Not this time! She’d endured the icy cold rain of her mother’s funeral, dropping out of high school, living in a shelter, and working twenty hours a day for the past six months! No way was she letting yet another man intimidate her! Not this time!
“You can barely type and you don’t know dictation. You seem to be barely out of high school…why the hell should I hire you?” he demanded. “Do you have any skills at all?”
Oh, that was so unfair! Sloane glared at the man, ignoring the danger signals in his “pretty” green eyes. She was sick of men treating her like dirt! Her landlord had kicked them out of their apartment illegally, her boss thought it was okay to grope her whenever he passed by, and her father had ignored her from the moment of conception. Men were…bastards!
“What can I give you? Well, let me see!” She stood up, too angry to sit still. “I have patience, since you set up this interview for two o’clock and it is now almost four-thirty. I have determination, because believe me mister, you have no idea what I’ve gone through over the past six months! And what’s more? Hiring me means that you’ll get someone who actually wants to work! The others out there were looking to jump into your bed. Trust me, several of them were bragging about their chances of bedding you while they waited.”
She took a deep breath, and kept going. “What’s more? I’m a damn good worker! I am barely out of high school, but before I left school, I took over the high school newspaper when no one else would and turned it around. All by myself. I had absolutely no idea how to put a newspaper together, but I figured it out. I also figured out how to do payroll for my current job, run a chicken fryer, and flip burgers. All at the same time! I create the schedules for thirty employees because the manager is too lazy to do it himself. And I’ve done all of it without training.”
She leaned forward, glaring at him. “So, hiring me means that you’ll get an employee who might not know everything immediately, but I figure things out. I get the job done correctly and efficiently. Furthermore, I definitely won’t be trying to get into your bed! If that’s not what you’re looking for Mr….whatever your name is, then fine! I’m sick of my boss groping me anyway!”
With that, she