"Shanna Swendson - Enchanted, Inc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swendson Shanna)

that you have the attributes we need for this position."

"Oh, so that's why you've been stalking me." Out of the comer of my eye I saw
Owen grin, a totally unself-conscious grin that said, "You are so busted." If he was
adorable with his blushes and shy smiles, now he was downright gorgeous. I would
have been willing to scrub toilets to work in the same building with this man, but I
tried to get my libido under check. That was no way to go about finding a job, even
if men had been using that method to hire secretaries for ages.

"Testing you," Rod corrected.

I pondered that. Maybe it had been an emperor's new clothes deal, where the fact
that I didn't join the crowds to swoon over Rod counted as something. I'd proven
that I wasn't easily swayed by peer pressure, but I'd also proven that appearances
did apparently count with me—although it was more Rod's smugness and oily
manner that had turned me off.

"But why me?" I asked after a while. "I'm just so ... so ordinary. There are probably
hundreds—thousands, even—of people in this city with exactly the same
qualifications. Okay, maybe not who have worked in a feed-and-seed store, but you
see what I mean."

"You'd be surprised how rare the truly ordinary is," Owen said softly. It was the
kind of thing Yogi Berra would have said, but Owen made it sound profound and
mysterious. I squinted at him in confusion, and he continued. "You have a unique
perspective, a way of looking at things, that we find valuable."

"Oh, I get it," I said with great relief. "You're looking for a reality check."

His face lit up, and I fell just the least bit in love with him. "Yes! Exactly."

Now everything made a lot more sense. Some big corporation actually wanted my
small-town honesty and common sense, instead of looking down on me because I
grew up west of the Hudson River. I still wasn't sure how they'd found me in the
first place, but I was sure big companies had all the resources they needed to find
the right people.

"So, would you like to pursue this further?" Rod asked. "Things can get a little
complicated from this point. Our executive team would have to interview you, and of
course we'd tell you more about who we are. We would expect some discretion on
your pan, in return. We operate out of the public spotlight, so we'd ask that you not
discuss our business matters with anyone else."

There was still something just the least bit odd about all of this, but by now I was
intrigued. I wanted to know who these people were, and I couldn't resist the idea of
working for someone who might actually respect me a little bit, who had made such
an effort to recruit me, out of all the people in New York. The more cautious part of
my brain warned me that they could be playing to my ego, but curiosity overruled
caution. "Sure," I said, hoping my voice didn't shake quite as much as it felt like it
did.