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Chapter 10

She's sitting in the waiting room with three other people, all of them looking anxious, clutching their CVs tightly, but Lumae didn't have a care in the world. She strongly believed that she could achieve her dream. As the next person leaves the boss's office, she tries to show no emotion, but fails to do so as a tear falls down her cheek, then she runs towards the restroom area. "Lumae Moonshaddow,” the secretary had called her in, "Please, be sure to give your CV to Mr. Mortez and take a seat at his desk.” When Lumae steps into the office, Mr. Mortez, the CEO of the world’s biggest company, Flos.co, stood at the window, staring down at the beautiful morning scenery of the city.

"G-Good morning, Mr. Mortez, I'm here for the phytologist interview," she steps closer to hand it to him, but he didn't even bother to turn around, "Just place it on the desk.” As she did so, she noticed a strange, familiar smell coming from Mr. Mortez, a smell that was almost musky, like a wolf's, but it might have just been his perfume, so she didn't think much of it. Mr. Mortez then turns towards his desk, glances at the CV and places both of his hands on the desk, "So Miss 'Moonshaddow', who sent you here?” Confusion spread over Lumae's face, "I'm sorry?” Mr. Mortez leans forward into his hands, getting a little closer to Lumae, almost in a threatening manner, "I asked you, who sent you here?” Still confused, Lumae humbly answered, "I-I sent myself here, sir?”

Noticing that Lumae wouldn't budge so easily. He knew she was acting stupid, acting as if she didn't know anything, but he could smell it, she's a wolf, but strangely enough her scent seems quite familiar to him, but he couldn't seem to place his finger on it. He then got an extraordinary idea, if he manages to figure out who sent her, he could easily eliminate a possible threat, before they can even think of attacking him. Mr. Mortez picked up Lumae's CV from his desk, looked at it for a serious 13 minutes, then looked back up at Lumae. "Well, Miss Moonshaddow, mind telling me why you wanted to work in this company in particular?”

Lumae was a bit shocked at the first normal question she's heard today, but kept calm and just answered the question, "Well, to be honest, it has always been a dream of mine to work with exotic plants for the rest of my life and I mean, what better place is there to do so, other than Flos.co? It is the biggest company in the world, which has millions of clients from every nook and cranny of each and every country, using its products. Therefore, I want to also have a great impact on the exotic plant industry, so that I can not only discover new plant species, but also help others that are in need of these products,” Lumae eagerly smiles, but it slowly starts to fade as Mr. Mortez doesn't show any signs of emotion, but rather signs of calculation. After a few seconds, Mr. Mortez gave a deep sigh, "Secretary Scarlett, could you please come in here,” he called out, and not even moments later, the secretary from before came into the office. "Yes Mr. Mortez?” "Could you please give Miss Moonshaddow here the contract and guide her through the signing. Oh, and you can also send away the other interviewees now.” The secretary then turned towards me, "Yes sir,” nodding her head backwards to indicate that Lumae should follow her.

As they leave the office, all eyes land on Lumae, already suspecting that Lumae had made it. "I'm sorry guys, but Mr. Mortez has just found a suitable candidate. You guys no longer need to wait here, but thank you all for coming.” The three other people who were waiting with Lumae then quickly got angered, "But that's unfair towards the other interviewees, he didn't even give us a chance!” one of them yelled, but the secretary stayed calm, "I am truly sorry about the inconvenience sir, but unfortunately, there's nothing we can do, since the spot is now filled." "She bribed him, didn't she! She probably gave him some sort of offer that he couldn't refuse!” The woman that's yelling, looks at Lumae, "What's your secret, huh? You think you can just show up with your poorly written CV and pretty face to get whatever you want? You probably don't even know the first thing about plants,” Lumae was just about to lose her composure, when the secretary stepped in again, "Ma'am, our company does not allow any form of bribery, it is against what the company stands for, therefore Miss Moonshaddow managed to get this job purely due to her skills. Now if you'd excuse us,” she walked past the woman unfazed, expecting me to still follow her after all that had just happened.

"Sorry about that, Mr. Mortez doesn't really like to go through every single interviewee, he believes that once he gets the perfect candidate, he's done with interviewing, so it gets quite messy at times," Lumae stays silent, not knowing how to respond, so she just nods in agreement. The secretary, noticing Lumae's uneasiness, turns towards her and extends her hand, "I'm Scarlett, as you probably already know, but everyone here just calls me Letta,” Lumae then accepts her handshake, "Lumae.” Letta looks Lumae up and down, "You know what, I'm just gonna call you May, I'm not really good at remembering people's names, especially when comes to the beautiful, complexed ones,” she chuckles, "Come on, let's get to it.”

Lumae and Scarlett then set off towards a different office with glass walls and notes everywhere. As Scarlett enters the office, she grabs a document from a drawer in the huge desk, "This is our company's shared office, we mostly use it to compare notes, solve problems, etcetera. You'll probably also come up here at times when you run into a problem.” She then places the contract on the desk, "Ok so, first off, when is the earliest possible moment you can start working?” "Oh, I'm fine with starting tomorrow, if that's alright?” Scarlett smiles, "I think I'm starting to like you even more, an early bird always catches the worm and in your case, the worm will be a nice big salary in no time,” Lumae chuckles as a response, "Anyway, there are just a few things you need to be aware of before signing, such as the fact that you may not disclose any confidential information of this company to ANYONE and when you make a new discovery of an exotic plant, you'll gain credit, yes, but under the name of the company, if all of this is made clear to you, you can go ahead and sign, but if you need to read the contract first, that is also alright.”

Lumae quickly scans through the contract, with nothing being out of the ordinary, not even the small print that states that Lumae cannot be fired for the first three months of the contract and that she has the right to have the same amount of payment as any other phytologist. She then slowly picks up the pen, places it on the contract and realises that, by signing this contract, all her dreams will come true. She takes a deep breath, savouring the moment and signs the contract.

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